Live Blackjack Casinos

Blackjack is the most popular casino card game in the world. That’s why it sits neatly at the top of every live casino site you might visit. Only roulette is more popular than live blackjack.

Why is blackjack so popular?

We think we know:

• It’s easy to learn, but the game has depth and can repay study and strategy,
• It offers some very good value betting,
• It is simple but entertaining with a relatively swift turnaround,
• There is a rewarding set of variants, including side bets and jackpots,
• It is linked with some of the biggest wins in gambling history, and,
• Mystique!

Yes, there’s nothing wrong with a game having a bit of mystique about it, and blackjack has that, certainly in the way it is usually presented in live casino sites – as a one-on-one battle of wits, played out over a green-baize battlefield.

Live casinos have exploded in recent years. The high-speed internet and widespread mobile availability of the internet made them a must-have for every casino site.

Playing blackjack at live casino sites is great fun, and we want you to enjoy it safely and responsibly, which is something this guide hopes to do.

In this guide we’ll tell you about blackjack, tell you about live Blackjack – the greatest of all live dealer card games.

Top Live Blackjack Casinos – Best Sites for Live Dealer Blackjack

The History of Blackjack

Today, the world speaks English and American culture is dominant. But, Anglo wasn’t always the lingua franca, as the term lingua franca, which is a semi-Italian term for pre-medieval French, shows. Following the etymology of words is a nice way to show which cultures were dominant when, and the period in which many casino games were born was dominated – certainly culturally – by France and the French language.

In the beginning, was Vingt-Un, a French-named, Spanish derived (probably) game modified in England. It is from this game blackjack is most probably derived from, and variants of it survive even in modern casinos.

This game dates back to the birth of the 17th century and was probably in broad circulation by the 1760s and the rules were written down by 1800 in the UK.

The UK, a global power back then, those rules became the rules of the American game too, which eventually branched off and became a recognisably separate game, the rules of which were formalised as “blackjack” by around 1900.

A story linking the name to a special bonus that paid out 10 to 1 for an ace of spades and a jack of spades or club came to be known as the blackjack is a dispute and there is an alternative thesis that links the game to miners who named it after the mineral, zincblende, popularly known as “blackjack” that was often found near precious metal deposits.

One of the reasons blackjack is popular is because people think they can beat the game. That is, they think that they can use skill – and usually observation, in the form of some sort of card counting – to outweigh the effects of luck. This has a long history, dating back to at least 1956 when a paper was published in the Journal of the American Statistical Society describing the “Optimum Strategy in Blackjack”. Such analyses have continued, and mathematicians were at the heart of the biggest blackjack story of the 20^th century, the big wins by MIT students told in the Hollywood movie 21.

We won’t give you the whole history of online casinos here.

The short version of this. As soon as the internet started up it became a potential commercial venue. Gambling could also make use of an apparently off-shore location that was beyond the illiberal regulatory regimes of some countries – really, we’re talking mostly about the US here – and large gambling sites started to appear, first poker rooms, but also casino sites, as soon as online banking was secure enough to make fast, safe transactions.

Microgaming claim to have set up the first online casino and are still industry giants today.

The arrival of always-on, superfast broadband in the early 2000s made a huge leap in quality possible. And it also made live casinos possible.

Live casinos work by streaming games from an actual casino set up, with the remote players using a user interface to send their decisions in real-time to a staffed casino.

Pretty simple. And amazingly popular. Every casino site has a live casino offering these days and it’s the fastest growing and most visible part of the online casino industry.

Live Blackjack Rules

Blackjack comes in a number of variants. Here we will describe the “standard” game. We’ll try to cover some variants, but it’s not possible to fully describe every possible rule and betting variant so we’ll say – as we always do – that it is extremely important to read the rules of the specific table you are playing at.

Simple blackjack rules

The game is played at a table with a dealer facing (usually) five to seven player seats. The dealer controls a shoe filled with at least one and as many as eight standard packs of cards.

The game is played in rounds.

The first round is a player bet. This buys into the game.

The dealer then deals around the table starting from their left, giving each player a card around the table, including their own hand in the circle. The deal ends when each player has two cards, face down, and the dealer has one card face-up and one card face-down (the hole card).

The dealer looks at their hole card and will turn it over it they are immediately dealt a blackjack.

