Rules of Playing Blackjack at a Casino

Blackjack is one of the most widely played card games in online as well as offline casinos all over the world. It is often confused with the British card game named Black Jack, which happens to be a variant of Crazy Eights.

This game is commonly referred to as Twenty-one or Pontoon. The player aims to assemble a hand totaling as close to twenty-one as possible without exceeding it. The player who acquires a total closest to twenty-one without going over beats the dealer and is declared the winner.

Casino Blackjack Table Setup

In an offline casino, blackjack is played at a kidney-shaped table and features seven players in each round with each player playing independently against the dealer.

Dealing the Cards

The game takes place in the following manner:

• In the first step, the cards are dealt and this may happen in three ways namely either from handheld decks or from a box referred to as 'shoe' which contains 4-8 decks or from a shuffling machine.
• The two important terminologies related to dealing of cards in Blackjack are 'upcard' meaning the card facing up and 'hole card' meaning the card facing down.
• In a normal game, the highest hand is a blackjack which is a total of twenty-one between two cards and such a player is declared as the winner.
• In case the dealer also has a blackjack then the situation which ensues is known as a 'tie' or a 'push'.

Player Actions and Signals

Some of the terms which are particularly associated with blackjack at an offline casino which are used by the players are described as follows:

• When a player says 'hit' it signifies taking another card and a hit is signaled by scraping cards against the table, touching the finger to the table or waving a hand.
• The term 'stand' is used when no more cards are to be taken and it can be substituted by the terms 'stick' or 'stay'. This is signaled by sliding the cards under the bet or waving the hand horizontally.
• A 'double down' means the player is allowed to double his initial bet and receive one card from the dealer in return. This option is used after the player receives his first two cards and before he receives any further cards.
• 'Split a pair' is the term used when the player receives the first two cards of the same value and wishes to play them separately after splitting.
• There is an option known as 'surrender' which is not offered at all casinos and which is used by the player by giving up half of his bet and not playing his hand.

Blackjack Payouts

In an offline casino, the payoff for a player who gets a blackjack is 3:2 meaning every time that a player places a bet for $2 the casino has to pay $3.