How to Play Blackjack: Rules and Basic Strategy Chart

On this page

1. How does a hand of blackjack play out?
2. Card values, and soft versus hard hands
3. Your options explained
4. The complete blackjack basic strategy chart
5. How do table rules change the blackjack house edge?
6. Why is insurance a bad bet?
7. Side bets: Perfect Pairs, 21+3 and the rest
8. Live, RNG and why card counting does not work online
9. Common blackjack mistakes
10. Frequently asked questions

Blackjack basic strategy is the mathematically best decision for every combination of your hand and the dealer’s up card: when to hit, stand, double, split or surrender. Played perfectly at a table with good rules (blackjack paying 3 to 2, dealer standing on soft 17, double after split allowed), it cuts the house edge to roughly 0.5%, one of the lowest in the casino.

Blackjack is the one classic table game where your decisions genuinely move the numbers. On a roulette wheel the edge is fixed the moment you place your chips; at a blackjack table it depends on what you do with that 12, those 8s and the insurance offer. The difference between a player using a basic strategy chart and a player going on feel is not subtle, and it shows up quickly in the size of the losses.

Below: how a hand runs, what each option does, the full basic strategy chart, how table rules move the edge, and the mistakes that cost the most. None of it makes blackjack a winning game over time. It just stops you paying more than you need to.

How does a hand of blackjack play out?

Every hand follows the same sequence at an RNG table, a live studio stream or a land casino. Once you have the order down, the rest is decision-making.

1. Place your bet. You stake your chips in your betting box before any cards come out. Check the table minimum and maximum, and whether there are optional side bets next to the main box (you can ignore those).
2. The deal. You get two cards face up. The dealer gets one card face up (the up card) and, at most tables, a second card face down (the hole card). The up card is the single most important piece of information you have.
3. Check for blackjack. If you have an Ace plus a 10-value card, that is a blackjack and it usually pays 3 to 2 straight away unless the dealer also has one, in which case it is a push. If the dealer shows an Ace, you will be offered insurance first. With an Ace or a 10-value up card, at most tables the dealer then checks the hole card, and a dealer blackjack ends the hand.
4. Make your decisions. Working around the table, each player hits, stands, doubles, splits or (where offered) surrenders. You keep drawing until you stand or go over 21 (bust). A bust loses immediately, even if the dealer busts later.
5. The dealer plays. The dealer turns over the hole card and follows fixed rules printed on the table: draw until reaching 17 or more. The only variation is soft 17, which some tables stand on and others hit. The dealer has no choices to make.
6. Settle the bets. If your total beats the dealer’s without busting, you win even money. If the dealer busts, every hand still in play wins. Equal totals push and your stake comes back. A lower total loses.

Card values, and soft versus hard hands

Cards 2 to 10 count at face value. Jacks, Queens and Kings each count as 10. An Ace counts as 1 or 11, whichever suits the hand. That flexibility is what creates the difference between soft and hard hands, and it matters a great deal for strategy.

A soft hand can turn hard mid-hand. Ace and 5 is soft 16; take a 9 and the Ace has to count as 1, giving you hard 15. When you look up the next decision on the chart, use the hard total.

A blackjack (also called a natural) is specifically an Ace and a 10-value card as your first two cards. Reaching 21 with three or more cards, or after a split, is just 21 and pays even money.

Your options explained

Hit and stand are always available. The others depend on your first two cards and the house rules, which are printed on the table felt or listed in the game’s help screen online.

The complete blackjack basic strategy chart

The chart below is split into three tables: hard totals, soft totals and pairs. Find your hand in the left column, find the dealer’s up card along the top, and play the action in that cell. Always check pairs first, then soft hands, then hard totals.

The chart assumes a multi-deck game (6 to 8 decks) where the dealer stands on soft 17, double after split is allowed and blackjack pays 3 to 2. Surrender is shown where it applies; if the table does not offer it, hit instead.

Legend: H = hit. S = stand. D = double if allowed, otherwise hit. Ds = double if allowed, otherwise stand. P = split. R = surrender if allowed, otherwise hit.

