Blackjack BanditsLesson 3 of 8 · Odds & Payouts
Blackjack Odds, House Edge & Payouts
House edge, table rules, blackjack payouts, and shoe sizes.
Blackjack has one of the lowest house edges in the casino, but only if you play well and choose a table with good rules. This lesson shows where the house's edge comes from and what each table rule costs you.
What "house edge" means
The house edge is the share of each bet the casino expects to keep over the long run. A 0.5% house edge means losing about 50 cents for every $100 you bet, on average. Any single session can still go either way.
Players who use perfect basic strategy (the next lesson) lose less than 1% of what they bet over the long run. Most games with basic strategy have a house edge between 0.5% and 1%.
How often you win a hand
- Win: 42.43%
- Push: 8.48%
- Lose: 49.09%
Net result of one hand with basic strategy: 6 decks, dealer stands on soft 17, double after split, late surrender, resplit aces.
Even with perfect play, you lose more hands than you win. The game stays close because some wins pay more than your bet: blackjacks pay 3:2, and doubling or splitting at the right moments puts more money on the table when you're likely to win.
Blackjack payouts: 3:2 vs 6:5
A blackjack shows up about once every 21 hands:
| Decks | Chance of a blackjack | About 1 hand in |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4.83% | 20.7 |
| 2 | 4.78% | 20.9 |
| 4 | 4.76% | 21.0 |
| 6 | 4.75% | 21.1 |
| 8 | 4.75% | 21.1 |
Calculated exactly from a freshly shuffled shoe: 2 × (aces ÷ cards) × (10-value cards ÷ remaining cards).
That's why the payout matters so much. Some tables quietly pay less than 3:2:
| Blackjack pays | $10 bet wins | $25 bet wins | Change in house edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3:2 (standard) | $15 | $37.50 | None |
| 6:5 | $12 | $30 | +1.39% |
| 1:1 | $10 | $25 | +2.27% |
Avoid 6:5 tables. A 6:5 payout costs you more than twice as much as the dealer hitting soft 17, no doubling after splits, no resplitting, no resplitting aces, and no hole card combined. See the table below.
Decks and the shoe
| Decks | Cards in the shoe | House edge |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 52 | 0.16% |
| 2 | 104 | 0.46% |
| 4 | 208 | 0.60% |
| 6 | 312 | 0.64% |
| 8 | 416 | 0.66% |
Basic strategy; dealer hits soft 17, double after split, only original bets lost to a dealer blackjack.
With everything else equal, fewer decks means a lower house edge. With fewer decks you get more blackjacks, the dealer busts more often, and doubling down pays off more.
Penetration and reshuffling
Casinos don't deal every card in the shoe. They stop and reshuffle while one or more decks are still left. How much of the shoe gets dealt before the reshuffle is called penetration. It becomes important once you start counting cards (Lesson 5).
Some casinos use a shuffling machine that puts cards back into the shoe as the game goes. Video and online blackjack usually deal every round from a freshly shuffled shoe, so card counting doesn't work there.
Rules that change the house edge
Each rule below makes the game better or worse for you. Negative is good for you.
| Rule | Change in house edge |
|---|---|
| Single deck | −0.48% |
| Two decks | −0.19% |
| Four decks | −0.06% |
| Six decks | −0.02% |
| Dealer hits soft 17 | +0.22% |
| No doubling after a split | +0.14% |
| No resplitting (2 hands max) | +0.10% |
| No resplitting aces | +0.08% |
| Late surrender allowed | −0.07% |
| No hole card (European style) | +0.11% |
| Blackjack pays 6:5 | +1.39% |
| Blackjack pays 1:1 | +2.27% |
Compared with 8 decks, dealer stands on soft 17, double on any first two cards, double after split, split to 4 hands, resplit aces, no surrender, blackjack pays 3:2. Negative is better for you.
A great table has 3:2 blackjack, dealer stands on soft 17, double after split, and late surrender. The fewer decks, the better.
Estimate your table's house edge
Pick the rules at a table to estimate its house edge. The default settings match the rules used in our practice games.
Estimated house edge
0.36%
With perfect basic strategy, you'd lose about $0.36 for every $100 bet over the long run.
Starts from a 0.28% house edge for 6 decks, S17, DAS, late surrender, and resplit aces, then adds each rule's published effect. Rule effects don't add up perfectly, so treat this as an estimate.
Why insurance is a bad bet
Insurance pays 2 to 1 if the dealer's hole card is a 10-value card. There are 16 ten-value cards (10, J, Q, K) out of 52, so, ignoring the cards already dealt, the hole card is a ten about 4 times in 13, which is less than one-third of the time.
Imagine 13 insurance bets of $5 each:
- 4 times the dealer has blackjack: you win 4 × $10 = +$40
- 9 times the dealer doesn't: you lose 9 × $5 = −$45
That's a net loss of $5 on $65 bet, or about 7.7% of every insurance bet. That's far worse than the main game.
Even money is the same bet. When you have blackjack against a dealer ace, even money guarantees $10 on a $10 bet. Turn it down, and 9 times out of 13 you're paid $15, while the other 4 times you push. On average that's about $10.38, which beats the guaranteed $10.
Card counters are the exception. When the remaining cards are unusually rich in tens, insurance can be worth taking. Lesson 5 covers this.
Dealer bust odds by upcard
The dealer's upcard tells you a lot about how the hand will probably end:
| Dealer upcard | Dealer busts | Chart |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 35.4% | |
| 3 | 37.4% | |
| 4 | 39.6% | |
| 5 | 41.8% | |
| 6 | 42.3% | |
| 7 | 26.2% | |
| 8 | 24.4% | |
| 9 | 22.9% | |
| 10, J, Q, K | 23.0% | |
| Ace | 16.7% |
6 decks, dealer stands on soft 17, after the dealer has checked for blackjack. Bar scale: full width = 50%.
The dealer busts most often when showing a 4, 5, or 6, and least often when showing an ace. Basic strategy is built on this: against weak upcards you let the dealer take the risk, and against strong ones you have to improve your own hand.
Key takeaways
- Look for 3:2 blackjack, dealer stands on soft 17, double after split, and late surrender. Fewer decks is better.
- Never play 6:5.
- Skip insurance and even money unless you're counting cards.
- Rules only set the ceiling. Basic strategy is what gets you close to it. That's the next lesson.