The players are all trying to outscore the dealer’s hand while not going “bust” by scoring more than 21. They will also win if the dealer goes bust by passing 21.

In the second round of play, the dealer goes around the table – in the same order – asking players what they would like to do.

Players can as to be “hit”, or be dealt another hand, or they can “stand” or “stick” and stop the game. The dealer continues around the circle of players until all hands have been resolved, and players can continue to ask for cards as long as their hand is worth less than 21.

In some circumstances they can “double” their bet, “split” the cards if they are a pair, or “surrender” – throw in the towel and end the game.

Players can double down if they are confident in their hand. This allows them to double the first bet they made. Once they do this they may only take one more card from the dealer.

Splitting can be done when the player is dealt a pair of matching-value cards. This gives the player two hands which are then played through to conclusion as independent hands, taking their place in the game turn. The newly created hand must be bet on. There can be quite specific circumstances – or card values – to when hands can be split and there may be a limit on the number of times you can do it.

All cards are rated by their face value. Court cards (aka face cards or picture cards) score 10. Aces can be counted as 1 or 11 at the player’s discretion.

Once players have all played their hands to a finish then the dealer does the same.

Most games require the dealer to follow a set protocol that sees them end their play if they have a total of 17 or more.

A hard 17 is one without an ace at 11, which is called a “soft” 17. The protocol for what to do in the case of a soft 17 can change from game to game and you should make sure you know what the deal is at the table you’re playing at.

Dealers cannot chuck in their hand, they cannot double or split their hands.

If the dealer busts the game is ended. If they do not go bust then hands are rated against each other and hands that beat the dealer have their bets paid out. The losing hands lose their bets.

Any player who is dealt 21 in their first two cards has a “natural” or a “blackjack” and the hand wins unless it is matched by the dealer. If the dealer matches it the hand is tied (or pushed) and the bets are returned to the player. Blackjack beats other hands that score 21.

Blackjacks are paid out at a bonus rate, possibly 3 to 2, but check on the table you’re using. All other wins are paid as evens, or 1:1.

Live Blackjack side bets & insurance bets

Insurance bets are the commonest form of side bet in blackjack. The circumstances in which it is allowed may vary from game to game. A common variant is that if the dealer is showing an ace as their first face-up card then players are allowed to make an insurance bet. This is limited to half of the initial player bet and pays out on the dealer’s hand. If the dealer has a blackjack then the bet pays out at 2:1 covering the player’s lost bet.

There are also numerous other side bets in blackjack. It is not possible to cover them all here. It is common for casino sites to invent their own side bets, and to try to invent a variant of the game that can be copyrighted and made exclusive to their casino sites.

A couple of possible side bets are:

Perfect pairs is a copyrighted bet in some games, and simply, the player bets that they will get a pair, with pay-outs based on the value of the pairs.

21+3 is another side bet run by some companies, this allows the player to form a poker hand from their own hand and the dealers.

Live Blackjack mathematics and strategy

Blackjack, as you have seen, is a relatively simple game but it can repay strategy.

A word on strategy. Most strategy is useless in the gambling world, which relies on random events to deliver outcomes.

The most effective strategies are those that help players to limit their losses. And even most betting strategies are relatively little use to players who don’t have deep pockets as they require players to double their bets on a loss – seriously this is the most popular gambling strategy.

All casino games have a “house edge”. This is produced by the mathematics of the game. Although events are random, they are governed by something called the rule of very large numbers. This is most easily explained via the common, random binary of a coin toss. If you toss a coin five times in a row you might not be surprised to get five heads on the trot. However, if you toss a coin 500 times in a row you would expect, and you would be much more likely to get something close to a 50/50 split.

In gambling, this helps to produce the house edge. Only unlikely events are rewarded, and bets almost always pay out less than the odds against the event happening.

This house edge can be measured and should be reported to you by the game owner, either as a house edge (a low percentage number) or as the theoretical return to the player, which is the percentage of money wagered that over the lifetime of a game ought to be returned to players.

The house edge on blackjack can be as low as 1%, but the figures can be altered with rule variants, betting variations, and the number of cards from which the hands are dealt.

You shouldn’t treat the house edge of RTP figures as an accurate prediction of how your game will go. Games are still random, so anything can happen, and your experience could be dramatically better or worse than the outcome that the RTP suggests.

