Microgaming American Blackjack Variants

Published on: March 11, 2012 

The most popular American land casinos are located in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. In Las Vegas the casinos are either in the Strip or in downtown Vegas. Each of these three areas offers blackjack games with slightly different rules. Microgaming is one of the few software providers that offer several variants of each of these different blackjack games. This article first discusses the differences in the rules of Atlantic City Blackjack, Vegas Strip Blackjack and Vegas Downtown Blackjack and then the different Microgaming variants.

In each of these three American blackjack variants the core of the rules are common. The differences exist in the fringes. The important common rules are listed below. Player may take insurance if the dealer’s face up card is an ace. The insurance bet pays out at 2 to 1. Blackjack pays out at 3 to 2. Other wins pay out at even money. Player may double down on any initial two card combination. Doubling after splitting is allowed.

The differences exist in the rules for splitting and the dealer’s drawing. The Atlantic City Blackjack rules are as follows. The dealer must draw to all totals of 16 or less, and stand on all totals of 17 to 21. Identical pairs may be split but not resplit. The Vegas Strip Blackjack rules are as follows. The dealer must draw to all totals of 16 or less, and stand on all totals of 17 to 21. Identical pairs may be split, resplit and drawn to as desired, with the exception of split aces. The player is allowed only one hit on each split ace. The Vegas Downtown rules are as follows. The dealer must draw on soft 17. Identical pairs may be split, resplit and drawn to as desired, with the exception of split aces. The player is allowed only one hit on each split ace.

It is not only important to understand the differences, but also to understand how these differences affect the expected returns to the player. Atlantic City Blackjack does not allow resplitting of hands. This is disadvantageous to the player. The house edge (advantage to the online casino) increases by about 0.06% on account of this. Vegas Downtown Blackjack requires dealer to hit on a soft 17. This gives the dealer a chance to improve his hand value and is disadvantageous to the player. The house edge increases by about 0.21% on account of this. On the basis of this one can rank Vegas Strip Blackjack as the best, followed by Atlantic City Blackjack with Vegas Downtown Blackjack coming last.

Microgaming offers single hand games and multi hand games in all three blackjack variants. In the multi hand variants players can wager on up to five hands against the dealer hand. All games are also offered in the original variants and the Gold Series variants. The Gold Series variants create the environment of the player wagering in a real land casino. All the Atlantic City variants are played with eight decks. All Vegas Strip variants are played with four decks, and this further increases the advantage to the player. The single hand Vegas Strip Blackjack games are also available in single deck variants and these should be the variants of choice at Microgaming online casinos. The Vegas Downtown variants are offered in two decks, which offsets some of the disadvantages created by the dealer’s drawing rules. All these blackjack variants are offered at Microgaming online casinos like Gaming Club, Spin City and Platinum Play.

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