A Spanish deck has only 48 playing cards. All the tens are removed. Spanish Blackjack is blackjack played with Spanish decks. The absence of tens loads the game in favor of the casino. Therefore software providers tweak some of the rules in favor of the player to level the playing field. The net result is a house edge of about 0.5%.

Microgaming Spanish Blackjack is very popular. It is played with eight Spanish decks. The dealer checks for blackjack when he is dealt a picture card or an ace. The dealer hits on a hand value of soft 17. The complete list of rules is quite long. Some of the rules that favor the player are as follows. Different picture cards, like a king and a jack, can be split. A player can split hands up to three times in a game. A player can double down after a split. Late surrender is possible.

Another feature that differentiates Spanish Blackjack from other variants is the bonus payout for special combinations that yield a hand value of 21. These are as follows. Three sevens of the same suit with the player, if the dealer has a seven face up pays out at 50 to 1. Any five-card total of 21 pays out at 3 to 2. Six, seven and eight of a mixed suit pays out at 3 to 2. Three sevens of a mixed suit pays out at 3 to 2. Any seven-card (or more) total of 21 pays out at 3 to 1. Six, seven and eight of spades pays out at 3 to 1. Three sevens of spades pays out at 3 to 1. Any six-card total of 21 pays out at 2 to 1. Six, seven and eight of the same suit pays out at 2 to 1. Three sevens of the same suit pays out at 2 to 1.

Microgaming offers Spanish Blackjack in its Gold Series, which contains the Expert Mode. The Expert Mode includes an Auto Play feature with the strategy card. This feature is very useful because optimum Spanish Blackjack strategy is slightly different from the normal blackjack strategy and all online casino players are not aware of it. In Microgaming Spanish Blackjack players will need to take additional risks in order to try for the bonuses. The Expert Mode allows players to set a number of deals on Auto Play, which will be played out according to the strategy card fed into the software. Players can alter and save the strategy card and in that case the game in the Expert Mode will be played as per the player’s chosen strategy. Microgaming Spanish Blackjack Auto Play has certain other features as well. The time between deals can be adjusted. The Auto Play can be programmed to stop when any of the set conditions is met.

The strategy card for Microgaming Spanish Blackjack is formatted in the same manner as the normal blackjack strategy card. The decisions are different. The columns display the values of the dealer face up card. The player’s hand values are divided into three sections. The first section deals with hard totals for the player. The second section is for the soft totals for the player. The third section covers when pairs are dealt and provide instructions for splitting. Spanish Blackjack can be played at all Microgaming online casinos like All Slots, Platinum Play and Spin Palace.