Blackjack House Edge

How many decks are in the shoe. Fewer decks favour the player: single deck is worth about 0.34 percentage points compared with six decks.

Whether the dealer stands or hits on soft 17 (an ace counted as 11 making 17). Hitting (H17) adds roughly 0.22 percentage points to the house edge.

Whether you may double down on the hands created by splitting a pair. Forbidding it costs the player about 0.14 percentage points.

Which starting hands may double down. Restricting doubles to totals of 10 and 11 removes profitable soft and hard-9 doubles, adding about 0.18 percentage points of edge.

Late surrender lets you forfeit half your stake after the dealer checks for blackjack. When offered it saves the player about 0.08 percentage points.

What a natural blackjack pays. A 6:5 payout adds about 1.4 percentage points of house edge — more than every other rule on this page combined.

Your average bet per hand; used to turn the edge percentage into an expected loss for the session.

How many hands you expect to play. Expected loss is edge × bet × hands; a live table deals roughly 60–100 hands per hour heads-up, fewer when full.