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Blackjack is the one game here you play against a dealer rather than against a number. You are dealt two cards, the dealer shows one, and you take cards until you are happy with your total. Go over 21 and the hand is lost immediately. Otherwise the dealer plays, and the higher total wins. The whole hand is decided by cards that were fixed before your first decision. The operator commits to the shoe on-chain when the round opens, and the settlement re-derives every card and re-checks every decision on-chain against that commitment. Your decisions themselves happen instantly, off-chain: only the opening and the settlement touch the network.

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How do you play Blackjack?

  1. Place your bet. The round opens on-chain. Two cards come to you face up, and two to the dealer (one face up, one face down).
  2. Read your total. Number cards count their face value, all picture cards count 10, and an ace counts 11 unless that would put you over 21, in which case it counts 1. A hand holding an ace still counted as 11 is called soft, because one more card cannot bust it.
  3. Play your hand. Hit takes another card. Stand ends your turn. Double doubles your stake and gives you exactly one more card. Split turns a pair into two hands, each with its own stake. Surrender gives up the hand and returns half your stake.
  4. The dealer plays. Once you stand, the dealer turns the hidden card over and draws until reaching 17 or more, then stops. The dealer has no choices to make: the rule is fixed, and it applies whatever you are holding, so the dealer will draw on a weak total even when already beating you.
An action the hand does not allow is shown greyed out rather than hidden, so you can always see what is on offer and why it is not. Unlike Mines, there is a clock. Each decision has a short time limit, shown as a ring around the action buttons. Letting it run out stands your hand for you rather than forfeiting it: you keep whatever the hand is worth. The insurance window has its own, shorter timer.

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What does the dealer’s ace mean?

When the dealer’s face-up card is an ace, you are offered a side decision before playing your hand. If you hold blackjack yourself, you are offered even money: a guaranteed 1:1 payout instead of risking a push against a dealer blackjack. Otherwise you are offered insurance, a side bet of half your stake that the dealer’s hidden card is worth 10. It pays 2:1 if you are right and is lost if you are wrong. Insurance is settled on its own and does not change how your main hand plays. Either way the window is short and closes on a timer. Letting it run out simply declines.

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How is a Blackjack payout calculated?

A blackjack beats any other 21. If you split, each hand is settled separately against the dealer, so one can win while the other loses.

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Why does my balance drop by more than my stake?

Because a hand can commit more than you first bet. A double doubles a stake, and a split creates a second one. Rather than asking the network for permission at each decision, which would make every click wait on a transaction, the round reserves enough at the start to cover everything the hand could commit, and returns whatever you did not use at settlement. That reserve is a multiple of your stake, capped by what you actually hold. Two consequences worth knowing:
  • The figure shown as your available balance during a hand is what you can still spend, so it already accounts for the reserve.
  • If your balance cannot fund a double or a split, that action is simply not offered. You are never allowed to commit money you do not have, and nothing fails halfway through a hand.
Nothing is charged for reserving it. The unused part comes straight back when the hand settles.

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Fairness

Two independent inputs fix the shoe before you act:
  • a server-seed commitment stored on-chain when the round opens, so the cards cannot be changed to answer your decisions;
  • a Solana slot hash captured when the opening transaction lands: public network entropy the operator cannot predict while building the transaction.
At settlement the program re-derives the shoe on-chain from the revealed seed, replays your whole sequence of decisions against it, and pays the result it computes itself. It verifies that the seed matches the commitment, that every decision was legal at the moment it was made, and that the dealer drew exactly where the rules require. A misreported hand fails on-chain instead of settling. This is also why the dealer cannot adapt to your hand: a dealer with a choice could not be replayed to the same cards, and the settlement would not verify.

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Limits

  • Bets are bounded by the table minimum and maximum.
  • Profit on a single round is capped at a share of the house bankroll. If a win would exceed the cap, you are paid the cap. A capped win is still a win, and you always keep your stake.
  • A round left unfinished is resolved for you after the table timeout, and the reserve is released.
Current values for the bet bounds, the profit cap, the house edge and the table rules in force live in Game limits and Fees & limits.