Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
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50 free Blackjack trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Blackjack is the most widely played casino banking game in the world, and one of the few a sharp player can actually beat. Its family tree runs from a Cervantes story about card cheats in Seville, through the English game of vingt-un, to Klondike prospectors who borrowed the name of a zinc mineral for the top bonus hand. These 50 questions cover the rules as played in casinos: how aces count, the 3:2 natural, hit, stand, double, split and surrender and their hand signals, soft 17, insurance, first and third base, hole-card and no-hole-card games. There are questions on house edge and rule variations, from the Reno rule to 6:5 payouts; on advantage play, from Hi-Lo counting and shuffle tracking to the Atlantic City ruling that casinos cannot bar counters; on variants like Spanish 21, Blackjack Switch and pontoon; and on the people and stories, from Thorp and Ken Uston to the MIT Blackjack Team, Rain Man and the film 21. Every answer is cited to the page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What values can an ace take in blackjack?
1 or 11
It counts as 11 unless that would bust the hand.
Q 02What are jack, queen and king each worth?
10
Number cards count as their number; the pictures are all tens.
Q 03What is a two-card 21 called?
A natural
It beats any other hand, even a three-card 21.
Q 04What is the traditional payout for a player blackjack?
3 to 2
Some tables now pay 6:5 or 1:1, which sharply raises the house edge.
Q 05How many cards are in each deck used for blackjack?
52
Between one and eight decks are shuffled together.
Q 06What was the English precursor of blackjack called?
Vingt-un
The first rules were printed in Britain in 1800 and reprinted in America in 1825.
Q 07Which Golden Age novelist's story contains the first written reference to twenty-one?
Miguel de Cervantes
'Rinconete y Cortadillo' features card cheats in Seville who play veintiuno.
Q 08In which city are the card cheats of 'Rinconete y Cortadillo' based?
Seville
The story was written between 1601 and 1602.
Q 09Around what year was American vingt-un renamed 'blackjack'?
1899
Historian Thierry Depaulis traces the name to Klondike Gold Rush prospectors.
Q 10According to historian Depaulis, the name 'blackjack' came from which mineral?
Zincblende
Prospectors associated it with gold and silver deposits and transferred the name to the bonus hand.
Q 11During which gold rush did prospectors start calling the game blackjack?
Klondike
The rush ran from 1896 to 1899.
Q 12In the popular myth, a 10-to-1 bonus was paid for an ace of spades plus which card?
A black jack
Depaulis found no historical evidence such a bonus ever existed.
Q 13In what year was 'The Optimum Strategy in Blackjack' published?
1956
Baldwin, Cantey, Maisel and McDermott laid the mathematical foundation for beating the game.
Q 14Who wrote the 1960s book Beat the Dealer?
Q 21What is the casino's video surveillance nicknamed?
The eye in the sky
When a hand signal disagrees with a player's words, the signal takes precedence.
Q 22Up to what total must the dealer keep drawing cards?
17
Whether the dealer hits or stands on a soft 17 varies by table.
Q 23What is a 17 that includes an ace counted as 11 called?
Soft 17
Games where the dealer must hit it are abbreviated H17; stand-on games are S17.
Q 24What is a tie between player and dealer called?
Edward Thorp
He verified the basic strategy with Baldwin's hand calculations and an IBM 704.
Q 15What is the dealer's position on the far left called?
First base
Dealing runs from first base to third base on the far right.
Q 16How many options does a player have on the initial two cards at most?
Five
Hit, stand, double down, split and surrender; only hit and stand remain after a third card.
Q 17What happens when a player doubles down?
Add a matching bet, take one card
'Double for less' lets the player add less than 100 percent at some tables.
Q 18What does a player give up when they surrender?
Half the bet
It ends the hand immediately and is not allowed after splitting.
Q 19Which hand signal means 'hit' in a face-up game?
Tap the table
Scraping the cards on the felt is the equivalent in handheld games.
Q 20Pointing with two fingers spread in a V signals which decision?
Split
Doubling down uses one finger; surrender is a horizontal line drawn behind the bet.
A push
Bets are returned without adjustment.
Q 25Which dealer up-card lets players take insurance?
An ace
The side bet, of up to half the wager, pays 2 to 1 if the dealer has blackjack.
Q 26What does a winning insurance bet pay?
2 to 1
Basic strategy says never to take it; the dealer has blackjack less than a third of the time.
Q 27What is taking insurance with a blackjack of your own called?
Even money
The player swaps a 3:2 payout for 1:1 but gets paid even if the dealer also has blackjack.
Q 28Roughly how much do basic-strategy players lose on their action over the long run?
Less than 1%
That gives blackjack one of the lowest house edges in the casino.
Q 29Paying blackjacks at 6:5 instead of 3:2 raises the house edge by roughly how much?
1.4%
A 1:1 payout is worse still, adding about 2.3 percent.
Q 30Under the 'Reno rule', doubling down is allowed only on which hard totals?
9, 10 or 11
A similar European rule restricts doubling to 10 or 11 only.