Ask for twenty-one in a casino and you get blackjack. Ask in a British pub or a family kitchen and you may get pontoon. Both descend from the French vingt-et-un, "twenty-one", and all three share the same idea: build a hand as close to 21 as you can without going over. Card values are the same too, with aces worth 1 or 11, court cards and tens worth 10, and every other card its face value. The differences sit in who can see what, who wins a tie and what the best hand is paid.
Where the names come from
Vingt-et-un is the French ancestor, played in France in the 1700s. The name "blackjack" is most often traced to a bonus that some American casinos offered when the game was being introduced: a hand of the ace of spades with a black jack, clubs or spades, paid 10 to 1. Casinos later dropped the bonus, but the name stuck to the natural 21 and then to the whole game. Accounts vary, so treat that as the commonly cited origin.
"Pontoon" is generally taken to be a worn-down form of vingt-et-un as said by English soldiers, and it became the British name for a version with its own habits. Many players say "twenty-one" for any of them.
Who sees what
In casino blackjack the dealer turns one card face up at the start and keeps the other hidden. You see your own cards and one of theirs, so every decision is a bet against a known up-card. The bust rates by dealer up-card depend on it.
In British pontoon, the banker's cards both stay face down, and so do the players'. You look at your own hand and decide with no information about the banker. With no up-card, your decision rests on your own total and the risk of the next card.
The vocabulary
The moves have different names, and they are not always the same moves.
- Twist is pontoon for taking a card, face up, and stick is standing. In blackjack they are hit and stand.
- Buy is a pontoon move with no direct blackjack equivalent. You raise your stake, within a limit that varies by house, and receive a card face down. Rules vary on how often you may buy.
- Double down is the blackjack move that is closest: one more card and a doubled bet. In blackjack it is allowed only on your first two cards in most games, and you get exactly one card.
- Split exists in both. Rules on splitting aces or splitting again vary.
Pontoon also has a rule about sticking: in the traditional game you may not stick below 15, and the banker may not stick below 17, though some groups play with different limits.
The two hands that change everything
In blackjack, a natural is an ace plus a ten-value card in your first two cards. In pontoon the same two cards are called a pontoon, and it is the best hand in the game. Pontoon then adds a second top hand, the five-card trick: five cards whose total is 21 or less. It beats every hand except a pontoon, including a three-card 21.
The trick is rarer than it sounds. There are 2,598,960 possible five-card hands from a 52-card deck, counting aces as 1 so that only hands that cannot bust are included. Of those, 139,972 total 21 or less. That is 5.39%, and it is a ceiling: it assumes you were prepared to draw all five cards whatever you held, which you would not be if the first three cards had made 19.
The pontoon itself is a plain count: an ace with one of the 16 ten-value cards. That gives 2 × (4/52) × (16/51) = 4.83% of hands in a single deck, which is the same number as for a blackjack. For a longer comparison, see how the number of decks changes the odds.
Ties go to the banker
This is the rule that decides which game you are playing. In pontoon, if the banker and a player have the same total, the banker wins. In blackjack, equal totals are a push and the bet comes back.
Against that, traditional pontoon pays the player 2:1 on a pontoon, and many groups pay 2:1 on a five-card trick too. Blackjack pays its natural 3:2 and gives the tie back. The post on the 3:2 payout explains why that half-bet matters so much, and the chart shows what a 10-unit natural wins under each.
Who deals, and what the banker does
A casino blackjack dealer is an employee who follows fixed rules and never chooses a play. The usual house rule, and the one in the app below, has the dealer stand on 17. In home pontoon, the banker is one of the players and the role passes round the table, traditionally to a player who is dealt a pontoon. That makes the banker's decisions part of the game. Many groups bind the banker to stick on 17 or more, but the details vary.
When the banker has a pontoon, players commonly pay double, though some groups limit that. If you meet a pontoon rule you do not recognise, ask the table, because house rules differ.
A quick way to tell which game you are in
- Are the dealer's cards face down? Pontoon.
- Does an equal total return your bet? Blackjack.
- Do you hear "twist", "stick" or "buy"? Pontoon.
- Is there a five-card trick? Pontoon.
Blackjack 21 Big Cards Offline plays the casino version: hit, stand, double down, split, surrender and insurance, with blackjack paying 3:2, the dealer standing on 17 and a six-deck shoe. Its listing also calls the game 21, twenty-one, black jack or pontoon. It plays offline, the chips are free every day, and they have no cash value.