Blackjack dealer rules are the one part of the game nobody at the table decides. The dealer draws to 16, stops at 17, looks at the hole card at a set moment and settles bets in a set order. Inside that script, two lines change from table to table: whether the dealer hits or stands on a soft 17, and whether the dealer checks for blackjack before you act. Both move the house edge, and both are written in the game's info screen, where you can read them in under a minute.
On this page
What the dealer has to do on every hand
At any table, live or RNG, the dealer runs the same sequence:
- Deal two cards to each player and one face-up card to the dealer. The second dealer card goes face down now, or, at tables without a hole card, only after the players have acted.
- With an ace or a ten-value card showing, check for blackjack, if the table uses the peek.
- Wait while each player hits, stands, doubles, splits or surrenders.
- Turn the second card and draw until the total is 17 or more.
- Pay, push or collect each bet.
The dealer never doubles, never splits and never stops on 16. That rigid behaviour is what makes basic strategy possible: because the dealer cannot adapt, the chance of each dealer total can be worked out in advance and your best play follows from it.
Soft 17: stand or hit
A soft 17 is a 17 that counts an ace as 11: ace-6, ace-2-4, ace-3-3 and so on. At an S17 table the dealer stands on it. At an H17 table the dealer takes another card.
Why does hitting help the house? A dealer 17 is a poor finish. It beats only player totals of 16 or less and pushes a player who stood on 17. When the dealer draws to a soft 17, the ace can drop to 1, so that card cannot bust the hand. The dealer gets another try at 18 to 21 with no risk on the first card, and the hands where a later card busts do not make up for it.
The price is known. In the Wizard of Odds table of rule variations, "dealer hits soft 17" lowers the player's return by 0.22 percentage points. The baseline there is eight decks, doubling on any two cards, doubling after a split and splitting to four hands, the same kind of shoe most live studios deal.
H17 also changes a handful of plays. One concerns pairs: if the table hits soft 17 and offers surrender, a pair of 8s against an ace is surrendered instead of split. The rest are listed in the H17 section of our strategy chart.
The peek, and tables with no hole card
At a peek table, the dealer checks the face-down card whenever the upcard is an ace or a ten. If it makes blackjack, the round ends at once. You lose your first stake, or push with a blackjack of your own, and you never get the chance to add money to a hand that was already beaten.
At a European no-hole-card table, the second dealer card arrives after everyone has acted. If it makes blackjack, every extra bet you placed by doubling or splitting goes with it, unless the rules say extra bets are returned.
How often is the hand already lost? Our calculation for an eight-deck shoe once the upcard is out, with 415 cards left:
| Dealer upcard | Cards that complete a blackjack | Chance |
|---|---|---|
| Ace | 128 ten-value cards | 128 ÷ 415 ≈ 30.8% |
| Ten-value card | 32 aces | 32 ÷ 415 ≈ 7.7% |
This ignores your own two cards, which shift the figures by a fraction of a point.
So with a ten showing, roughly one hand in thirteen is lost before you move. The peek decides whether you can put more money on it. Take 11 against a dealer ten and a $10 stake. At a peek table, the dealer blackjacks are removed before you double, and those hands cost you $10. At a no-hole-card table that keeps extra bets, you double first and lose $20 on the same hands. That extra $10 on 7.7% of such hands is why the no-hole-card chart says hit 11 against a ten.
| Hole-card rule | Change to the player's return |
|---|---|
| Dealer peeks under aces and tens | baseline |
| No peek with a ten showing | −0.10% |
| No peek with an ace showing | −0.01% |
| No hole card, doubles and splits lost to a blackjack | −0.11% |
| of which lost doubles | −0.08% |
| of which lost splits | −0.03% |
Blackjack dealer rules priced, table by table
The house edge we use across this site for eight decks, S17, doubling after a split and a 3:2 blackjack is about 0.45% (see the house edge, rule by rule). Add the dealer rules to it:
| Table | Dealer rules | House edge |
|---|---|---|
| A | S17, peek | about 0.45% |
| B | H17, peek | 0.45 + 0.22 ≈ 0.67% |
| C | S17, no hole card | 0.45 + 0.11 ≈ 0.56% |
| D | H17, no hole card | 0.45 + 0.22 + 0.11 ≈ 0.78% |
Adding rule costs one at a time is an approximation; combined, they differ by a few hundredths of a point.
