Premium Blackjack

One headline figure, three separate bets

The number attached to Premium Blackjack is 99.58%. It is accurate, but it describes only one of the three wagers on the table. Playtech's multi-hand RNG blackjack, first released on 15 January 2016, pairs a strong main game with two side bets, Perfect Pairs and 21+3, that run on their own paytables and return noticeably less. On screen they look like parts of one game. Mathematically they are separate products.

The main game itself is conventional and well specified: six decks, a dealer who stands on every 17, blackjack paid at 3:2, and up to five hands against the dealer each round. The 99.58% figure assumes correct decisions. Most summaries stop there. This page spends its time on the gap between the main bet and the side bets, because that is where the real return of a session is decided.

How a round is dealt and settled

The structure will be familiar. Every hand you open gets two cards and the dealer takes one card face up. Number cards score their face value, picture cards score 10, and an Ace scores 1 or 11, whichever helps the hand more.

The sequence:

• Open hands. Put a main bet on any of the five positions. Each hand stands alone with its own stake.
• Optional side bets. Perfect Pairs and 21+3 may be added to any hand in play.
• The deal. Two cards to each hand, one visible card for the dealer.
• Insurance. Offered when the dealer shows an Ace; it pays 2:1 if the dealer turns out to hold blackjack.
• Your decisions. Work through the hands one by one: take a card, hold, double or split as each hand allows.
• Dealer's turn. The dealer keeps drawing on 16 or less and stops on any 17, soft 17 included.
• Payouts. Beating the dealer without busting pays even money. A two-card 21 pays 3:2. Ties push.

Double down and split limits

A double doubles the stake on a hand and gives it exactly one more card. A split separates a pair into two hands, each with a stake equal to the first.

Both moves exist, but this table's precise limits are only documented inside the game: which totals can be doubled, how many resplits are allowed, and whether doubling after a split is permitted. As a reference point only, Playtech's Classic Blackjack permits doubling on the opening two cards whatever their total, splits to as many as four hands, doubles after splitting, and one card only on each split Ace. Those belong to a different Playtech table; for Premium Blackjack, the in-game help file of your version is the authority.

Some builds reportedly add a ten-card Charlie, where a ten-card hand that has not bust counts as a winner. Treat that as dependent on the version and confirm it in the help file.

Reading 99.58% correctly

A 99.58% RTP means that across an enormous number of main hands, played correctly, the design returns 99.58% of everything staked on those hands. The house keeps 0.42% over the long run.

Two conditions are built into that number:

• Correct play on every hand. It is calculated using the mathematically best action for each total against each dealer up card, known as basic strategy. Standing when you should hit, or passing up a good double, lowers your real return. Basic strategy does not beat the house margin; it simply avoids enlarging it.
• Main bet only. Side bets settle on their own paytables at much lower returns.

A shoe of six decks, a dealer who holds on soft 17 and 3:2 blackjack is the standard pattern across Playtech's RNG blackjack. For context, Playtech lists Classic Blackjack at 99.57%, Perfect Pair Blackjack at 99.6%, and Blackjack Surrender, which allows surrender once the dealer has checked for blackjack, at 99.65%.

Side bet one: Perfect Pairs

Perfect Pairs looks only at your first two cards. Neither the dealer's hand nor the outcome of your main hand affects it, and it settles the moment those two cards arrive.

The top result only exists because the shoe contains several decks. Six decks mean six copies of every card, so two truly identical cards can appear, though not often.

Side bet two: 21+3

21+3 forms a three-card poker hand from your first two cards and the dealer's up card.

It also settles straight after the deal, regardless of how your blackjack hand later ends. Only the best qualifying result is paid, so Suited Trips earns 100:1 and nothing extra for also being a flush.

Working out the side bet returns

You will usually see 21+3 quoted at 96.29% here, with Perfect Pairs at 95.91%. Those precise numbers are the ones listed for Premium Blackjack Pro, a different, operator-exclusive Playtech variant built on an eight-deck shoe, whose main game is listed at 99.49%. No side bet figures have been issued for Premium Blackjack itself, which makes it worth testing the paytables directly.

