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Blackjack Rules in Plain Words

These are the rules of the game, rewritten in plain words. This page explains how blackjack works — it does not give betting advice. In any real game, the table's posted rules (printed on the felt in a casino) govern.

What the game is

Blackjack (also called 21) is a comparing game against the dealer. You are not playing against the other players at the table. Your aim is a hand totaling closer to 21 than the dealer's — without going over. Go over 21 and you "bust," and that hand loses at once, whatever the dealer later makes.

Players: one to seven players, each against the dealer. What you need: one or more standard 52-card decks (casinos commonly use several shuffled together) and chips.

Card values: number cards count their number; Jacks, Queens, and Kings count 10; an Ace counts 1 or 11, whichever makes the better hand. A hand with an Ace counted as 11 is called "soft" (Ace + 6 is a soft 17); without an Ace, or with the Ace forced to 1, it is "hard."

How a hand is dealt

Each player places a bet in the betting spot before any cards come out.
Each player gets two cards face up. The dealer gets two cards — one face up (the "upcard") and one face down (the "hole card"). In many home games both dealer cards follow the same one-up, one-down pattern.
A hand of Ace + a 10-value card in the first two cards is a blackjack (a "natural"). If the dealer has one, the hand ends: players with blackjack too tie ("push"), everyone else loses. If the dealer does not have one, each player with a blackjack is paid at once — the standard pay is 3 to 2.

Your choices on your turn

Hit: take one more card. You may hit as many times as you like until you stand or bust.
Stand: take no more cards. Your hand is finished.
Double down: double your bet and take exactly one more card, then stand automatically.
Split: if your two cards are a pair of the same value, put up a second equal bet and the pair becomes two separate hands, each finished on its own. Split Aces usually receive only one further card each. A 21 made on a split hand is not a blackjack — it is just 21.
Surrender (where the table offers it): give up the hand and lose only half your bet.
Insurance (where offered): when the dealer's upcard is an Ace, a side bet — up to half your main bet — that the dealer has a blackjack. It pays 2 to 1 if the hole card is a 10-value, and is lost if it is not. It is a separate bet about the dealer's hand only.

The dealer's turn — fixed rules, no choices

After every player has finished, the dealer turns up the hole card.
The dealer must hit on any total of 16 or less.
The dealer must stand on 17 or more — with one famous exception about soft 17, covered in the box below, because tables set it differently.
If the dealer busts, every player still standing wins. Otherwise the totals are compared: higher total wins the bet, equal totals push (the bet is returned), lower totals lose.

Official rule or house rule?

Dealer and soft 17: This is the game's best-known table difference, and it is a house rule, printed on the felt. At some tables the dealer stands on all 17s — a soft 17 (Ace + 6) is finished. At others the dealer hits soft 17 and must draw to it. The core rule both ways: hard 17 always stands, 16 always draws.

Surrender: A house rule, and many tables do not offer it at all. Where it exists, "late surrender" — giving up after the dealer has checked for blackjack — is the common form; "early surrender," before that check, is rare. Whether it is on the table is the house's choice, not a standard rule.

Blackjack pays 3 to 2 vs 6 to 5: A house setting. The traditional pay for a natural is 3 to 2. Some tables pay 6 to 5 instead; the payout is posted, so check before playing. It changes returns, not the rules of play.

Doubling after a split, and re-splitting: House settings. Many tables allow doubling down on the first two cards of a split hand, and allow splitting again if another pair appears, usually up to four hands total. Aces are the usual exception — split Aces commonly get one card each and cannot be re-split.

How many decks, and where the cut card sits: House settings. Anything from one deck to eight is normal; the game is the same.

Common questions

Do the other players' cards affect me?

Only the dealer's hand matters to your result. Each player wins, loses, or pushes against the dealer alone.

Is 21 with three cards a blackjack?

No. A blackjack is only the two-card natural — Ace plus a 10-value card as your first two cards. A 21 built from three or more cards is just 21, and it loses to a dealer's blackjack.

What is a push?

A tie between your hand and the dealer's. Your bet is returned and nothing is won or lost.

Can I split two different 10-value cards, like a Jack and a King?

At most tables yes — any two cards worth 10 may be split. A few houses require an exact pair. It is a posted table rule.

Sources: Bicycle Cards, "How to Play Blackjack" (bicyclecards.com/how-to-play/blackjack), and the standard published rules of the game as printed in Hoyle's rules of games. Read in full and rewritten in our own plain words. Table-by-table differences are labeled as house rules above.