Blackjack Side Bets: What They Really Cost
Updated
Side bets are the optional wagers printed around the main betting circle, usually 21+3 and Perfect Pairs. They advertise 25:1 and 100:1 payouts, and they charge between 3.7% and 22% for the privilege. The game they sit next to charges 0.44%.
- Settled independently of your main hand. You can lose one and win the other.
- House edge typically 3.7% to 11%, versus 0.44% on the game itself.
- Basic strategy and card counting do nothing for them.
- They are entertainment with a price tag, and the price is steep.
What a side bet is
A small extra wager placed before the deal, settled purely on the cards that come out. It pays according to a specific pattern, such as your first two cards forming a pair, and it has no connection to whether you beat the dealer.
That independence is what makes them feel free. You are already sitting there, the chips are small, and a hit pays several times the stake. What the felt does not print is how rarely a hit comes.
The house edge, side by side
All figures below are for eight decks on the common paytable, which is generally the friendliest version of each bet.
| Bet | Top payout | House edge | Versus the main game |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21+3 | 100:1 | 3.70% | 8× worse |
| Perfect Pairs | 25:1 | 4.10% | 9× worse |
| Hot 3 | 100:1 | 5.35% | 12× worse |
| Bust It | 250:1 | 6.16% | 14× worse |
| Insurance | 2:1 | 7.47% | 17× worse |
| Main game, basic strategy | 3:2 | 0.44% | — |
We compute 21+3, Perfect Pairs, and insurance ourselves by counting combinations. Hot 3 and Bust It are the provider's published return figures. See how we calculate.
Fewer decks makes most of these worse, not better, which reverses the usual rule. At two decks Perfect Pairs reaches 22% and 21+3 reaches 11%.
What that means in dollars
Percentages hide the scale, so here is the same thing at a normal pace of about 60 hands an hour.
- $25 a hand on blackjack alone: $1,500 in action per hour, expected cost about $6.60.
- Add $5 on 21+3: another $300 in action, expected cost about $11.10.
The $5 side bet costs you more than one and a half times what the $25 main bet does. That is the entire point of this page, and it is the number people find hardest to believe.
The ones you will actually meet
21+3 makes a three-card poker hand from your two cards and the dealer's upcard. You hit roughly one hand in ten, usually the smallest payout. Full breakdown.
Perfect Pairs pays when your first two cards match, graded by how closely. Uniquely, more decks makes it better. Full breakdown.
Hot 3 pays when your two cards plus the dealer's upcard total 19 to 21, with the biggest payout on a suited 21.
Bust It pays when the dealer busts, scaled by how many cards it took. Watching the dealer break is satisfying, and this is the most expensive way to enjoy it.
Insurance is technically a side bet too, and the only one that ever becomes profitable, for counters at a high true count. Full breakdown.
Can card counting help?
Almost never. A few side bets shift with shoe composition, which makes them countable in principle. Perfect Pairs improves when ranks bunch up, and 21+3 improves when suits do.
Both require tracking information a normal count throws away, and both pay off far less than the main game does for the same effort. The one real exception is insurance, where a single number you are already keeping tells you exactly when to take it.
If you are willing to do the work of counting, put it where the return is. That is covered in how card counting works.
• Side bets cost 8 to 17 times what the main game costs.
• Fewer decks usually makes them worse.
• No strategy applies. You place them and wait.
• Insurance is the only one counting reliably turns positive.
So should you ever play one?
If you want the occasional big payout and you are treating the cost as the price of an evening out, take the cheapest version you can find, which usually means 21+3 on an eight-deck shoe, and keep the stake genuinely small.
If you are playing blackjack because it has the best odds on the floor, then side bets undo the exact thing that brought you to the table. You cannot have both.
Keep reading
By Martin Kosek · every number on this site is computed by us, not copied.
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