What is the house edge on Perfect Pairs?

With the common 25/12/6 paytable it's 6.11% with six decks and 4.10% with eight.

What is the house edge on 21+3?

With the 100/40/30/10/5 paytable it's 4.62% on six decks. The older 9 to 1 for any hand version is 3.24%.

How often do you get a pair in blackjack?

About once every 13.5 hands in a six-deck shoe.

Are blackjack side bets worth playing?

Not for value. Their house edge is many times higher than the main game played with basic strategy.

Blackjack Side Bets Calculator

Table and paytables

Decks

Perfect Pairs paytable

Perfect pair pays (to 1)

Coloured pair pays (to 1)

Mixed pair pays (to 1)

21+3 paytable

Suited trips pays (to 1)

Straight flush pays (to 1)

Three of a kind pays (to 1)

Straight pays (to 1)

Flush pays (to 1)

House edge

Perfect Pairs house edge–

21+3 house edge–

Perfect Pairs: chance of any pair–

21+3: chance of a paying hand–

Perfect pair: 1 in–

Suited trips: 1 in–

Straight flush: 1 in–

Flush: 1 in–

Blackjack itself, for comparison–

Exact odds from the cards in a full shoe. Perfect Pairs uses your first two cards. 21+3 uses your two cards and the dealer's up card, with A-2-3 and Q-K-A both counting as straights. Pays are 'to 1'. The blackjack comparison assumes good rules and basic strategy.

Blackjack side bets look cheap and pay big, which is exactly why casinos love them. This blackjack side bets calculator works out the real house edge on the two most common, Perfect Pairs and 21+3, for the number of decks in the shoe and the paytable printed on the felt. It’s free, and the odds are exact, worked out from every card combination.

At a six-deck table with the usual paytables, Perfect Pairs carries a 6.11% edge and 21+3 a 4.62% edge. Blackjack itself, played well, is around 0.5%.

Blackjack side bets calculator: Perfect Pairs

Perfect Pairs pays if your first two cards are a pair. There are three kinds:

Perfect pair: same rank and same suit, like two queens of hearts. Usually pays 25 to 1.
Coloured pair: same rank and colour, different suits, like a queen of hearts and a queen of diamonds. Usually 12 to 1.
Mixed pair: same rank, different colours. Usually 6 to 1.

In a six-deck shoe you’ll see a pair of some kind about once every 13.5 hands, and a perfect pair about once every 62. Those big numbers don’t make up for the hands in between. Notice how the edge drops with more decks: eight decks bring it down to 4.10% with the same paytable, because more identical cards make perfect pairs more common.

21+3

21+3 makes a three-card poker hand from your two cards and the dealer’s up card. The modern paytable pays 100 to 1 for suited trips, 40 for a straight flush, 30 for three of a kind, 10 for a straight and 5 for a flush. Older tables pay a flat 9 to 1 for any of them, and that version is actually cheaper at 3.24% on six decks.

Flushes do most of the work: you’ll get one about every 17 hands. Suited trips, the 100 to 1 headline, is roughly 1 in 4,800 in a six-deck shoe and impossible with a single deck.

Is any side bet worth it?

For a basic strategy player, no. A 5% edge on a £5 side bet costs about 25p a hand, which is more than the main bet loses on average at good rules. If you play them for fun, the paytable is the thing to check. Switch to “Custom” and type what your table pays to see exactly what it costs.

For the main game, the blackjack calculator shows the house edge for your table’s rules, and the strategy chart and blackjack trainer help you play every hand right.

Side bets are where blackjack gets expensive. Know the edge before you add one. BeGambleAware.org is free and confidential if it stops being fun.