Few casino games offer punters a better chance of a return than blackjack. Played to a sound strategy against a fair game and the house edge is only a few percent.
It’s played for a wide variety of different stakes and on this page we’ll primarily explore the minimum and maximum bets for Blackjack in an online casino. Following that we’ve also got info on how betting works, how returns are calculated and why blackjack tables have min and max bet amounts.
Min & Max Bet Blackjack Stakes: Online Casinos
| Casino | Min | Max | Our Rating | Play | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Betvictor Casino | 0.10p | £1,000 | 5* Star | Play now!
New customers only,
T&C’s apply, 18+ |
 |
Unibet Casino | 0.10p | £5,000 | 5* Star | Play now!
New customers only,
T&C’s apply, 18+ |
 |
Coral Casino | 0.50p | £1,000 | 5* Star | Play now!
New customers only,
T&C’s apply, 18+ |
 |
Betfair Casino | 0.10 | £2,500 | 4* Star | Play now!
New customers only,
T&C’s apply, 18+ |
 |
Ladbrokes Casino | 0.10 | £20,000 | 4* Star | Play now!
New customers only,
T&C’s apply, 18+ |
 |
Betfred Casino | £1 | £150 | 3.5* Star | Play now!
New customers only,
T&C’s apply, 18+ |
Blackjack Betting and Returns
One of the things that makes blackjack such a popular game is that on every hand that you play, there are only one of four possible outcomes, we will explain these in more detail below:
Lose
You lose a hand of blackjack in one of two ways. Either you bust your hand by having a total of greater than 21 dealt to you, or your hand is beaten by the dealers hand who has a total closer to 21. In either case, when this happens, you lose your stake.
Win
You win a hand of blackjack in two ways also. Either you stand and beat the dealers score and achieve a total closer to 21 than the dealer has, or you stand with a score below 21 and the dealer busts their hand. When you win a hand at Blackjack then the payout you receive is the same as your stake in effect doubling your money. So if you wagered £10 on a hand and won, you would win £10 from the house, plus you’d get your £10 stake back too.
Win With Blackjack
The best hand you can achieve with two cards in this game is a blackjack, which is any card with a value of ten, plus an ace in your first two cards. You will automatically win with this hand, unless the dealer has the chance of also having a blackjack (if their face up card is an Ace or ten value card). When you win with a blackjack hand you usually receive a payout at odds of 3/2, which is better value than your even money return for a standard win in blackjack. This means if you wagered £10 on a hand and won with a blackjack, you would receive back £15 from the house, plus your stake money.
Push
– If your hand and the dealers hand is exactly the same value then the result is a push. The player does not lose, nor do they win, so they receive back their stake money.
A note on variations: one thing to note is that there are different variations of blackjack that you can play and each may have slightly different rules compared to the other. For example, in some casinos Dealers may stop drawing on soft 17, on others they may continue to draw on soft 17, only stopping on hard 17. It is always advisable to check out the table rules on blackjack before you play to ascertain what the minimum and maximum bets are, as well as the specific rules for that game.
Why do Blackjack tables have min & max bets?
You may be wondering why blackjack games have maximum and minimum bet amounts if the maximum a casino can pay out is 1.5x the stake.
That is a fair point and the answer to that is somewhat simple.
Blackjack Min Bets: Why?
Online casinos operate a minimum bet for Blackjack simply because they need to make a decent profit operating the game.
As such, most blackjack tables have a minimum bet value of around £1, although there are now a number of operators offering lower stakes games. Of course, there are considerably higher stakes games available too where the minimum bet is less (live Blackjack tends to have higher minimum bet levels, usually around the £5 to £10 mark).
Blackjack Max Bets: Why?
All casinos have to have a maximum bet for any game they operate. This came about thanks to a betting system which, in theory, would mean the player never loses.
This is known as the Martingale system and it works somewhat like this…
Martingale Betting System
You bet the minimum bet at the table and play a hand, if you win, then you pocket the winning chip and for the next hand, you place the minimum bet once again. If you lose, on the next hand you place 2 chips on that hand.
If you win, you will win back two chips, plus the two you staked. The two chips you win covers the one chip you lost on the minimum bet, so you have made a one chip profit. So you now place the minimum bet and start the process again.
Essentially, every time you lose a hand, you double the size of your bet until you win and then your winnings will cover all your losses, with one chip profit left over.
As a result in a situation where an individual has infinity money they can beat the casino.
Flaws In The System
You can’t argue with the mathematics of this system…
however there is one big problem with the Martingale system and that is the size of bets on a losing streak can quickly grow to huge sizes.
If the table has a maximum bet then the casino can ensure their edge stays intact.
Example:
Let’s assume we played at a table with a minimum bet limit of £1 and a maximum bet limit of £1000.
- Bet 1 £1
- Bet 2 £2
- Bet 3 £4
- Bet 4 £8
- Bet 5 £16
- Bet 6 £32
- Bet 7 £64
- Bet 8 £128
- Bet 9 £256
- Bet 10 £512
- Bet 11 £1,024
If you do not win by the 11th bet (which should be £1024) you won’t be able to guarantee yourself a profit as the bet you will need to place following the system will exceed the table limit.
The only way the Martingale system is 100% effective is if the player has limitless cash and there is no table limit in place. In the real world, neither of those things will happen.
