Casino games
How to play blackjack
You get two cards, the dealer gets two with one hidden, and you want a higher total than the dealer without going past twenty one. Face cards are ten, an ace is eleven until eleven would bust you.
You get four choices: hit, stand, double, split. Every one of them has a correct answer that depends only on your total and the dealer's up card.
One hand, start to finish
Bet. Two cards to you face up, two to the dealer with one face down. If your first two are an ace and a ten you have blackjack and get paid three to two, assuming the table pays three to two.
Otherwise you act. Hit takes a card, stand ends your turn, double doubles the bet for exactly one more card, split turns a pair into two hands with a second bet behind it.
Then the dealer flips, draws to sixteen, stands on seventeen. Closer to twenty one without busting wins. Same total is a push and your stake comes back.
The four decisions, ranked by how much they cost
Standing when you should hit and hitting when you should stand are the everyday leaks. They cost fractions of a percent each and there are a lot of them.
Not doubling on eleven is expensive and common, because doubling feels reckless. It is the single most profitable move available to a player.
Never splitting tens and always splitting eights and aces. Two of the three feel wrong at the table, which is why the chart exists rather than instinct.
Insurance
When the dealer shows an ace you get offered insurance at two to one. Sixteen of the fifty two cards make it a winner, so the bet is priced as if the deck had more tens in it than it does.
It costs about seven cents on the dollar every time. Decline it, including when you are holding a blackjack, and including when the app puts the accept button under your thumb and the decline button at the far corner.
On a phone
Live tables run a twelve to fifteen second decision clock. That is enough time to check a chart once and not enough to argue with it, so screenshot the grid rather than keeping it in a browser tab.
The full chart for hard hands, soft hands and pairs sits on our blackjack page, along with what the ruleset does to the edge. Practise it on a free table until you stop reaching for it.