Best Live Blackjack Casinos With Actual Dealers To Play 21

Dealer Wins a Push or Can Exceed 21 Safely:

The Most Significant Rule Change

Traditionally, a player wins automatically with live blackjack online regardless of what the dealer has, and finishing with the same value as the dealer results in a push that returns your bet. A live blackjack game where the dealer automatically wins in the case of a push can give the house up to an edge of 10% if the dealer wins pushes on any and all hand values.

A somewhat obscure variant of the game is “Push 22”, where the dealer is awarded a push if their final value is 22, regardless of what the player is holding.

This rule change gives the house an advantage of almost 7%.

It should be noted that when you play live blackjack games featuring these rules are not necessarily awful. Though these are huge swings in favor of the house, they are also usually incorporated to balance out some equally unusual advantages for the live blackjack player, with the overall house edge coming out closer to 2% in the best cases.

They’re still almost always more unfavorable than standard online blackjack.

No Dealer Hole Card

Both the player and dealer get two real cards, and one of the dealer’s cards (the hole card) is hidden from the player. The dealer “peeks” at their hole card at the outset to determine if they have a blackjack, and if they do (and if the player does not) they announce it immediately and win the hand outright.

A variant that is seen widely throughout Europe has the dealer only draw one initial card. This allows the player to potentially wager more money when you play online than they normally would (by splitting or doubling) before an online blackjack is revealed. The “no hole card” rule gives the house a little over a tenth of a percentage point in expected return over time.

Betting Limits

Depending on which real money casino app you play at, they will have higher and lower betting limits. Some are better for a high roller. However, others may be better for a casual player. If you want the best real money gambling experience, read though our casino news and reviews. Remember, LiveDealersCasino.com has all rights reserved.

Limitations on Splitting Playing Live Dealer Blackjack

Being restricted to only two hands when splitting is much more unfavorable than being restricted to three hands. Splitting to only two hands gives the house a 0.10% advantage while splitting to three hands at most is a relatively trivial 0.1% advantage for the house.

Advantages for the Black Jack Player

Casinos rarely offer blatantly bad games that load up on nothing but terms that are favorable to them. Instead, they mix up some of the above rules with others that actually give the player a small advantage. You can rest assured the overall balance will still be in favor of the house, but the following rules can help to offset what would otherwise be a very poor game.

The number of decks used is the high roller player’s biggest advantage – the fewer, the better.

This is primarily of interest to card counters, who have an easier job as the decks’ number goes down. However, a player who is not counting and just playing perfect basic strategy also enjoys an improvement in their expected return with fewer decks (as the odds of drawing a blackjack improve). This ranges from almost half a percentage point in single-deck games to a 0.02% advantage in a six-deck high roller game.