How to Play Blackjack at Home with Friends: Rules and Setup

This guide is about how to play blackjack at home. Playing with family and friends can be a lot of fun, especially if nobody takes it too seriously.  

But running a home game for your friends and family can be a challenge, too. 

Do you play for money?  If so, how much? 

And who is responsible for taking care of the money and the chips?

And who decides about the rules – which ones must be followed, and which ones are okay to be a bit lax about?  Are any rules okay to be a bit lax about?

Today we’re going to look at those questions and hopefully come up with some answers.

The most important part of running a home game is to make sure that everyone has fun – because that’s the whole point, isn’t it?

When you have finished reading this guide, you will know how to run a tight ship while making sure that everyone has fun – and nobody loses their shirt!

Let’s get started.

What You Need to Play Blackjack at Home

At a minimum, all you need is a deck of cards. 

But that’s at a minimum, and I can tell you that it’s a lot more fun if you ‘dress it up’ and run it like a casino.

Here’s what you really need:

• six decks of cards,
• a blackjack shoe,
• a blackjack layout,
• a couple of cut cards,
• some chips and perhaps a chip tray.

And to find all those things, Amazon is your friend. And no, Mr. Bezos doesn’t give me a cut of what you buy!

You may want to include 20 (25?) pennies, too.  I’ll let you know why a little later.

Once you have set up the table, there are two ways to play it:

One Is to Play It Like a Real Casino

Everyone buys their chips from the host and you play for actual money. 

If that is the case, you need to be careful about sticking to the rules and make sure that everyone knows what the rules are. 

And at the end of the night, all the chips must be sold back to the host and each player must cash out their chips.

I say this because once real money is involved, people can get really serious, really quickly. 

So be ready for that when it happens.

My suggestions for the rules are:

1. 6 decks shuffled into a blackjack shoe
2. Blackjack pays 3 to 2
3. Double down allowed on any two cards
4. Any pair can be split
5. Split allowed once into two hands
6. Split Aces get one card each
7. No double down after a split
8. Dealer stands on all 17s
9. No Insurance (removes the ‘how/when to check the hole card’ issue)
10. The player only loses their initial bet if the dealer has a blackjack
11. No Surrender
12. No side bets

These rules will give a House Edge of 0.6% with Basic Strategy and a cut card.  Which is similar to what you would get on a 6-deck shoe game in a casino.

I would set the game up so that everyone has a chance to deal. 

Dealing may be the most fun part of the game, so everyone should be allowed to deal, but they can pass on the opportunity if they don’t want to deal.

It’s probably better to have the host be the first dealer. The host’s chips will be in the chip tray.  Each subsequent dealer should use their own chips in the chip tray and deal out of the chip tray.

If you are the host, stay close by the game to offer support and assistance to the new dealers, who may not be totally familiar with how to play (and deal) the game.

Limit the number of hands to be played – or the amount of time the game will be played.

This is where the pennies come in handy. 

If you limit the game to 20 (25?) hands, keep the pennies on one side of the chip tray, and move one per hand to the other side of the chip tray to keep track of how many hands have been played.

If you limit the time, set your cell phone to play an alarm after 45 minutes, or an hour.

Once the alarm goes off, there are three more hands and then it’s over.

The Other Way to Play It Is to do it tournament style

Each player buys in for the same amount of money – let’s say $20, and receives $1,000-worth of chips. It may be that you have enough players to have two tables so you will need to have each game’s top three players graduate to the final table.

After the tournament is over, the prize money can be divided into the top three places. 

If you have $240 in prize money, 1st gets $120, 2nd gets $80 and 3rd gets $40, but there are many ways to divvy it up.

If you decide that one person is going to deal for the entire time, then you need a ‘dealer button’, and it should move every hand so that the players all get to be first and last to act.   

You may want to draw cards with the highest card (lowest card?)  gets to be first for the first hand, and then it rotates after that.

Acting last often gives that player an advantage, so it makes sense that everyone gets a chance to act last at least a couple of times.

About five hands from the end, there should be a chip countdown so that everyone knows what everyone else has.  And then prior to the last hand, count down the chips again. 

If you decide to do it tournament-style, I suggest that you use the timer, not the number of hands. 

The reason is that with a timer, the player who gets to act last is not known until the timer goes off – and that means that the advantage of acting last isn’t known until almost the end of the tournament.

Playing a blackjack tournament is a very different beast to playing regular blackjack, so you may want to get some pointers from my guide on how to play blackjack tournaments.

Which Version of Blackjack to Play at Home?

My suggestion is to play the shoe game with the cards dealt face up, and the players don’t touch the cards.

If you have players who are not familiar with how things work in a casino (and an at-home game is almost certainly going to have at least one or two), dealing the cards face down and allowing the players to pick them up without the host being able to see what they have is asking for problems.

Someone busting their hand and not declaring it, picking up the cards incorrectly, having a blackjack and not turning their cards over and so on.   

How Should You Deal the Cards at Home?

And here’s how you’re going to deal the game.

Starting with the first player to the dealer’s left, each player places a bet in the betting circle. 

Generally, it’s better if the players bet in order, starting with the first player and going around the table to the last player to act.

Then each player gets one card dealt face up on the table.  The dealer gets one card face down.

Then each player gets their second card face up on the table and the dealer gets their second card face down.

The dealer then turns their first card face up on top of their second card that remains face down underneath the first card.

Make sure the dealer knows to place the players’ cards so the top right-hand corner of the second (and any subsequent) card isn’t obscuring the first card and that all the pips can be clearly seen.

Like this:

The 9 is the second card and it is almost completely clear of the King.

Starting with the first player to the dealer’s left, each player chooses to hit, stand, split, or double down.

Once the player has taken a hit, they can no longer split or double down.

If she gets more than 21, she automatically loses and the dealer takes her bet and the cards.

After every player has played their hand, the dealer turns over their hole card and hits their hand until they have soft 17 or more.

All the dealer’s hit cards go to the right of their initial two cards.

If the dealer gets more than 21, everyone still in the hand wins even money.

The dealer compares their hand total to the players’ hand totals. 

If a player has more than the dealer and 21 or less, they win.

Expert's Advice

It’s a lot of fun to have a home game of blackjack with your friends and family. 

If you’re playing for real money, it’s important that nobody gets buried and loses a lot of money, so please, make sure you limit the possibility that someone can get in over their head.

Running the game tournament-style is the best option to ensure that, because nobody can buy in for more than the initial entry fee.

Make sure that no one is hiding chips – someone may think it’s funny and okay. 

It’s not funny, and it’s not okay.

Conclusion

So there  you have it – how to play blackjack with friends and/or family at home.

It can be a lot of fun, and it doesn’t have to be too much of a challenge to put on a ‘blackjack night’. 

Many players will enjoy the game, especially if no one takes it too seriously, and it can be quite the social event.

And as always, good luck.