Single Deck Blackjack Guide

Single Deck Blackjack is exactly what it sounds like: a blackjack game played with just one 52-card deck instead of the usual 6 or 8 decks you’ll find in most casinos today. Everything else is pretty much the same, except for some rule tweaks that, unfortunately, go against the player.

The narrative of the game is still the same, though: you’re trying to beat the dealer by getting closer to 21 without going over, and all the standard blackjack rules still apply, including splitting, doubling, blackjack payouts, and dealer drawing rules.

Single Deck Blackjack is a favourite among players because there are fewer cards in play, which means that every card that gets dealt has a much bigger impact on the remaining deck composition. Now, this, in theory, should improve the odds for players who card count (I’ve prepared a full card counting blackjack guide so you can check it out) compared to multi-deck blackjack games.

But this is just in theory. In practice, the majority of these games have the deck shuffled after every round, which almost eliminates the card-counting advantage. Also, I couldn’t manage to find a live dealer variant, so all the available online single-deck blackjack variants are in RNG format. If you’re someone who prefers live dealer blackjack, this might be a deal breaker.

At first glance, Single Deck Blackjack looks almost identical to regular blackjack, and honestly, for most players, the gameplay will feel almost the same, too. Since all the variants of online Single-Deck Blackjack I managed to find are RNG games, it essentially means that the deck is shuffled every single round, so the rules are basically the same as most RNG online blackjack games.

The goal is to beat the dealer without going over 21, and all the classic blackjack rules apply. Still, I’ll share them below so you know what to expect.

As I explained, single deck blackjack follows the standard blackjack format, which means that you receive two cards, the dealer receives two cards (usually one face up), and you can:

• Hit
• Stand
• Split pairs
• Double down
• Surrender (depending on the specific game)

The biggest difference is that the game uses only one 52-card deck instead of multiple decks shuffled together. Because there are fewer cards in play, every card dealt affects the remaining deck much more when compared to 6-deck or 8-deck blackjack.

For example, let’s say you’re dealt a 10 and a J, while the dealer shows a K as the upcard.

In a single deck blackjack game, seeing three 10-value cards already out of the deck actually matters more than it would in an 8-deck blackjack game because there are far fewer remaining cards overall, since you now know that a noticeable part of the high cards are already gone from the deck.

If the deck wasn’t shuffled after every round, this information would become extremely valuable over time because you could track which cards remain and adjust your bets or strategy accordingly. In one round, there’s just not enough information for card counting.

The problem is that all the modern online single deck games reshuffle automatically after every hand, so you never really get the chance to build a meaningful counting advantage across multiple rounds.

Now, many of these games actually support multihand play, which means that you can play up to 3 hands per round, but there are still too many cards left in the deck to make a significant difference.

Now we get to the important part: the rules. Unfortunately, this is where casinos usually “balance out” the advantage of using a single deck, and this is the reason why many modern single deck blackjack games are nowhere near as good as players expect them to be.

The biggest red flag is the 6:5 blackjack payout. A good blackjack game should always pay 3:2 for a natural blackjack. So, if you place a A$10 bet and hit blackjack, you should win A$15. But many blackjack games with a single deck pay 6:5 instead, meaning that the same blackjack win now returns only A$12.

It may not sound like a huge difference, but mathematically, it’s terrible for the player. In fact, this rule alone increases the house edge so much that it almost wipes out the advantage of playing a single-deck game in the first place (if there ever was one).

Another common rule is the dealer hitting on soft 17. A soft 17 is a hand like Ace + 6, where the Ace still counts as 11. In more player-friendly blackjack games, the dealer stands on soft 17, but in many variants, the dealer must hit instead, which slightly improves the dealer’s chances of making stronger hands.

The RTP of single deck blackjack depends almost entirely on the rules of the specific game. While the single deck itself slightly improves the odds for players, that advantage is almost always cancelled out by bad, unfavourable rules.

Here’s a rough idea of how much the RTP changes depending on the rules:

As you can see, the 6:5 blackjack payout causes a significant drop in the overall RTP of the game. Just changing the blackjack payout from 3:2 to 6:5 removes well over 1% RTP from the game, which is massive in blackjack terms.

Regarding volatility, there’s not much change in comparison to standard blackjack. Compared to games like online pokies, crash games, or even roulette, blackjack is much more predictable, so the volatility is very low.

You’ve heard that ‘casinos ruined the game by introducing 6-deck and 8-deck blackjack games’ and now you’re trying to find a blackjack game that’s played with one deck?

Yeah, casinos and software developers know that too, and they’ve used the ‘Single Deck Blackjack’ name to develop a game that looks very appealing, but in reality, it’s not much better than a regular blackjack game.

Check out these tips on what to look for when choosing a single deck blackjack game to play:

• Look for games with 3:2 blackjack payouts: If the game pays 6:5 for blackjack, the RTP drops massively, and so skip these variants and only look for games that pay out 3:2 for a blackjack win.
• Check whether the dealer stands or hits on soft 17: Blackjack games where the dealer stands on soft 17 are always the better option for players.
• Read the full rules before you play: The rules often list several restrictions around splitting, doubling, surrendering, or reshuffling, so ensure you understand what they mean before selecting a game.
• Use multi-hand blackjack if you’re trying to count cards: This won’t magically make card counting viable in reshuffled RNG games, but playing multiple hands at once puts more cards in play and gives you more information about the remaining deck composition.
• Don’t fall for the “single deck” advertisement alone: In most online variants, the deck is reshuffled after every round anyway, so the card-counting advantage people associate with single deck blackjack doesn’t really exist.

Honestly? Not really, at least not anymore.

Single Deck Blackjack sounds amazing on paper because fewer cards should theoretically mean better odds and easier card counting. And decades ago, that was true. Back in the old Las Vegas days, experienced blackjack players were actively looking for blackjack games with fewer decks.

Today, almost all online casinos in Australia offer at least a few blackjack games that use a single deck, but all of them reshuffle after every round, which completely removes the long-term card-counting advantage people usually associate with the game.

On top of that, many variants come with ‘tweaked’ rules like 6:5 blackjack payouts, dealer hits on soft 17, or restrictions around doubling and splitting.

So yes, technically, single-deck blackjack would be better than multi-deck variants if the deck wasn’t reshuffled after each round, but since it is, there’s virtually no difference from playing a game with 6 or 8 decks.