What it means in money: expected cost = hands × stake × edge.
| Session | A | B | C | D |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 200 hands at $10 | $9.00 | $13.40 | $11.20 | $15.60 |
| 1,000 hands at $10 | $45 | $67 | $56 | $78 |
| 1,000 hands at $50 | $225 | $335 | $280 | $390 |
On a live table, where a busy seat sees about 60 hands an hour, 1,000 hands is a long weekend. On an RNG table you can play that many in an evening, so the gap between table A and table D reaches you much faster. The dealer rules still cost far less than a short-paying natural: 6:5 lowers the player's return by 1.39 points, more than all four dealer lines combined. Our 3:2 vs 6:5 page has the numbers.
Where to find the blackjack dealer rules at the table
- Live tables. Open the info or help icon in the game window. Look for the line on soft 17, worded as "dealer stands on soft 17" or "dealer hits soft 17". Some layouts print it on the felt as well; the info screen is the version that counts. For more on studio formats, see live blackjack.
- RNG tables. The rules page sits in the game menu, often behind a "?" or an "i".
- On a phone. The info button is often folded into the game menu. Open it before the first bet, not after the first odd hand.
- The hole card. Look for "dealer checks for blackjack" (a peek table) or "if the dealer has blackjack, all bets lose" (no hole card, extra bets lost). "Original bets only" means your doubles and splits come back.
- Nothing written? Assume the worse version until you see otherwise.
A checklist before you sit down
- Soft 17: does the dealer stand or hit?
- Hole card: does the dealer peek, and if there is no hole card, are extra bets returned?
- Blackjack payout: 3:2, never 6:5.
- Chart: use the S17 or H17 version that matches, and the no-hole-card changes if needed.
- Insurance: none of the blackjack dealer rules make it a good bet; insurance and side bets explains why.
- Pairs: the split decisions barely change between S17 and H17; our splitting pairs table covers every pair.
Play live and RNG blackjack with crypto.
Rules that look like dealer rules but are something else
Some games change what the dealer's total means rather than how the dealer draws. These cost far more than soft 17:
| Rule | Change to the player's return |
|---|---|
| Player loses ties on 17 | −1.87% |
| A dealer 22 pushes instead of busting | −6.91% |
A game where a dealer 22 is a push has to give almost 7 points back elsewhere in its rules, or nobody would play it. Its chart is different, and the S17 or H17 line on its info screen is only a small part of the price.
The crypto casinos we compare, ranked on their written payout rules, are on our home page. Whichever you choose, read the dealer lines in each game before you pick a seat.
- 1
Vave
4.9/5Casino and sportsbook on one balance, with around 90 coins in the cashier.
Latcas B.V. · since 2022 · Licence Curaçao OGL/2024/1676/0905 · 90 coins: BTC, ETH, USDT, LTC · Sportsbook on the same account
- 2
Bitcasino.io
4.8/5The highest written weekly withdrawal cap we found: 1,000,000 USDT.
EZ Spins Ltd · Licence Anjouan ALSI-202509076 · Withdrawal cap 1,000,000 USDT per week (clause 6.10) · ID check above €2,500 · Sportsbook on the same account
- 3
Wild.io
4.7/5Twelve coins including SOL and USDC, and a weekly cap written as a number.
Stack Gaming Ltd · since 2022 · Licence Anjouan ALSI-202504044-FI2 · 12 coins: BTC, ETH, BCH, LTC · Withdrawal cap $100,000 per week (clause 9.6) · Sportsbook on the same account
- 4
Cafe Casino
4.4/5Twenty-plus blackjack games, Pontoon and Pirate 21 among them, with a crypto cashier.
Arbol Media B.V. · Licence Curaçao OGL/2024/670/0711 · 4 coins: BTC, BCH, ETH, LTC
- 5
Ignition
4.2/5Eighteen RNG blackjack games, from single deck to European, and 48 live blackjack tables.
Arachis Media Ltd · Licence Anjouan
The score counts what each casino publishes about licence, ID checks and limits, not how much we like the lobby.
Questions and answers
Does the dealer hit or stand on soft 17 in online blackjack?
Both versions exist, and the table's info screen says which one you are at. A table where the dealer stands on soft 17 is better for you by about 0.22 points.
What is the peek rule in blackjack?
With an ace or a ten-value card showing, the dealer checks the hole card for blackjack before anyone acts. If it is there, the hand ends and you lose only your first stake.
How much does a table without a hole card cost?
About 0.11 points when your doubles and splits are lost to a dealer blackjack. Most of that, 0.08 points, comes from lost doubles.
Can a blackjack dealer decide to hit or stand?
No. Every card the dealer draws is set by the blackjack dealer rules of that table, so the same hand is always played the same way.