How to Bet in Blackjack

Betting in blackjack is simple, but there are few etiquette rules all players must follow.

First thing you have to do is turn your money into chips. You do that by either going to the casino cage or by placing your money on the blackjack table in between rounds and asking for chips.

If you're playing blackjack online, your balance will automatically be displayed on the screen and you can choose your bet size when prompted.

If your goal is to bet $10 per hand you should sit down with $100. Similarly, if you plan on betting $100 per hand you should ask for $1,000. Always get 10x what you plan on betting per hand so you can cover the variance of blackjack.

Chip denominations are typically in one, five, 25, 100, 500, 1,000, 5,000, and 25,000 at the blackjack tables and are usually red for five, green for 25, and 100 for black. After that, the color will vary between casinos.

Before the start of a new round the dealer will say: ‘Place your bets.’ Players are given 15 seconds to add their bets.

If you take longer than 15 seconds you will get a verbal reminder from the dealer and perhaps a tap on the table in front of you.

You should take into account the table minimum and maximum and place a bet into the circle on the felt in front of you. This can be any combination of chips that you have.

The dealer always asks that you stack the bigger chips at the bottom and don’t bet anything smaller than $1. This is because paying out a blackjack 3:2 on a bet of $37.50, which is difficult when most casinos don’t have 25¢ chips.

If you watched our last video it's worth mentioning again: never splash your chips into the betting circle. Always place your chips properly.

I recommend doing this and betting round numbers so you don’t slow down the play and make the dealer’s job harder than it already is.

Knowing how to place bets is only half the gameplay in blackjack — you also need to know how to make the moves. Learn how to make all the essential moves and signals to the dealer in our next video.