Both paytables are public, which means the return can be computed exactly by enumerating every possible card combination. SlotSpecs did that for both shoe sizes:

The results say two things.

The quoted 96.29% and 95.91% match the eight-deck results almost to the decimal. That strongly suggests the numbers were borrowed from the eight-deck Pro table.

Shoe size also matters a great deal for these bets. A smaller shoe has fewer duplicate cards, and both the Perfect Pair result and Suited Trips rely on duplicates. Going from eight decks to six, with the same paytable, costs Perfect Pairs about two percentage points and 21+3 almost one. The trend continues: at a fixed paytable, each deck removed makes those duplicate results scarcer and the return falls further.

Compared with the main bet, the gap is wide. The main hand carries a 0.42% long-run margin. On a six-deck shoe the house keeps about 6.1% of Perfect Pairs stakes and about 4.6% of 21+3 stakes. Stake for stake, the side bets are built to retain somewhere between eleven and fifteen times what the main bet retains over time.

Five hands and the blended return

Adding hands does nothing to the RTP of any single hand. Every hand draws on one shoe and is measured against one dealer result. The difference lies in the total staked per round and how much of it sits on side bets.

Picture five hands, each with a main bet and both side bets at equal size. Main bets are then just a third of everything staked; the other two thirds ride on side bets with weaker returns, so the round's combined long-run figure lands well under 99.58%, purely because of where the money has been placed.

The hands are linked too. All five share one shoe and one dealer result, so a strong dealer total can beat several hands at once and a dealer bust can pay several at once. That shared outcome makes five-hand play swing more from round to round, even though each hand's long-run return is unchanged.

Biggest single-hand multiples

Blackjack has no published max win in the slot sense. The largest multiples come from particular outcomes:

With six copies of each card in the shoe, Suited Trips requires a three-way exact match between the dealer's visible card and both of yours, hence its position at the head of the paytable. There is no bonus round and nothing to buy.

Where it sits in Playtech's blackjack range

Published figures for Playtech's other RNG blackjack games show where this table fits:

• Blackjack Switch, 99.86%, six decks. Two hands are dealt and their second cards can be exchanged; in return the dealer draws on soft 17, and when the dealer reaches 22 most hands push.
• Blackjack Surrender, 99.65%, six decks: surrender is allowed once the dealer has checked for blackjack.
• Perfect Pair Blackjack, 99.6%, six decks, five-hand maximum, and an identical pairs paytable at 25, 12 and 6 to 1. It is the closest cousin, minus the poker-style bet.
• Classic Blackjack, 99.57%, six decks, the dealer holding on any 17. Its main game is almost a match for this one.
• Premium Blackjack Pro, 99.49%, eight decks, the source of the 96.29% and 95.91% side bet figures.

Premium Blackjack's advantage over most of these is that it puts both side bet styles and five hands on one table. The catch is that those extra options are exactly where the weaker returns are.

Who Premium Blackjack is for

It works well for players after a six-deck game with favourable core rules and enjoy the tempo of running several hands together. Played on its own, the main bet ranks among the stronger returns in RNG table games.

There is also a case for players who like side bets for the occasional big multiple and accept that they are paying for it with a clearly lower long-run return. It suits anyone less well who assumes 99.58% describes the whole table. With side bets in play, it does not.

Premium Blackjack scorecard

Plus points

• A 99.58% main-game RTP, with the dealer standing on all 17s and blackjack at 3:2.
• As many as five independent hands per round.
• A pairs bet and a poker-style bet, with a 100:1 top line.
• Public paytables, so the side bet maths can be verified.

Minus points

• The optional wagers pay back well below the main hand, and the quoted 96.29% and 95.91% appear to belong to the eight-deck Pro version.
• Double and split limits are documented only inside the game.
• Because five hands face one dealer result, swings between rounds are larger.

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