Best Blackjack Casinos

Our ratings of the top blackjack casinos don’t come out of nowhere. We put every site through a comprehensive battery of checks and tests in order to rate and review each site. That means you can be sure that our recommendations are accurate and unbiased.

If you don’t want to rely on our ratings alone, we encourage you to dig deeper. Check out our detailed reviews that dig into every aspect of online blackjack casinos to get a full picture of what you can expect from each one.

Our reviews focus heavily on the overall user experience, rather than just giving you a list of games and promotions at each casino. For instance, we know that almost all casinos offer blackjack games, so just telling you that you can find blackjack on a site doesn’t help you much.

Instead, we focus more on the experience around those blackjack games. For instance, we’ll not only let you know the range of blackjack games that are available, but we’ll also talk about any unusual variations or side bets a casino offers.

We also talk about how accessible the games are. We look at the user interface for mobile gamers, talk about how smoothly the games control, and discuss how easy it is to accurately and quickly place your bets at the table.

If you’re the player who walks into the casino and just sits down at the first blackjack table they see, then you might be surprised at the variety of casino games and experiences that are available at online blackjack casinos.

Sure, you’ll find standard blackjack games with different numbers of decks and slight rule variations. But there are also exciting variants, live dealer games, multi-hand options, and much more.

Whether you want the traditional blackjack experience or you want to play for a jackpot payout, you can find what you’re looking for online. Let’s break down some of the more interesting features you might not know about at online blackjack casinos.

If you already know how to play blackjack then you're ready to explore the exciting world of this casino favourite. While traditional blackjack is still extremely popular, there are more variations being developed every year. Some of the most common of these variants are casino favourites as well, while others were made just for online players.

Spanish 21 is one of the best-known blackjack offshoots. The player has to deal with a deck that has no tens, but gets a number of special advantages in return, from always winning on a 21 to special payouts for getting 21 with five cards or more, or making it with combinations of 7-7-7 or 6-7-8.

In Pontoon, players can win at 2:1 odds on a blackjack or any five-card hand. However, the dealer wins on all ties, and you won’t see a dealer up card to help you make your decisions.

Have you ever wanted to play more than one hand at a time? While you have to hope the spots are open in a live casino, there’s always room for this in online blackjack. You can play two, three, or even up to seven seats at a time at some multi-hand online tables.

Unless they focus entirely on slots and nothing else, pretty much every major casino gaming provider offers at least a couple versions of blackjack. Still, providers like Evolution Gaming, Ezugi, and Playtech stand out from the crowd for some of their notable innovations in this space.

Evolution has long been one of the leading names in live dealer games, and that’s especially true for live blackjack. Perhaps their most notable invention was Infinite Blackjack, a variant in which any number of people can play simultaneously, each making their own decisions from the same starting hand.

Ezugi recently made a name for itself by adding a more genuine live experience through “video blackjack”, a variant in which all players must have their cameras on, meaning you truly feel like you are playing with your fellow gamblers.

Finally, Playtech gets credit for bringing one of the most popular variants to online casinos. Their official Blackjack Switch game brings this variation to countless gaming sites, and offers one of the highest RTPs of any blackjack version.

Not only are online blackjack and live blackjack brilliant games, but they offer novel experiences. Which one you’ll prefer depends on exactly what you’re looking for.

When you sit down at a live casino blackjack table, you’ll get a more social experience with other players. You can feel the cards in your hand, interact with the dealer, and play in person with your friends. If you're playing for real money at higher stakes, you'll want to brush up on blackjack strategy to increase your chances of winning.

Online blackjack offers you the option of playing at lower stakes and lets you play your hands far more quickly. You also can’t beat the convenience of playing right on your phone anytime you want!

While most Blackjack authors and authorities simply suggest that the origins of Blackjack are unknown, prominent author and original Blackjack Hall of Fame inductee Arnold Snyder (often referred to as the ‘Bishop of Blackjack’) examined the topic in greater depth in his book ‘The Big Book of Blackjack’.

