Blackjack 3:2 vs 6:5: What the Bad Payout Costs You
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The blackjack payout is the single most important number on the table. Standard 3:2 returns 1.5 times your bet on a natural. A 6:5 table returns 1.2 times. That one change adds roughly 1.36% to the house edge, which is more than every other rule on the felt combined.
- 3:2 pays 1.5× on a blackjack. 6:5 pays 1.2×.
- 6:5 adds about 1.36%, taking a 0.44% game to roughly 1.8%.
- You get a blackjack on 4.75% of hands, and lose 0.3× your bet on each one that pays.
- Walk away from 6:5, no matter how good the other rules look.
Work out what 6:5 costs you
Enter your usual bet and how many hands you play. The result is what a 6:5 table takes from you over the long run compared with 3:2, with every other rule identical.
The arithmetic, for an eight-deck shoe: the payout difference on one blackjack is 0.3× your bet. You are dealt a blackjack on 4.75% of hands, but about 4.6% of those are pushed because the dealer has one too, so nothing is paid. That leaves 4.53% of hands actually collecting, and 4.53% × 0.3 comes to 1.36% of everything you wager. It is a long-run average, and any single session is dominated by luck.
The same calculation on a single deck gives 1.39%. That is the figure usually quoted, because 6:5 shows up most often on single-deck tables.
What 3:2 and 6:5 actually mean
They are payout ratios on a natural, meaning an ace plus a ten-value card on your first two cards.
At 3:2, every 2 units you bet returns 3, so you collect 1.5 times your wager. At 6:5, every 5 units returns 6, so you collect 1.2 times. On a $100 bet that is $150 against $120.
Thirty dollars, once every twenty-odd hands. It sounds small standing at the table, and it is the largest single leak in the game.
Why casinos do it
Because most players never notice. "6 to 5" reads almost identically to "3 to 2" on a placard, and the phrase sounds generous if you do not stop to divide.
It usually arrives bundled with something attractive: a single deck, a low table minimum, a seat open on a busy Saturday. Those are the tables new players gravitate to, which is exactly the point. A single-deck 6:5 game is worse than an eight-deck 3:2 game, despite everything you have read about fewer decks being better.
How to spot a 6:5 table
It is printed on the layout, and it is required to be. Look for "Blackjack pays 3 to 2" before you sit. If it says "6 to 5", or worse, "Blackjack pays even money," keep walking.
Online, the payout lives in the game rules behind the information icon, usually on the first screen. Check it once per table and you never have to think about it again.
How much worse is your game?
A well-played six-deck game at 3:2 runs a house edge near 0.44%. The identical table at 6:5 jumps to roughly 1.8%, about four times as expensive.
Counting does not rescue it either. You give up the blackjack payout on every hand, in favorable counts and unfavorable ones alike, and high counts are precisely when naturals arrive most often. A 6:5 shoe is one of the few games that stays negative no matter how well you count it.
For scale: playing off a slightly wrong strategy chart costs you about 0.057%. The 6:5 payout is twenty-four times more expensive than that. Picking the wrong table hurts far more than misplaying a hand.
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By Martin Kosek · every number on this site is computed by us, not copied.
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