Nov 15, 2013 Insurance pays at 2:1 if the dealer does hit Blackjack. If the dealer has a ten or an ace showing, then he will peek at his face down card to see if he has a Blackjack. If he does, then he will. The dealer will immediately reveal a blackjack if the face up card has a value of 10 without any of the players taking actions if they have it, and to do so they must know they have it, if the face up card is the ace, players can pay for insurance against the dealer having blackjack. The dealer in blackjack has no 'options' about what they do in the game, the dealer has a strict set of actions they perform based on.
- What Happens When Dealer Gets Blackjack In California
- What Happens When Dealer Gets Blackjack In Florida
- What Happens If Dealer Has Blackjack
- Appendices
- Miscellaneous
- External Links
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On This Page
Rules
Australian blackjack is played much the same way as in the rest of the world. As in Europe and Asia, the dealer does not take a hole card in Australia. If the player doubles and/or splits, and the dealer gets a blackjack, then what happens next in Australia depends on the particular casino. There are four for possibilities for this hole-card rule, as follows:
OBO (Dealer takes original bets only): Under this rule, the dealer will take the player's original bet only, regardless of what the player did. The player may split and/or double under this rule, without fear of losing more than the initial bet. Mathematically speaking, this is equivalent to the American rule where the dealer peeks for blackjack. My main blackjack page is based on the U.S. rules.
ENHC (European No Hole Card): Under this rule, the dealer will take the total amount the player bet, including doubles and splits, if the dealer gets a blackjack. My European strategy page shows how to play under this rule.
BB+1 (Busted Bets Plus One): Under this rule, the dealer will take all busted bets, plus one more unit from everything else the player may have bet from doubling and/or splitting.
OBBO (Original and Busted Bets Only): Under this rule, the dealer will take any busted bets, and one unit from each un-busted hand on the table. In other words, the player is at risk to lose his additional bets from splitting, but not doubling.
The blackjack rules consistent across Australia are as follows:
Double allowed on 9 to 11 only
Double after split allowed
Surrender not allowed
Rules that can vary are as follows:
Number of decks
Dealer hits/stands on soft 17
Number of splits allowed
Re-splitting aces allowed
Hole card rule
In August 2008 I visited the Star City in Sydney. The variable rules there are as follows:
8 decks
Only one split allowed
BB+1 hole card rule
House edge of 0.59%.
The following table shows the effect of various rule changes on the player's expected return, relative to the Star City Sydney rules. Changing two or more rules at the same time may cause an interaction effect.
Rule Variation Effects
| Rule | Effect |
|---|---|
| Dealer takes original bet only on dealer BJ (OBO) | 0.03% |
| Dealer takes original and busted bets on dealer BJ (OBBO) | -0.02% |
| Dealer takes all bets on dealer BJ (ENHC) | -0.10% |
| 4 decks | 0.07% |
| 6 decks | 0.03% |
| Dealer hits soft 17 | -0.22% |
| Resplit 2-K to 3 hands | +0.05% |
| Resplit 2-A to 3 hands | +0.12% |
Strategy
Following is the basic strategy for the BB+1 rule, and the dealer standing on a soft 17.
After splitting 8s against a 10, the player should stand on 15 or more. The only exception is the last hand to be played, where all previous hands busted.
The following table is appropriate for the OBBO rule, and the dealer stands on a soft 17. There are only two changes relative to the BB+1 strategy above: hit 8,8 vs. 10, and hit A,A vs. A.
Melbourne Casino Hits Soft 17
At the time I visited Australia, in August 2008, every casino in the country stood on soft 17. However, the Crown Casino in Melbourne has since changed their rules to hit on a soft 17, according to this article at the theage.com.au. This increases the house edge by 0.22%.
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my thanks and gratitude to 'MGP' for his Blackjack Combinatorial Analyzer. Usually I use my own programs for blackjack analysis; however they do not support the Australian BB+1 and OBBO rules. The use of MGP's program saved me a great deal of time.
External Links
- Star City Sydney blackjack rules (PDF).
- Melbourne Crown blackjack rules (PDF)
What Happens When Dealer Gets Blackjack In California
Written by: Michael Shackleford
What Happens When Dealer Gets Blackjack In Florida
One seemingly good bet to beginning blackjack players is taking insurance. And a major reason why beginning players are fooled into thinking insurance is a good idea is because dealers ask players beforehand if they want insurance when the opportunity arises. However, this is a very poor wager, and we’ll get into the specifics of why after explaining more about this bet.
How Insurance Bets Work
The opportunity for insurance wagers arise when the dealer draws a face-up ace; at this point, the dealer will go around the table and ask everybody if they want to take insurance. The insurance is in case the dealer receives a blackjack, and you put out half of your original bet as the insurance. Assuming the dealer does have a blackjack, you win 2-1 on your insurance wager.
What Happens If Dealer Has Blackjack
To illustrate how this works, let’s say that you make a $10 bet, and the dealer shows an ace. You then take the offered insurance bet by laying another $5 out on the table. The dealer turns over his second card, which is a king, thus giving him a blackjack. In this event, you receive win $5 on your insurance bet ($10 total), but lose $10 since the dealer had a blackjack. So basically, your overall bet was a push, and this doesn’t seem like such a bad deal so far.
Now, let us assume that the dealer didn’t have a natural blackjack; in this instance, you automatically lose the $5 insurance wager; however, you still have a chance to win the original $10 wager if your hand beats the dealer’s.
Why the Insurance Bet is Bad
Consult any source of blackjack strategy and they’ll tell you that insurance is bad. And the first thing you have to understand with this concept is exactly what insurance entails. Most players mistakenly assume that insurance is meant to protect their hand in the event that the dealer has a blackjack. But the reality is that insurance is merely a wager on the dealer having a natural blackjack.
The main number you want to concentrate on here is 9:4 odds – or rather, the odds against the dealer having a blackjack when they’re showing an ace is 9:4. To break this down further, let’s say you make $5 insurance bets 130 times; based on the 9:4 odds, you’d win your bet 40 times for $400 in total winnings ($10 total earnings X 40 bets). On the other hand, you’d lose 90 of these bets for $450 in total losses ($5 total losses X 90 bets). As you can see, this leaves you $50 in the hole, thus making it a bad bet overall.