Snyder suggests that the origins of the game may lead back to the French game ‘Quinze’ (meaning “fifteen”) and first appeared in casinos during the sixteenth century. Unlike Blackjack Quinze was a player backed game (the person functioning as the dealer paid all wins) with the house getting a cut of winnings, much like modern day poker. Each player and the dealer would receive one card, the players would act before the dealer and could choose to draw additional cards until they were happy with their hand, had a total of fifteen or exceeded fifteen. The dealer would follow the same process after the players though did not have to conform to specific rules and could to hit or stand as they chose. Unlike Blackjack, players who exceeded fifteen did not automatically lose their bet and if the dealer also exceeded fifteen would have their bets returned to them.

While Quinze allowed the dealer a flexibility of action that is not present in modern day Blackjack again creating a psychological aspect to the game that again compares well with modern day poker, the structure of the game shows clear similarities to that of Blackjack.

A later game that Snyder puts forward as another precursor of Blackjack is Sette e Mezzo (meaning Seven and a Half) which was popular in Italy in the seventeenth century. This game was very similar to Quinze except it was played with a 40 card deck (missing the all the 8s, 9s and 10s pip cards had been removed). The aim of the game was to get a total closer to 7 ½ than the dealer without going over. All cards counted their face value barring face cards that were valued at ½ and the King of Diamonds that was considered Wild and as such could count as any value.

If the player went over 7 ½ their hand was bust and like modern Blackjack they automatically lost their bet, but like Quinze Seete eMezzo was banked by the person dealing rather than the casino, the dealer did not have to follow a specific set of rules and the players were only dealt one initial card.

Quinze and Sette e Mezzo appear to have formed the structural bases upon which the popular game of Vingt- et-Un (Twenty and One) was later derived and while Vingt-et-Un was originally a player banked game, it developed into a casino banked game and shared many of the same rules as modern day Blackjack.

It wasn’t until the eighteen hundreds when Vingt-et-Un – or Twenty One as it became known – started to be played in the gambling houses in the states that two big shifts in rules occurred that substantially reduced the house edge over the player that the game became really popular. Firstly, rather than the dealer’s cards being dealt face down one card was turned face up allowing players to have an idea of what the dealer might hold before making their playing decisions and secondly a set of rules were put in place for how the dealer must play their hand. These rule development substantially improved the player’s chance and – given that the player could no longer bluff - removed the poker-like psychological element of the game.

The Blackjack Hall of Fame was originally set up in 2002 to recognise the most important contributions to the game of the various players and authors who specialised in finding ways for players to win. Hosted by the Barona Hotel and Casinos in San Diego, California, the inductees enjoy life long Room, Food and Beverage comps at the casino on the agreement that they do not ever play at the casino’s tables.

The first group of inductees initiated were done so through a combination of a public ballot which was available online and voting by the professional players that attended the Blackjack Ball in January of 2003.

The Blackjack Ball is a private invitation only event that is only open to professional Advantage Players held in January each year in a secret location in Las Vegas and hosted by Max Rubin. To receive an invitation and current invitee needs to suggest and vouch for you.

After the first year, public voting for inductions into the Hall of Fame was restricted and both the nominations and the ultimate admissions were decided by attendees of the Blackjack Ball. This change occurred because the organisers of the Hall of Fame felt that the best people to recognise the contributions that really made a difference to the game of Blackjack were the players who spent their lives putting the theories into practice.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_O._Thorp) 

Widely considered by Card Counters and the general public to be the Father of Card Counting, Thorp was the first to publish a gambling system that could successfully beat any casino game. The publication of ‘Beat the Dealer: A Winning Strategy for the Game of Twenty’ caused such a furore within the casino industry – after having made it to the New York Times best sellers list - that many casinos in tandem decided to alter the rules of the Blackjack games they offered. This results in players abandoning the effected casinos to such a degree that within 2 weeks of the rule change, the new rules were abandoned.

Alongside revolutionising the game of Blackjack Thorp is known for being the ‘Father of the wearable computer’. This title came about in 1961 when he – working with Claude Shannon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon), a Nobel laureate in the field of Civil Engineering – developed computers disguised in shoes and cigarette packets to predict the likely outcome at the game of Roulette. At the time that Thorp and Shannon were using their computers at the table there were no laws prohibiting this activity, but this has since been illegalised.