A few patterns make the chart easier to remember. With hard 12 to 16, stand against 2 to 6 and hit against 7 to Ace (with the exception that 12 hits against 2 and 3). Double 11 against everything except an Ace, and 10 against everything except 10 and Ace. Always split Aces and 8s. Never split 5s or 10s. Soft 18 (Ace, 7) is a hand people often misplay: it doubles against 3 to 6, stands against 2, 7 and 8, and hits against 9, 10 and Ace.

How do table rules change the blackjack house edge?

The roughly 0.5% figure only holds when two things are true: you play perfect basic strategy, and the table rules are good. Change the rules and the edge moves, sometimes a lot, even though the game looks identical on screen. These are the rules worth checking before you sit down.

3 to 2 versus 6 to 5

This is the single biggest rule to check. On a 10 unit bet, a blackjack at a 3 to 2 table pays 15 units. At a 6 to 5 table it pays 12 units. You get a blackjack only occasionally, but those 3 units add up, and the cost to you is roughly 1.4 percentage points of edge. That takes a good game at about 0.5% to around 1.9% (0.5 + 1.4), nearly four times as expensive.

Dealer stands or hits on soft 17

The felt or help screen will say “Dealer stands on soft 17” (S17) or “Dealer hits soft 17” (H17). When the dealer hits soft 17, they get a chance to improve a mediocre hand, and that adds about 0.2 percentage points to the edge.

To see what that means in money, multiply your stake by the number of hands and the edge. For example, 100 hands at 10 units each is 1,000 units wagered. At 0.5%, the expected loss is 5 units. At 1.9%, it is 19 units.

These figures all assume basic strategy. Players who play by feel typically give up far more than the gap between any of these rule sets, so learning the chart matters even more than table hunting.

Why is insurance a bad bet?

When the dealer shows an Ace, insurance is offered as if it protects your hand. It does not. It is a separate bet that the dealer’s hole card is a 10-value card, and it pays 2 to 1.

For a bet paying 2 to 1 to break even, it needs to win one time in three. In a six-deck shoe, once the dealer’s Ace is out, 96 of the remaining 311 cards are worth 10 (four each of 10, Jack, Queen and King per deck). That is about 30.9%, short of the 33.3% needed. The cards you and other players can see shift this slightly, but in a six-deck shoe a basic-strategy player is giving up around 7% on every insurance bet. That is more than ten times the edge on the main game with good rules.

Side bets: Perfect Pairs, 21+3 and the rest

Many tables offer optional side bets alongside the main box. The two you will see most often are Perfect Pairs (your first two cards form a pair) and 21+3 (your two cards plus the dealer’s up card form a poker-style hand such as a flush or straight).

They pay well when they land, which is the point. They also carry much higher house edges than the main game played with basic strategy. The paytable determines the edge and varies between providers, so check it in the help screen. For the lowest cost per hour, skip them.

Live, RNG and why card counting does not work online

Online blackjack comes in two main formats, and the strategy chart applies to both as long as the rules match.

Bet Behind and shared-hand tables

When a live table is full, Bet Behind lets you place a bet on a seated player’s hand. You win or lose with them, but they make the decisions, so you are relying on someone else’s strategy. Some live variants avoid seat limits entirely by letting unlimited players play the same dealer hand, each making their own decisions on a shared set of starting cards. That format suits basic strategy well, because the choices stay yours.

Can you count cards online?

Card counting is a legal mental technique in land casinos: tracking which cards have gone so you know whether the remaining shoe favours you. Online, it does nothing useful. RNG tables usually reshuffle every hand, so there is no depleted shoe to track. Live tables often use continuous shuffling machines or cut the shoe early, which strips out most of the information a counter relies on. It is not a plan worth building a bankroll around, and no system changes the fact that basic strategy is the best you can do at an online table.

Whichever format you pick, play only at casinos licensed in your market. We list casinos only after matching them against their regulator’s register; the details are on our licensing page and in how we review casinos.

Common blackjack mistakes

Most of the money lost to poor play comes from a short list of decisions that feel right and are not. Fix these and you have covered the bulk of the gap between guessing and basic strategy.

Frequently asked questions