By Tali Haim.
Here are the four most popular blackjack variations that you’ll love playing online or in a land-based casino. However, beginners are advised to start with the most popular blackjack variations and understand how they vary from each other.
American Blackjack
Whether you fancy playing blackjack with friends or through the us-online-casino.us which offers a detailed comparison between the best online casino sites, you can find various variations to accommodate your style of play and wagering limit.
American blackjack, commonly referred to as the classic blackjack, is one of the world’s most played games. One of the most notable differences is in how the dealer takes his hole card. Before the player decides about their hand in American blackjack, the dealer gets their hole card. Apart from that one difference, there are several other differences between the two depending on the game’s central facets, such as splitting and double down. 1)Blackjack is a common reference to the game of twenty-one – a card game played between a dealer and one to seven players. A blackjack is defined as an Ace and a Ten valued card when dealt as the first two cards. Historically, a blackjack is also called a natural or a snapper. The odds of getting a blackjack is about 4.75 percent or, surprisingly, once out of every 21 hands.
European Blackjack
In this blackjack version, the dealer receives the hole card only after the players have played out their hands. Compared with the American blackjack, there are also more restrictions in terms of game play. If the dealer discovers that they have a blackjack, the insurance bet is paid out and all other player bets are lost. Since the dealer keeps all double down and split hands bets when the dealer has a blackjack, you may want to change your basic strategy.
The other difference between the European and American versions is that there are fewer opportunities to double down in the European version, enabling players to only double on hands with a value of nine, ten, or eleven. In the US blackjack, there are no limitations in terms of the value of your hand you can double down on.
One other thing to keep in mind when playing in real casinos in Europe is the custom of being able to make a rider bet on someone else’s hand. In most casinos, the player who has the original bet controls the play of the hand.
Vegas Strip Blackjack
Las Vegas has been called the entertainment capital of the world for it’s wide selection of hotels, casinos, nightlife, shows, etc. Vegas Strip blackjack is one of the most commonly played variations on the Strip. It comes with no surprise that Vegas Strip blackjack is played worldwide, given that Las Vegas is the home of some of the world’s best casinos. The game’s main objective remains to unify all blackjack games to obtain a blackjack score of 21 or get a score close to 21 but not over.
Vegas Strip blackjack has many similarities. The main difference between the two is that the dealer might peek if their card is 10, face, or an Ace card in the American version. In the Vegas Strip blackjack, the only peek is on an Ace. The other difference in many casinos is the change to only pay 6 to 5 on player blackjacks which is a bad rule change for players.
In this version of blackjack, the player places identical bets on two hands and then gets a chance to switch the second card dealt with each hand with one another. Another important aspect to be aware of in Blackjack Switch is that a dealer hand of 22 doesn’t count as a bust. Instead, it is counted as a draw unless a player has a blackjack that was not created via switch or split. In this version, player blackjacks pay even money and dealer hands of 22 will push all player hands that are still alive.
All blackjack games are not created equal and you should always seek to find the best games. Some games have great rules such as unlimited doubling and splitting, blackjacks pay 3 to 2, dealer stands on soft-17, double after splitting allowed, surrender available, etc.
Footnotes
| ↑1 | Blackjack is a common reference to the game of twenty-one – a card game played between a dealer and one to seven players. A blackjack is defined as an Ace and a Ten valued card when dealt as the first two cards. Historically, a blackjack is also called a natural or a snapper. The odds of getting a blackjack is about 4.75 percent or, surprisingly, once out of every 21 hands. |
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I would add one more blackjack variation to this list – Spanish 21. This blackjack variation is played with a short pack (all Tens are removed) and was introduced in the mid-1990s. Of course, there are many other variants of the game.