Outside of gambling Throp has been a professor at UC Irvine, MIT and New Mexico State University. He has also applied his knowledge of probability and statistics to the stock markets where he’s had substantial success running various Hedge Funds.

Gambling books authored by Edward O. Thorp;

Al Francesco – not his real name – is the man who is known to have trained Ken Uston, was the inventor of team play at Blackjack.

Francesco developed what is known at the ‘Big Player’ strategy. One of the primary ways that casinos pick off Card Counters is by watching their bet spread – a Card Counter has to bet substantially higher when they shoe favours them than when the remaining cards favour the dealer. The bigger the difference between the highest and lowest bet the bigger the Card Counter’s edge, but this difference also looks unnatural when compared to average Blackjack players.

Francesco concluded that to successfully make money counting cards the player needed to disguise the change in their bet size. To this end he started training groups of card counters. Most of the counters – known as Spotters – would simply move round the casino playing small bets at different tables. When a good count occurred the spotter would give a signal to the Big Player who would then come over to the table and place big bets until such time as all the extra high cards had come out of the shuffle point was reached.

The development of the Big Player strategy was one of the most substantial changes in the world of Blackjack and Card Counting and allowed Francesco’s team to operate completely undetected for many years. The publication of Ken Uston’s ‘The Big Player’, which discussed this technique, supposedly caused a rift between the two men and certainly alerted the casinos to this strategy.

None-the-less the Big Player strategy is still in use today and has been applied by almost all of the most successful Blackjack teams to have operated since.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Uston)

Ken Uston, one of the players to have played on Al Francesco’s teams, is probably the most famous Card Counter of all time due to the media coverage that resulted from his count case against Resorts International in New Jersey.

Uston’s first book – co-authored with Roger Rapaport – was the first publication to discuss the intricacies of the Big Player team strategy devised and implemented by Al Francesco. This book revolutionised the way that Card Counters approached play, offering them a new way to disguise what they were doing. This technique is still in used today and – despite being well known by casinos as well as players – can be very effective.

In a further book, ‘Million Dollar Blackjack’, Uston was one of the first to discuss Hole Carding, the practice of finding a dealer that’s doing an insufficient job of protecting their down card. This technique was far more powerful than Card Counting and again changed the way many professional players approached the game.

In 1979, after being barred from a casino in New Jersey for counting cards, Uston took Resorts International to the New Jersey Supreme Court claiming that the casino had discriminated against him. Ultimately the Supreme Court ruled for Uston and since that time the casinos in New Jersey have been unable to bar skilled player. The casino’s response to this restriction has been to reduce the quality to their games, adding more decks and less favourable rules.

Gambling books authored by Ken Uston;

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Snyder )

Arnold Snyder is one of the most prolific Blackjack authors of all time. Alongside publishing numerous books on Blackjack he previously issued ‘Blackjack Forum’, a quarterly trade journal for Advantage Players.

His contributions to the field include the importance of deck penetration to the advantage that a Card Counter can gain over the game (a topic previously unexplored until the publication of ‘The Blackjack Formula’), the revelation that the indicies (count that you would deviate from Basic Strategy) were not equally valuable and that substantial simplifications could be made to the indicies tables without significant loss of advantage and the most complete exploration of the art of Shuffle Tracking to date.

Gambling books authored by Arnold Snyder;

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_Wong)

Stanford Wong – not his real name – was the originator of one of the most important strategies to be used by Card Counters; Back Counting, or as it’s often called ‘Wonging’.

One of the biggest problems for any Card Counter is playing through hands where they do not have an edge. Regardless of how much you bet you are losing money and if you make your bets at disadvantageous times too much smaller than those you place when you have an edge, you’ll quickly be identified as a Card Counter and asked not to play.

Wonging is the practice of standing away from the table, keeping track of the cards as they are played, and only entering the game if the cards remaining to be played favour the player and leaving the table if the cards become favourable to the house again. Proficient players will enter good games and abandon tracking games mid-shoe if the count becomes too negative, preferring to take their chances with a freshly shuffled shoe.

Many casinos today with have ‘No Mid-Shoe Entry’ signs posted on their table, preventing a player from starting to play until the first hand after a new shuffle. This rule was introduced as a direct consequence of Wonging and the Big Player team strategies created by Al Francesco and popularised by Ken Uston.

