Blackjack Basic Strategy Chart for Our Rules

Basic strategy is the best action for every hand your cards and the dealer's up card can make, and it gives the best long-run return the rules allow. In Cashout Arcade's blackjack that return is 97%, which is a 3% house edge, so basic strategy is the way to keep the edge as small as the game permits, not a way to beat it. This page gives the full chart for our rules, worked out by solving the game exactly, with the close calls, the mistakes that cost the most, and what differs from a casino card.

Our rules, in one place

The chart below only works for the rules it was built for, so here they are exactly as the game engine implements them:

• Infinite deck. Every card is an independent draw: each rank has probability 1/13, so a ten-value card (10, J, Q or K) is 4/13 of the time. There is nothing to count.
• Dealer stands on all 17s, soft 17 included, and peeks for blackjack. If the dealer has a natural the hand ends at once, before you act.
• Your options are hit, stand or double. You may double only on your first two cards: the stake doubles, you take exactly one more card and then stand.
• No splitting, no insurance, no surrender.
• Payouts are scaled to a 3% edge. A win pays 1.9559x the stake (instead of 2x), a blackjack (natural 21) pays 2.4449x (instead of the usual 2.5x for 3:2), and a push returns the stake. These multipliers apply to the total stake, so a winning double pays 1.9559x on both coins.
• 21 stands automatically.

The payout scale is chosen so that perfect play returns exactly 97% of everything staked on a hand, counting doubles. Because you sometimes stake an extra coin, the average stake is about 1.088 coins per hand, which means best play loses about 3.3% of your opening bet on average. Both statements are the same fact, measured from different denominators.

How to read the chart

Rows are your hand, columns are the dealer's up card (2 to 10, then A for ace). H = hit, S = stand, D = double (if you cannot double, because you already have three or more cards, use the "no double" rule that follows the tables).

Hard totals (no ace, or an ace that must count as 1)

Soft totals (an ace counted as 11)

When you cannot double

After your third card, or if the hand cannot be doubled, replace D as follows: every hard 9, 10 and 11 becomes H, and the soft-hand doubles become H (soft 13 to 17) or S (soft 18 against a 3 to 8; soft 18 still hits against 9, 10 and A). Soft hands with three or more cards otherwise follow their total.

The close calls

Most cells are clear-cut, but a few are nearly tied. For each, the table gives the cost of picking the runner-up, measured in coins per 1-coin hand, using the game's exact payouts. If you misplay a cell here you lose almost nothing; if you misplay a cell elsewhere you lose a lot.

So 16 against a 10 is not the monster it feels like: hitting and standing differ by less than 0.2% of the bet. It loses either way. What matters more is the large gaps, such as hitting a 12 against a 5 (a 2.5% mistake) or standing on 16 against a 7 (about a 6% mistake).

Why the numbers look the way they do

The dealer must draw to 17 and stands on all 17s, so the dealer's up card tells you how likely a bust is. From the same exact model (after the peek has ruled out a natural):

That is the whole logic. Against a 4, 5 or 6 the dealer busts about 40% of the time, so you stand on stiff hands (12 to 16) and let the dealer fail, and you double on 9 to 11 to put more money in when the dealer is weak. Against a 7 through ace the dealer rarely busts and often makes a strong total, so you must keep improving a stiff hand.

Our rules and payouts shift a few borderline calls compared with a printed casino card: 9 against a 3 and 11 against an ace are hits here, and the soft hands double a little less often. A winning hand pays 1.9559x instead of 2x, so doubling is worth slightly less, and the chart was solved with that exact payout. Because there is no splitting, pairs are played as their total (two 8s is a hard 16).

What not to do

• Never double, play everything else perfectly: 95.6% return.
• Copy the dealer (hit below 17, stand on 17 or more, never double): 92.4%.
• Always stand on your first two cards: 82.2%.
• Chase insurance or side bets. Neither exists here, which removes two common leaks.
• Hunt for a "hot" table or a "due" ten. With an infinite deck, the next card is independent of everything that came before. See the streaks guide.
• Raise your bet after a loss. Bet size does not change a hand's odds. See why betting systems fail.

These three return figures are the ones published on the Odds page. They show that the choice of play matters much more in blackjack than in a pure-chance game. The gap between best play and always-standing is about 15 points.

Differences from a casino basic strategy card

If you have used a casino card, expect these changes:

Casino charts also differ by whether the dealer stands or hits on soft 17. Ours stands on soft 17, which matches the more player-friendly version.

The takeaway: use the chart as a way to play well and enjoy the hand, and keep the numbers in mind. Even with perfect play, 97% means the house keeps about 3 coins of every 100 staked. The house edge guide and RTP guide explain what that means over time. You can try the chart in the Blackjack game.