However, blackjack can be played strategically.

In real casinos, this has relied on card counting. This means that players watch games and note (mentally, use a pen and paper and you’ll be kicked out) which cards have been dealt from the shoe. They then have a slight advantage when it comes to predicting when good hands will be dealt and when they should bet high stakes.

It’s an extraordinarily skilful and difficult thing to do.

You can buy, or find for free, genuine blackjack strategy charts. These are a relatively legitimate way of playing the game, and one of the few genuine examples of honest strategy in the gambling world.

However, they do not guarantee anything, they are a way of reducing the odds against you and they are more likely to limit your losses than lead to wins.

They are very complex documents with a lot of variations that depend on the game you’re playing and the rules of the house. However, they are probably worth studying, although as the game remains random, it’s always possible that you’ll hit on 20 and get an ace – that’s the beauty of gambling.

Live Blackjack Software

Live blackjack games are, like all live casino games, relatively expensive to run. That has limited the number of suppliers in the market. There are hundreds of slots providers, but live games require the software company to effectively run a TV studio, employing large numbers of staff and carrying lots of tech in order to run a game.

So there are relatively few companies providing the games. However, there is still a lot of variety. Companies want their games to stand out, so we see rule variants being embraced as well as a love of presentational styles like “party” games. You will also find games in various languages, tied to various locations, and with a huge range of entry-level and top-level bets.

The biggest players in the market are:

Evolution Gaming Live Blackjack

The company is the biggest in the market and you’ll find their games all over the place. They offer a standard blackjack game with seven seats allowing bet behind and a high-speed option.

Speed Blackjack is played at an even higher speed by dealing to the player who makes their choice first rather than round the table.

Infinite blackjack is a huge game variant that allows limitless numbers of players.

Free Bet is in the infinite family and has extra double down and split pair bets.

Power Blackjack allows extra doubling down in an 8 deck game with no 9s and 10s in the deck.

Blackjack party is a presentational style, with a team of TV presenters leading the fun.

There are also VIP and salon prive games for big spenders, language games, and exclusive games.

NetEnts Live Blackjack

NetEnt are monsters in the slots world but also have a live casino portfolio. It was almost certainly the company’s massive slate of slots that attracted Evolution Gaming to the door to buy the company in one of the biggest deals in gambling history.

They have a small number of blackjack games – basically a single-deck version available only to mobile players, and a standard game – but they come in a load of different value and language and locality versions that mean you’ll see them at a big slew of casino sites.

Playtech Live Blackjack

Playtech are the biggest software company in the live casino world. A lot of their systems are whirring away behind the scenes, and they also have a big slots catalogue, but you can now play Playtech Live Blackjack along with all the other big casino titles.

Filmed in Riga, Playtech’s games are high quality and tend to brand around traditional casino style. You can play Playtech games in four languages.

There are two main games for the company. A classic game with eight decks of cards, and the Ultimate Game allows unlimited numbers of players.

Ezugi Live Blackjack

Ezugi are less well known in the European and American markets but have a big presence in the Indian online casino market and their games are available around the world.

There are three studios, in Latin America, Bulgaria and the Baltics, and the company offers a set of blackjack games with seven seats, side bets (perfect pairs and 21+3), and betting behind.

Pragmatic Play Live Blackjack

Pragmatic Play are a big slots company who are now dipping their toe into the live casino market. That means that they have a relatively small stable of games so far. However, such is the investment needed to get the game off the ground they are bound to continue adding titles.

The company is licensed and legitimate and you can trust it.

Their blackjack titles are:

One Blackjack, an apparently single set game with the standard rule set up and a lot of nice presentation and tech.

Blackjack is the standard version of the game, very much based on a traditional casino experience.

The games are filmed in Romania.

Safe Live Blackjack

Finally, the most important thing for any player is to play blackjack live and safe!

This is somewhat down to you, though the industry is responding to pressure and providing more and more tools to help keep players safe.

This means limits on game time and spending and advice on how to stay safe. You will also find links to organisations offering help for gambling addicts.

However, none of this is of any use if you don’t sue it. We always urge all of our readers to take safe gambling seriously and to do some research on how to stay safe online in all ways.