Wong’s contribution to Blackjack and Advantage Play in general go far beyond this and he’s written many books on gaining an edge over various games.

Gambling books authored by Stanford Wong;

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_A._Griffin )

While Peter Griffin didn’t publish many books on the subject of Blackjack, his book ‘The Theory of Blackjack’ is considered to be one of the most important books ever published in the field and many theorists still cite the work and methods of Griffin.

Griffin was the first to estimate the House Advantage over the average Blackjack player and his work in deriving the Betting Correlation and Playing Efficiency of counting systems made for easy comparisons between different counts.

Gambling books authored by Peter Griffin;

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hyland)

If you’re not already a knowledgeable Card Counter the chances are you won’t have heard of Tommy Hyland. Where other players that have run successful teams have become famous after their teams ended, the Hyland team has been playing successfully for 35 years, which given the egos involved in professional play is unprecedented.

The Hyland team have successfully employed every well-known Advantage Play strategy and have won through in a Canadian court case where three Ontarian casinos attempted to present Ace Sequencing and team play as criminal activity, a position that the court did not accept.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Rubin)

Max Rubin was initiated into the Blackjack Hall of Fame for his book ‘Comp City :  A Guide to Free Gambling Vacations’. Comp City provide insider knowledge on how various casino reward programs works and what players could do – even those not already engaged in Advantage Play – to maximise the amount they got out of their comps while minimising the amount the spent at the tables. Rubin’s book is considered the definitive guide to getting more out of comp programs than you put in.

Gambling books authored by Max Rubin;

After Thorp’s venture into using computers to beat Roulette, Keith Taft and his son Marty are probably the most famous device players in the gambling world. Up until the use of computer devices was illegalised in the mid-1980s Keith spent his life coming up with more and more inventive computers that could be concealed on a person and used to beat the game of Blackjack. His machines were the reason the laws were changed.

Julien Braun may not have written many books, but his contribution to the early development of the field of Blackjack fundamental to many player’s success. Braun was the programmer that worked with Thorp on his second edition of ‘Beat the Dealer’, helping to develop the Hi/Lo count – still one of the most popular counting systems in use today.

The authors and players have a lot to thank Braun for – without his programming skills much that we now know would still be a mystery.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Revere )

Lawrence Revere was both a serious player and – at times - a casino employee. His only book ‘Playing Blackjack as a Business’ is considered a landmark work of its time, offering stronger count systems than had previously been available on the market (developed in conjunction with Julien Braun) and radically simplifying the very premise of the True Count allowing Card Counting to be applied without such mental strain.

His count systems are still on sale today through members of his family, but by and large there are preferable alternatives 30 years on.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Grosjean)

By those in the know James Grosjean is widely considered to be the best player ever to have attacked the game. Grosjean is that rare combination of theoretical genius and personality capable of blending in naturally within a casino environment.

Grosjean has written one book – ‘Beyond Counting: Exploiting Casino Games from Blackjack to Video Poker’ – though the second edition of this book (titled ‘Exhibit CAA: Beyond Counting’) was so vastly expanded that it’s probably accurate to consider it a book in its own right. His published works are considered amongst the most valuable gambling information in print today and was sold only to individuals that could provide a reference from a professional player.

Having read both texts, Grosjean’s work is unlike anything else on the market and provides an insight into both the mind-set of a professional player and showcases what a truly exceptional theoretical mathematician and programmer he is.

Grosjean has also been involved in two major lawsuits against both Caesar’s and Imperial Palace casino after being illegally detained be these establishments for legitimate, legal Advantage Play. The title ‘Exhibit CAA: Beyond Counting’ was in reference to Caesar’s defence team introducing Grosjean’s first book as evidence against him. Both of these cases were eventually found in Grosjean’s favour. During the Imperial Palace case, Grosjean also sued the Griffin Investigations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffin_Investigations) who had been disseminating information labelling Grosjean as a cheater. This lawsuit ultimately resulted in Griffin Investigations filing for Bankruptcy.

Gambling books authored by James Grosjean;

While you may not realise it if you’ve watched many films about gambling it’s fairly likely that you’re already familiar with a character that’s at least supposedly based on John Chang.

