Live blackjack rules: the dealer, the seats and why 3:2 beats 6:5

A live blackjack hand is dealt from a real shoe by a dealer on camera, and you play it from a screen. You try to finish closer to 21 than the dealer without going over. The payout for a natural, an ace with a ten-value card as your first two cards, is the single line in the rules that most changes what a table costs: at 3:2 a KES 100 natural earns KES 150, at 6:5 only KES 120.

This guide goes through your choices, the dealer's fixed rules, the arithmetic of the two payouts, the side bets and the seat limits at studio tables. The studio side, from cameras to licences, is in the overview of how live dealer games work in Kenya.

How is a hand of live blackjack played?

Cards from 2 to 9 count their face value, tens and picture cards count 10, and an ace counts 1 or 11. A hand that holds an ace counted as 11 is soft, because one more card cannot bust it. A hand over 21 is bust and loses straight away, whatever the dealer draws later.

Once betting time closes, each seat receives two cards face up and the dealer takes one card face up and one face down. You then act on your hand. Evolution's live blackjack page lists the choices as hit, stand, double down and split, with insurance offered as an option.

Doubling down doubles your stake in exchange for exactly one more card. Splitting turns a pair into two hands, each carrying its own stake. Pragmatic Play states that double down after a split is available across all its blackjack products.

What rules does the dealer follow?

The dealer makes no choices at all. The drawing rule comes with the game and sits in the rules panel; Evolution's Easy Blackjack page, for instance, states that the dealer must hit on 16 or less and stand on soft 17 or more. The soft 17 rule, hit or stand, changes from one rule set to another, so it is one line worth finding before you sit down.

Some variants change what happens on a dealer bust or a long hand. In Pragmatic Play's Free Bet Blackjack, the Push on 22 rule settles active bets as a push when the dealer busts on exactly 22, except winning blackjack hands. Evolution's Infinite Blackjack and Pragmatic Play's ONE Blackjack use Six Card Charlie, under which six cards totalling 21 or less win automatically.

Free Bet Blackjack also gives free doubles on a hand of 9, 10 or 11 and free splits on every pair except tens and picture cards, according to Pragmatic Play. Those free bets come with Push on 22, so the two rules belong together when you compare that table with a classic one.

Why does a 3:2 natural beat a 6:5 natural?

At 3:2 a natural returns one and a half times the stake as profit. At 6:5 it returns 1.2 times. The gap is 0.3 of the stake on every natural, and it grows in step with the size of the bet.

What the gap costs over time depends on how often a natural turns up. With eight decks, the shoe Pragmatic Play describes for Blackjack X, a two-card 21 comes in about 4.75% of hands, close to one hand in 21 (derived from a shoe of 416 cards holding 32 aces and 128 cards worth ten). A six-deck shoe gives the same figure to two decimal places.

A natural is not paid when the dealer also holds one, because that hand is a push. Removing those hands leaves about 4.53% of rounds in which a natural is actually paid. At 0.3 of a stake each time, 6:5 costs about 1.36% of every initial stake (derived).

Illustrative example: 1,000 hands at KES 100, so KES 100,000 in initial stakes. About 45 naturals are paid. A 3:2 table pays KES 6,750 for them and a 6:5 table KES 5,400, so the 6:5 table keeps about KES 1,350 more, on top of whatever its other rules cost.

The full house edge of a blackjack table depends on the whole rule set and on the decisions made at it, so no single figure appears here. Pragmatic Play shows how far a rule can move it: its Privé Lounge Blackjack page says the Split After Split option raises the RTP to up to 99.51%. The guide to what house edge means explains how edge and RTP mirror each other.

What side bets sit next to the main hand?

A side bet is a separate wager with its own pay table, settled alongside the main hand. Evolution's classic tables offer Perfect Pairs, which pays when your first two cards form a mixed, coloured or perfect pair, and 21+3, which pays on poker-style combinations of your two cards and the dealer's open card.

Evolution's Infinite Blackjack lists four: Any Pair, 21+3, Hot 3 and Bust It, the last being a bet that the dealer busts. Its Always 6 Blackjack offers Perfect Pairs and Lucky Ladies. Pragmatic Play's ONE Blackjack has four side bets, including Crazy 7 and Bust Bonus, and says one of them can pay up to 2,000x the stake.

These pages name the side bets without printing their pay tables, so their edge cannot be worked out here. Each one is priced apart from the main game, and the RTP the provider publishes for it is the number that applies; the guide to RTP figures for live casino games gathers the published ones.

Lightning Blackjack works differently again. Evolution's page says you pay a 100% Lightning fee on every initial bet, and a winning score earns a multiplier of 2x to 25x that raises your payout in the next round if you win that round too.

How many seats does a live blackjack table have?

A classic table has seven seats, which Evolution describes as the usual limit. Its Bet Behind feature lets other players stake on a seated player's hand while they wait for a chair to free up.

Scalable tables remove the limit by dealing one common hand. In Evolution's Infinite Blackjack an unlimited number of players receive the same first two cards and then each plays that hand their own way. Pragmatic Play's ONE Blackjack works the same way with a single seat and no cap on players.

What must the operator display at a blackjack table?

Kenyan rules put the price of the game on the screen. Under regulation 20(2) of L.N. 112, the Gambling Control (Conduct of Gambling Operations) Regulations, 2026, the house edge, the average return to the player, the odds and the game rules must be clearly displayed, and regulation 20(3) carries the duty over to online play.

For blackjack that covers the payout on a natural, the dealer's soft 17 rule and every side-bet pay table. Regulation 23(2) adds that the terms of an accepted bet cannot be changed afterwards, so a hand already in play cannot be moved from 3:2 to 6:5.

What is left out of this guide?

There is no strategy chart here and no advice on when to hit or stand. Your decisions do move the house edge, but this page deals only with what the table fixes before the first card leaves the shoe.

Seat counts, side bets and limits change from one studio table to the next, and the guide to why live tables set minimum and maximum bets covers the limits. The table rules reference sets blackjack beside roulette and baccarat, while the rules panel at your table is the final word on the hand in front of you.