How to Deal Blackjack: Dealing Order, Peek and Dealer Rules

To deal blackjack, the dealer waits for all bets, deals two cards to each player and two to the dealer (one face down), and peeks for blackjack when the up card is an ace or a ten-value card. Players then act one by one, and the dealer must hit 16 or less, stand on hard 17 or more, and follow the table's soft 17 rule.

• Before the Deal: Bets, Shoe and Burn Card
• Dealing Order, Card by Card
• The Peek for Blackjack
• Players Act One at a Time
• How the Dealer Plays: Fixed Rules
• Paying and Collecting Bets
• Online: Live Dealer vs Digital Games

01Before the Deal: Bets, Shoe and Burn Card

Every round starts with bets. No cards are dealt until the betting time ends.

• Bets – each player puts chips in the betting circle, the marked spot in front of each seat. Online, you click chips and a timer shows how long betting stays open.
• The shoe – the box the cards are dealt from. The table rules list how many decks of 52 cards are in the shoe, for example 6 or 8.
• The shuffle – all decks are mixed before the first round. At live tables, a person or a shuffling machine does this. In digital games, software does it.
• The cut card – a plastic card placed deep in the shoe. When the dealer reaches it, the cards are shuffled again after that round.
• The burn card – after a new shuffle, the dealer takes the first card and puts it in the discard tray without showing it. Nobody plays that card.

Victoria's tip

Before you place a bet, read the rules shown at the table. Look for the blackjack payout and the soft 17 rule.

02Dealing Order, Card by Card

The dealer deals clockwise. The first card goes to the seat on the dealer's left, called first base.

As you face the dealer, that seat is on your far right.

1. One card face up to each player.
2. One card face up to the dealer. This is the up card.
3. A second card face up to each player.
4. A second card face down to the dealer. This is the hole card. In European games, the dealer does not take this card yet.

Here you hold a 10 and a 6, which is a hard 16. The dealer's up card is a 10.

A hard hand has no ace, or has an ace that counts as 1.

An ace plus a ten-value card (10, J, Q or K) as your first two cards is a blackjack – 21 with two cards. A paid blackjack comes about once every 22 hands.

03The Peek for Blackjack

When the dealer's up card is an ace or a ten-value card, the dealer checks the hole card before any player acts. This check is called the peek.

• Ace up – the dealer first offers insurance, a side bet that costs up to half your original bet and pays 2:1 if the dealer has blackjack. Then the dealer peeks.
• Ten-value card up – the dealer peeks right away.
• 2 to 9 up – no peek. The round goes straight to the players.

Here the dealer has blackjack. The hole card is turned over and the round ends.

You lose your bet, unless you also have blackjack. If you also have blackjack, it is a push – a tie, and your bet comes back.

• With an ace up and 6 decks, the hole card is a ten-value card about 30.9% of the time.
• The house edge on the insurance bet is about 7.4%.

More details are on the blackjack insurance page.

European no hole card

A European no-hole-card game with 6 decks, dealer stands on soft 17 and double after split has a house edge of about 0.52%. See European blackjack for the full rules.

04Players Act One at a Time

After the peek, each player plays the whole hand before the next player starts. The order goes from the dealer's left to the dealer's right.

• Hit – you take another card.
• Stand – you keep your total and take no more cards.
• Double down – you add a second bet equal to your first and take exactly one more card.
• Split – with a pair (two cards of the same value), you add a second bet and play the two cards as two hands.
• Surrender – at some tables, you give up the hand and get half your bet back.

If your total goes over 21, you bust. Your bet is lost right away, even if the dealer busts later.

This row shows the basic strategy move for hard 16: stand against a dealer 2 to 6, hit against a dealer 7 to ace. The full chart is on the blackjack strategy chart page.

05How the Dealer Plays: Fixed Rules

The dealer makes no choices. After all players finish, the dealer turns over the hole card and follows the same rules every time.

A soft hand has an ace that counts as 11. Here the dealer's ace and 6 make soft 17.

The ace counts as 11 unless that would put the hand over 21; then it counts as 1.

The dealer busts most often with a 6 up – about 43.9% of the time. With an ace up, the dealer busts only about 13.9% of the time, counted before the dealer checks for blackjack.

When the dealer hits soft 17, the house edge goes up by about 0.21 percentage points. The soft 17 page shows the difference.

06Paying and Collecting Bets

When the dealer finishes, each hand still in play is compared with the dealer's total. The dealer collects losing bets and pays winning bets.

Some tables pay blackjack only 6:5. With otherwise standard rules, that raises the house edge from about 0.62% to about 1.98%.

07Online: Live Dealer vs Digital Games

Online blackjack comes in two forms. In both, the dealing order and dealer rules are the same.

Card counting means keeping track of the cards already played. It does not help in digital games, because digital online games usually reshuffle every round.

Victoria's tip

Play some free rounds in the blackjack simulator to watch the dealing order and the dealer rules before you sit at any table.

Rules for online play depend on where you live. Read the responsible gambling page before you play for money.

Questions people ask