The first and most important is to use only licensed sites. Then you should look for good quality sites – use reviews and forums to check out any new site.

And you should make sure that you know how to keep your device and your online casino accounts, and financial accounts, safe while you are using online casino sites.

If you ever have worries about a site then don’t use it. If you ever have concerns about your device then get it checked out. And if you ever feel like you’re not gambling in a way that is fun and in your control then please reach out for help.

Live Blackjack Casinos FAQ

Is live blackjack a scam?

You’d better believe that we are. Since the majority of internet use is now via mobile devices you’d better believe that you can access all the biggest and best casino sites via mobile. The main choice from the point of view of the player is whether or not they get to download an app or browse to a mobile site. Both have their pluses and you should consider which road you want to go down. Either way, live casino games are available to mobile players and users of other devices, including VR devices.

How do you win at live blackjack?

Live blackjack is a gambling game. That means that there is a risk. That risk is provided via a random event. In the past, that random event has been delivered via a random number generator, but now casino games have gone back to the future and use actual decks of cards and wheels to deliver the random event. You can learn some good strategies though, both for slightly improving your chances of winning, but really for reducing your risk of losing. It’s information that is available for free and you should be wary of people offering to sell it to you. You should also be wary of anyone offering you a guaranteed way to win. There’s no such thing. Click the back button if you land up at a site like this. The best way to play blackjack successfully is to do it safely and with small amounts of money that you can afford to pay out if you lose.

What’s the best bet in blackjack?

The best bet in blackjack is a small one that you can afford to lose. The betting in blackjack is generally very simple. The complication comes in with side betting. Side bets have been introduced as a way to offer more unlikely events that can give a higher pay-out. They pay out more because they are less likely to pay out. You should check what the odds are on any side bets you take on and see if you can find the RTP of each bet too.

Is live online blackjack rigged?

We don’t think so. It is actually quite hard to rig a casino game and casinos in the real world go out of their way to show you that they’re playing their games honestly. The truth is that most casino games have a very healthy “house edge” that guarantees a profit and providing a good-quality service with these games is much easier and more straightforward than trying to guarantee results. Online live casino games are probably even harder to rig – everything is filmed all the time. In East Asia, some casinos show live TV news shows or allow clients to text in and see their messages in real-time in order to prove that there’s no skulduggery afoot, but in reality, a licence and a good-quality site should be enough to tell you that you’re safe and the game is not being rigged.

Can you make money playing live blackjack?

It is possible – but extremely unlikely – that you can make a living playing live blackjack. If you go through any of those exciting lists of people who are famous or professional gamblers then you’ll almost always find that they started with a lot of money – and often lost a lot of it. The mathematics of games don’t lie. If you play live casino games regularly you are most likely to have an experience in line with the games audited, published figures – the theoretical return to player. If that is the case, and you play sensibly, you will probably lose a small amount of money. Playing safely and sensibly is the best way to play. The best way to actually make money when playing live blackjack is to quit when you hit a win!

How do I play live blackjack for real money?

To play live blackjack for real money, you need; Some money! In an online account of some sort, whether that be a bank account, an e-wallet, a pre-paid voucher or some cryptocurrency. You need a casino account. That means a legitimate casino and to play for real money you’ll need to prove your age, address, and perhaps more than that, so you’ll need your id documents. And that’s about it! We also recommend you understand the game properly and do some studying before you play at a live casino site. Then we hope you have good luck!

How do you play live blackjack for free?

It is very hard to play live blackjack for free. Live games require staff to run them so it is very hard to offer them for free. Your best bet is to play the game as an RNG simulator, which you should be able to do on demo mode on any casino site you’re signed up with. You can also play games at review sites.

What is a live blackjack offer?

For the same reason – the costs of running any live game – live blackjack offers are very rare. That doesn’t mean that they’re never found though and if you see one you should consider signing up for it, simply on rarity value. However, as with everything, you should be clear about what you’re signing up for and what restrictions will be placed on any “free” money you win or any “free” games you’re allowed to play. The truth is that these offers are designed to benefit the casino site, by persuading you that that you would like to stay and play there regularly. While this is partly done by showing you how good the site is, it is also partly done by committing you to spend a lot of money – via a wagering requirement – in a quite short space of time. Be aware.