Blackjack Glossary: Every Term You'll Hear at the Table, A to Z

Why blackjack is called blackjack

The game was long known as twenty-one. The popular story of its new name goes like this: to draw players in, some gambling halls offered a special bonus for a hand made of the ace of spades and a black jack, the jack of spades or clubs. Players started calling the game after the hand. In time the bonus disappeared, but the name stayed, and now it means any ace with any ten-value card.

Blackjack terms from A to Z

Terms marked as BlackJack Streak features describe how things work on our table. Everything else applies to blackjack wherever you play it.

A

Ace. The most flexible card in the deck: worth 1 or 11, whichever helps your hand more.

Action. The total amount of chips you bet over a session, not just what you win or lose.

Anchor. The last seat to act before the dealer, on the dealer's right. Also called third base.

B

Bankroll. The chips you set aside to play with. At BlackJack Streak everyone starts with a bankroll of 500,000 free play chips.

Basic strategy. The mathematically best play for every combination of your hand and the dealer's upcard. See our full basic strategy chart.

Blackjack. An ace and a ten-value card as your first two cards. It pays 3 to 2 at a good table. Also called a natural. Any other 21 is just 21.

Burn card. A card some dealers discard unseen from the top of a freshly shuffled shoe before the first hand.

Bust. Going over 21. A bust loses straight away, even if the dealer busts afterward.

C

Card counting. Tracking the cards already dealt to judge whether the rest of the shoe favors the player. Our guide to card counting online explains how.

Cut card. A plastic card placed in the shoe to mark when to reshuffle. In our shoe it sits 75% of the way through.

Cut card meter. The bar on our shoe tag that shows how much of the shoe has been dealt and where the cut card is, along with how many cards are left.

D

Dealer. The person (or, on our table, a 3D character named Frank) who deals the cards and plays the house hand by fixed rules.

Discard holder. The tray where used cards go after each round. On our table it's the clear acrylic box across from the shoe.

Double down. Doubling your bet in exchange for exactly one more card. Best with 10 or 11 against a weak dealer card.

Double after split (DAS). A rule that lets you double down on a hand created by splitting. Good for the player, and allowed on our table.

E

Even money. An offer made when you have blackjack and the dealer shows an ace: take a guaranteed 1 to 1 payout now instead of risking a push. Mathematically, it's the same as taking insurance.

F

Face card. A jack, queen or king. Each is worth 10.

First base. The first seat to receive cards and act, on the dealer's left.

Five Card Charlie. In some home games, a five-card hand that hasn't busted wins automatically. At BlackJack Streak it's a badge you earn by winning a hand with five or more cards.

Flat betting. Betting the same amount every hand. A sensible habit while you learn.

H

Hand. Your cards in a round, or the round itself. After a split you play more than one hand.

Hard hand. A hand with no ace, or with an ace that has to count as 1. A 10 and a 7 is hard 17.

Heater. A winning streak. Frank's line when you're on one: “You’re on a heater, partner!”

Hit. Take another card.

Hit soft 17 (H17). A rule where the dealer must draw to a soft 17. It costs the player about 0.2%. Our dealer stands on soft 17 unless you change it in Settings.

Hole card. The dealer's face-down card. At BlackJack Streak it isn't even sent to your browser until it's turned over.

House edge. The share of each bet the game keeps over the long run. With perfect basic strategy at our default rules, about 0.38%. More in our odds guide.

I

Insurance. A side bet, offered when the dealer shows an ace, that the dealer has blackjack. It pays 2 to 1 and loses money over time unless you count cards.

L

Late surrender. Giving up half your bet after the dealer has checked for blackjack. Allowed by default at BlackJack Streak.

N

Natural. Another name for blackjack: an ace and a ten-value card as your first two cards.

P

Peek. When the dealer, showing an ace or a ten, checks the hole card for blackjack before anyone plays. If it's there, the round ends at once.

Penetration. How far into the shoe the dealer goes before reshuffling. Deeper penetration helps card counters.

Player seed. At BlackJack Streak, a random value your browser adds to every shuffle, so even the server can't choose the order of the cards on its own.

Provably fair. A shuffle you can check after the fact. See how our provably fair shuffle works.

Push. A tie. Your total equals the dealer's, and your bet comes back. Frank's verdict: “A push. Nobody wins, nobody cries.”

R

Rebet. Placing the same bet as last round. On our table, pressing Space with no chips out deals again at your last bet.

Resplit. Splitting again when a split hand receives another matching card. We allow up to four hands, but split aces get one card each.

Running count. In card counting, the tally you keep as each card is dealt.

S

Shoe. The box that holds several shuffled decks for dealing. BlackJack Streak uses six decks by default, and you can choose 1, 2, 4 or 8.

Shoe fingerprint. At BlackJack Streak, a SHA-256 fingerprint of the dealer's secret seed, published before the shoe is dealt, so the shuffle can't be changed later without it showing.

Shuffle. Mixing the cards into a random order. A good online shuffle makes every order equally likely.

Six to five (6:5). A blackjack payout worse than the standard 3 to 2. It costs the player about 1.4% of every bet.

Soft hand. A hand with an ace counted as 11, which can't bust on the next card. An ace and a 6 is soft 17.

Split. Turning a pair into two separate hands, each with its own bet.

Stand. Keeping the hand you have and ending your turn.

Stands on soft 17 (S17). A rule where the dealer stops on any 17, soft or hard. Better for the player than H17.

Stiff hand. A hard 12 to 16: a hand that can bust with one more card but usually isn't strong enough to stand on against a good dealer card.

Sucker bet. A bet with poor odds for the player. Frank calls insurance “usually a sucker bet.”

Surrender. Giving up your hand for half your bet back.

T

Ten-value card. Any 10, jack, queen or king.

Third base. The last seat to act before the dealer. Also called the anchor.

Three to two (3:2). The standard blackjack payout: a 10,000 bet wins 15,000.

Tiers. At BlackJack Streak, the badge every player carries, earned by hands won: Rookie to start, then Bronze (20 wins), Silver (40), Gold (100), Platinum (200) and Diamond (500).

True count. In card counting, the running count divided by the number of decks left to be dealt.

U

Upcard. The dealer's face-up card. Most strategy decisions depend on it.

The five terms that matter most

If you only remember five words from this page, make them these:

1. Soft hand. It changes how you play an otherwise identical total.
2. Upcard. Nearly every decision depends on it.
3. Double down. The play that wins you the most when you use it at the right time.
4. Surrender. The play that saves you the most on your worst hands.
5. House edge. The number that tells you how good a table's rules really are.

New to the game? Our guide to how to play blackjack walks through a full round using these words, and our beginner tips show you which ones to act on first.