Blackjack

How to play

Blackjack here is free play with play chips, and no real money is ever involved. You and the dealer each get two cards from a shoe of six decks, and the shoe is shuffled again once three quarters of it has been dealt. Number cards count their face value, jacks, queens and kings count 10, and an ace counts 11 unless that would take the hand over 21, in which case it counts 1. The goal is to finish closer to 21 than the dealer without going over, and a hand that goes over 21 loses at once.

The dealer shows one card and keeps the second face down. When the face-up card is an ace, you are offered insurance for half your bet, which pays 2 to 1 if the dealer has blackjack. With an ace or a ten-value card showing, the dealer checks the hidden card, and a dealer blackjack ends the round before you act. After you finish, the dealer draws to 16 and stands on every 17, including a soft 17 made with an ace.

A blackjack, meaning an ace and a ten-value card as your first two cards, pays 3 to 2, and a tie with the dealer is a push that returns your bet. Any other win pays 1 to 1. You may double on any first two cards, including after a split, and you may split two cards of the same value up to three times for four hands, but split aces get one card each and a 21 after a split counts as 21, not blackjack. There is no surrender, and with these rules and perfect basic strategy the house edge is about 0.4 percent, so the game returns about 99.6 percent of what is bet over the long run. Insurance carries a much higher house edge of about 7 percent.

Controls

Pick chips to build your bet, then press Deal to start the hand. Use Hit to take a card, Stand to keep your total, Double to double the bet and take exactly one card, and Split to play a pair as two hands. When the dealer shows an ace, choose Insurance or No insurance before play goes on. The Hint button shows the basic strategy move for your current hand, and the box under the buttons shows that hint automatically on every decision. Your balance of play chips is shared by all casino games on the site, and Reset chips gives you 1,000 again when you run out.

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