Chang has been a professional player for many years and was one of the managers and primary driving forces behind the most successful years of the MIT Blackjack team. Ben Mezrich’s New York Times bestselling book ‘Bringing Down the House’ featured a character called ‘Mickey Rosa’ that the author claims was an amalgamate character that insider knowledge suggests incorporated many experiences that were based on Chang. The book was later adapted into the film ‘21’ that starred Kevin Spacey as Mickey Rosa. The book was not particularly fastidious in holding to the truth of the story and the resultant film would be difficult to associate with the book without the explicit statement that it was based on Bringing Down the House, but nevertheless the character on Mickey Rosa was a fragmented representation of some of the experiences of John Chang.

Under Chang’s management the MIT team had some of the most successful years. Much of the strategy development and simulation of data was taken on by Chang and he’s still considered one of the foremost analysts of the game.

Known as ‘The Four Horsemen of Aberdeen’, Baldwin, Cantley, Maisel and McDermott were the mathematicians that originally derived and published the first Basic Strategy for the game of Blackjack. Their contribution laid the groundwork for every development to have occurred since then. For more information see the History section of this article.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_W._Munchkin)

Richard Munchkin taught himself to count cards around 1977 using Lawrence Revere’s book ‘Playing Blackjack as a Business’. He’s played on several successful teams and authored the book ‘Gambling Wizards’ which was a compilation of interviews and discussions with some of the most experienced and skilled players in the world.

Munchkin also co-hosts a radio show with Video Poker professional Bob Dancer and has directed several films during the 80’s and 90’s, most of which appear to have been in the Erotic Thriller genre.

Not much more can be said of Munchkin’s playing experiences as he is still active and chooses to keep quiet about the specific contributions that lead his peers to feel he warranted a position in the Hall of Fame.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darryl_Purpose)

Darryl Purpose is one of the few people who has publicly revealed that they played on teams with Ken Uston and Al Francesco, though his comments about Uston’s ability to make money playing were far from flattering. Purpose is very highly respected by his peers and considered to be one of the best players in the world, though like Munchkin chooses not to reveal the specific contributions that lead his peers to induct him into the Hall of Fame.

Purpose is also a well-known singer songwriter who has toured extensively across the UK.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeljko_Ranogajec)

As with some of the other players in the Hall of Fame, Ranogajec is a private individual primarily due to his current involvement with Advantage Play. As such much of the detail about his achievements are drawn from unclear sources.

Ranogajec began his playing career at the game of Blackjack where he allegedly turned a few hundred dollars into millions, playing prolifically in Australia.

In other areas of gambling – specifically horse racing - Ranogajec is believed to be one of the most substantial bettors in the world and is rumoured to account for around 7% of Australian bookmakers TabCorp’s turn over and one third of Betfair’s Australian operations. That being the case, bets placed by Ranogajec are likely to be large enough that they will move entire markets shifting the odds other player’s will receive when he chooses to wager and he is believed to have an extensive network of employees involved in the analysis of the markets and location of profitable opportunities.

Andersen is a long term successful high stakes Blackjack player. He’s a very private individual who rarely gives interviews though has authored two books ‘Turning the Tables in Las Vegas’ and ‘Burning the Tables in Las Vegas’. Andersen’s books specifically focus on camouflage strategies for Card Counters and take an in depth look – with the assistance of Stanford Wong – at the various playing errors that a player can intentionally make that will throw casino security personnel that happen to be examining play of the trail while minimising the losses generated due to these cover plays.

Andersen’s approach to playing and discussion of how to disguise clever play has dramatically improved the average Card Counter’s chances of avoiding detection.

Gambling books authored by Ian Andersen;

Bob Nersesian is a lawyer specialising in gambling law. He’s represented numerous professional players including James Grosjean in his cases against Caesar’s, Imperial Palace and Griffin Investigations. In each these cases Nersesian was successful in the representation of his clients.

Nersesian has published a book – ‘Beat the Player’- discussing various important legal cases that involve Advantage Players and specifically giving player’s advice on their legal rights when interacting with casinos. This book is an invaluable resource for any serious player.

Gambling books authored by Bob Nersesian;