How to Play Blackjack
Blackjack is the simplest card game in the casino to learn and one of the hardest to play perfectly. The goal is not to reach 21 — it is to beat the dealer's hand without going over. This guide walks you through card values, every decision you can make, the dealer's fixed rules, how payouts work, and the mistakes that cost beginners the most money.
Play blackjack on-chain →The objective and how a hand flows
You are playing against the dealer, not the other players. You win by holding a hand total closer to 21 than the dealer's, or by staying in the game while the dealer busts (goes over 21). A round has a fixed rhythm: you place your bet, you receive two cards face up, the dealer receives two cards with one hidden (the hole card). You then act on your hand — hit, stand, double, split or surrender — until you stand or bust. Once every player has acted, the dealer reveals the hole card and plays out their hand by fixed rules with zero discretion. Hands are compared, bets are settled, and a new round begins. On Llamabet the entire flow happens on-chain in seconds: the shuffled shoe is committed on Sui before your bet is accepted, and the seed is revealed after the hand so you can verify the deck was never touched.
Card values: the only math you need
Cards 2 through 10 are worth their face value. Jacks, queens and kings are all worth 10 — which means sixteen of the fifty-two cards in a deck count as 10, a fact that drives most correct strategy. Aces are worth 11 or 1, whichever helps you more. A hand containing an ace counted as 11 is called a soft hand (ace-6 is soft 17); a hand with no ace, or an ace forced to count as 1, is a hard hand. Soft hands are forgiving — you cannot bust by taking one card on a soft total, because the ace simply drops to 1. The best possible hand is an ace plus any ten-value card on the first two cards: a natural blackjack, worth 21 immediately and paid at a premium.
Your five decisions: hit, stand, double, split, surrender
Hit means take another card; you can keep hitting until you stand or bust. Stand means keep your current total and end your turn. Double down lets you double your bet in exchange for exactly one more card — a powerful move on strong starting totals like hard 10 or 11 against a weak dealer card; on Llamabet you can double on hard 9, 10 or 11. Split applies when your first two cards are a pair: where a table offers it, you can separate them into two hands with a second bet equal to your first. The classic rules of thumb are always split aces and eights, never split tens or fives. Surrender lets you forfeit the hand immediately after the deal and take half your stake back — the right play only in the very worst spots, such as hard 16 against a dealer 10. Every option changes your expected value; the point of basic strategy is knowing which one is best for every combination of your hand and the dealer's upcard.
The dealer plays by fixed rules
This is what makes blackjack beatable at all: the dealer has no choices. On Llamabet the dealer hits on any total of 16 or less and stands on 17 or more. The dealer never doubles, never splits, never surrenders, and never reacts to your hand. That rigidity is your information edge — because roughly 30% of cards are ten-value, a dealer showing a 4, 5 or 6 is in real danger of busting, while a dealer showing a 9, 10 or ace usually finishes strong. Basic strategy is essentially a lookup table built from this asymmetry: stand on stiff totals (12–16) when the dealer is weak and likely to bust, hit or press your advantage when the dealer is strong. One more consequence of fixed rules: if the dealer busts, every player still standing wins, regardless of their total.
Payouts: why 3:2 matters
A natural blackjack — ace plus ten-value on the first two cards — pays 3:2 on Llamabet: bet 2 SUI, win 3 SUI plus your stake back. A standard win returns double your stake, a tie (push) returns your bet, and surrender returns half. The 3:2 figure is worth memorizing because many casinos, online and off, quietly pay 6:5 on blackjack instead, and that single change adds roughly 1.4% to the house edge — more than the entire baseline edge of a well-played 3:2 game, per the Wizard of Odds rules survey. Played with sound basic strategy under liberal rules, blackjack carries a house edge of well under 1%, which is why it remains the best table-game value in any casino. Play badly, though, and the effective edge balloons to several percent. Minimum bet on Llamabet is 1 SUI.
Beginner mistakes that actually cost money
Playing to reach 21 instead of playing the dealer's upcard: hitting hard 14 against a dealer 5 feels brave but throws away value, because the dealer busts often enough that standing is correct. Standing on soft 17: ace-6 can never bust with one card, and 17 is a losing total long-term — hit it. Never doubling: refusing to double hard 11 against a dealer 6 sacrifices the single most profitable spot in the game. Taking insurance: when the dealer shows an ace, the insurance side bet loses money long-term unless you are counting cards — decline it every time. Mimicking the dealer (always hitting to 17): this strategy alone gives the house over 5%. Finally, betting emotionally after losses. Blackjack is a negative-expectation game even played perfectly; the edge is small but real, so size bets to a bankroll you can genuinely afford and treat variance as the price of entry.
Your first session on-chain
Sign in with Google — zkLogin derives a Sui wallet for you with no seed phrase — or connect an existing Sui wallet such as Slush. Fund it with SUI and open the blackjack table. Before your bet is accepted, the hash of the shuffled four-deck shoe is committed on the Sui blockchain; after the hand, the server seed is revealed so you can recompute the exact deck and confirm nothing changed mid-hand. Payouts land in your own wallet in about a second. Start at the 1 SUI minimum, keep a basic strategy chart open in another tab, and make the mathematically correct play every single hand — speed is not the goal, accuracy is.
Frequently asked questions
What are the card values in blackjack?
Number cards 2–10 count at face value, jacks, queens and kings all count as 10, and aces count as 11 or 1 — whichever is better for your hand. An ace plus any ten-value card as your first two cards is a natural blackjack, which pays 3:2 on Llamabet.
When should I hit and when should I stand?
As a baseline: always hit totals of 11 or less, always stand on hard 17 or more, and on stiff totals of 12–16 stand when the dealer shows 2–6 (they bust often) and hit when the dealer shows 7 through ace. Soft hands are hit more aggressively because one card cannot bust them. A full basic strategy chart covers every case exactly.
What does the dealer do on 16 and 17?
The dealer follows fixed rules with no decisions: on Llamabet the dealer hits any total of 16 or below and stands on 17 or above. If the dealer busts, every player still standing wins their bet.