A push is a tie between your hand and the dealer's. Nobody wins: your bet stays where it is, and you take it back. In chip terms the hand is worth exactly zero.
The basic rule
Once every player has finished and the dealer has drawn to a final total, each hand is compared with the dealer's on its own. There are three outcomes:
- Your total is higher than the dealer's, or the dealer busts: you win.
- Your total is lower than the dealer's: you lose.
- The totals are equal: a push, and your stake is returned.
Only the final totals matter. Eighteen made of ten and eight ties eighteen made of five, six and seven. The number of cards does not break a tie, with one exception, covered below.
Blackjack against blackjack
A blackjack, or natural, is an ace and a ten-value card as the first two cards. Blackjack pays 3:2 when you hold one and the dealer does not. If the dealer also has a natural, the hands are equal and the result is a push: you do not collect the 3:2 bonus, and you do not lose anything either.
The chance of this is small. In a six-deck shoe you are dealt a natural 4.75% of the time (2 × 24/312 × 96/311). With your ace and ten out of the shoe, the dealer has a natural 4.56% of the time (2 × 23/310 × 95/309). Multiply the two and both of you hold one on about 0.22% of hands, roughly one hand in 460. That is why the 3:2 payout is the figure worth remembering and the push is a footnote.
A three-card 21 does not tie a blackjack
This is the exception to "only the total matters". A natural outranks any other 21. If you reach 21 with three or more cards, say seven, seven and seven, and the dealer turns over a blackjack, you lose. The dealer's two-card 21 beats your three-card 21. The other way round, your natural beats a dealer's three-card 21 and is paid in full.
The reverse case is the one that confuses people at the table: a dealer who draws to 21 with several cards does not have blackjack. If you also have a three-card 21, that is an ordinary tie and a push.
When the dealer shows an ace and may have a natural, insurance comes into play. Insurance explained works through what that side bet costs.
A bust never pushes
If your hand goes over 21, it loses at once. Suppose you bust and the dealer later also busts. Both hands are over 21, but they are not equal: your hand was settled first, and your bet is gone. This is the main source of the house advantage in blackjack, and it is why a double bust is a loss for you and not a tie.
Blackjack 21 Big Cards Offline pays blackjack at 3:2 with the dealer standing on 17 and a six-deck shoe, and its listing says the How to play guide covers every move and the payouts. The listing does not describe push handling in any more detail, so what follows is about the general rule, not any one table.
How often you meet a tie
Because the dealer must stand on 17 or more, their final total can only be 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 or a bust. Taking an unlimited supply of cards to keep the arithmetic exact, and leaving aside which card is showing, the dealer finishes like this:
- Bust: 28.4%
- 17: 14.5%
- 18: 13.9%
- 19: 13.3%
- 20: 18.0%
- 21: 12.0%, of which natural blackjacks are about 4.7 points
Those add to 100%. If you stand on a total, your chance of a push is the dealer's chance of finishing on that same number. Standing on 20 meets a dealer 20 about 18% of the time, the most common tie, because 20 is the biggest pile of cards in the deck: tens, jacks, queens and kings together make 4 of every 13 ranks.
Those figures ignore the dealer's up-card, which you can see, so they are averages over every up-card.
About one hand in twelve
Put every hand together, and play it by basic strategy, and the overall share of hands that finish level is commonly quoted at about 8.5%, a little under one in twelve. Treat that as an approximate established figure, not an exact one: it shifts a little with the number of decks and the rules in force. It is a useful size to hold in your head.
So a session counted in "hands won" and "hands lost" leaves out about one hand in twelve, which was neither.
What to take away
- A tie on the final total is a push and the stake comes back.
- Blackjack against blackjack pushes: no bonus, no loss.
- A three-card 21 loses to a dealer blackjack, but ties a dealer's 21 made with three or more cards.
- A bust loses immediately, even if the dealer busts too.
- Standing on 20 meets a dealer 20 about 18% of the time.
For the payout that makes a natural worth having, see why 3:2 matters more than any other rule.
Blackjack 21 Big Cards Offline seats you with four other players and the dealer at a five-seat table, and the best hand sweeps every chip the losers left behind. It plays offline, the chips are free every day, and they have no cash value.