How blackjack tables are measured, starting with the sources
Every table record on the site lists the page each rule came from, and those pages are graded. We rank them in a fixed order: a regulator’s document first, then the game provider’s own page or rules file, then the operator’s lobby data, then a press release, and a specialist game site last. Each grade is printed beside the value.
| Grade | What it is | Example in the register |
|---|---|---|
| Regulator | A gaming regulator’s rules document | Nevada Gaming Control Board rules for Playtech All Bets Blackjack |
| Provider | The game provider’s own page or rules file | Pragmatic Play rules files for ONE Blackjack and Speed Blackjack |
| Operator | An operator’s own lobby data, loaded by us | The Casino Days Ontario game catalogue on its content server |
| Press release | A dated provider announcement | Pragmatic Play’s August 2026 note on Privé Lounge Blackjack |
| Specialist site | A game database or specialist review | SlotCatalog for the Games Global RTPs, Live Casino Comparer for Playtech |
A record takes the grade of its weakest source. If eight rules come from a provider rules file and one comes from a press release, the whole record is graded as press release, because one soft value is enough to move the house edge. The sources are listed on every placard, so the grade behind each figure is visible.
Specialist game sites carry a defined share of the work. SlotCatalog gives the RTP for the five Games Global tables, Atlantic City and the Vegas family among them, and the Wizard of Odds rules table gives their decks and dealer rules. Live Casino Comparer, BlackjackInfo and LiveDealer.org supply provider figures and limits for several live games.
Operator data answers a different question: where a table is dealt. A title counts as available at a site when it appears in that site’s Ontario catalogue or lobby. Casino Days publishes its catalogue as a file, TonyBet and ToonieBet expose game feeds, and Jackpot City, Royal Vegas and Spin Casino list their titles on public Ontario pages.
Every value is dated
A provider edits a rules file, an operator adds a table, a lobby moves a limit. For that reason each record carries the date its sources were last checked, and a record is only as current as that date. The register was checked in full on 5 October 2026, and its house edges were updated on 6 October 2026.
Dates matter most for live tables. Evolution and Pragmatic Play run many tables under one game name, and the limits on an Ontario table can differ from the version shown on a specialist site. When a value comes from an older source, such as a provider press release, the record shows the date of that source beside the value.
From published rules to a house edge
The first route is the provider’s own return to player. When Evolution, Pragmatic Play, Playtech, OnAir Entertainment or Games Global prints an RTP for a game, that figure already includes every rule and side mechanic the game uses, from Six Card Charlie to a Lightning fee. The house edge on the placard is then 100% minus that RTP.
That route covers 26 of the 27 tables. The last one is computed. The maths engine enumerates every initial deal, weighs each by its exact probability for the shoe, and computes the dealer’s final totals for the cards left after yours and the upcard. Your hits, doubles and splits are valued with each drawn card removed.
From those values the engine builds a total-dependent basic strategy chart, the play that gives up the least on average in each cell. It then follows that chart for every decision, including hits after hits and the play of split hands. The house edge is that player’s average loss as a share of the first bet, from a fresh shuffle.
We checked the engine against the Wizard of Odds house-edge calculator across its grid of 3,456 rule combinations, and it agrees to within 0.05 percentage points. The charts for four, six and eight decks match cell for cell. One single-deck chart, with the dealer hitting soft 17, differs in one near-tie cell: a pair of nines against an Ace.
A few things sit outside the model. The cut-card effect of a hand-shuffled shoe is left out, because every round is treated as a fresh shuffle, and insurance is never taken. Split hands do not see each other’s cards, a simplification the Wizard of Odds tables share. All three are small next to the cost of a 6:5 payout.
The one table with a computed house edge
Pragmatic Play’s Blackjack X runs on eight decks with a dealer who stands on soft 17, a 3:2 payout, doubling on any two cards and double after split. Its rules come from the provider’s own game page and two specialist reviews, and the maths engine puts the house edge at 0.49% for a player who follows basic strategy.
The game is dealt without a live dealer at FireVegas, TonyBet, ToonieBet and Toppz. Its side bets, Perfect Pairs and 21+3, are separate wagers and do not enter the house edge of the main game. Should Pragmatic print a return for Blackjack X, the record would switch to that figure and keep the computed one in its notes.
The published RTP route for Infinite and similar games
Some games carry mechanics a card-rules engine would have to model separately. Infinite Blackjack deals one shared hand to every player with a Six Card Charlie rule and peeks only on an Ace. Lightning Blackjack adds a fee and a multiplier. For games like these the provider’s own figure is the most complete description of the maths.
Evolution’s help file gives Infinite Blackjack a return of 99.47%, so the record shows a house edge of 0.53% and marks the method as published. Free Bet Blackjack, Classic Live Blackjack, Power Blackjack, Speed Blackjack and Always 6 follow the same route, each from Evolution’s own game page or rules file for that title.
- Provider
- Evolution
- Decks
- 8
- Soft 17
- Dealer stands
- Blackjack pays
- 3:2
- Double
- Any two cards
- Double after split
- No
- Surrender
- No
- Dealer peeks
- Yes
- Limits
- C$1 – C$5,000
Source: games.evolution.com · livecasinocomparer.com (checked 2026-10-05)
A published return goes through the same grading as any rule. Where the provider’s figure reaches us through a specialist game site, as with SlotCatalog for the Games Global tables, the placard names that site. That is how Vegas Single Deck Blackjack shows a house edge of 0.31%, from a listed return of 99.69%.
How the house edge sets the ranking order
Sites are ranked by three comparisons, in this order. The house edge of the best table a site deals comes first. Ties go to the site with the wider spread of limits, then to the one with more distinct rule sets. Only sites registered in Ontario enter the comparison, so the licence works as a gate before it starts.
| Order | What is compared | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Gate | AGCO registration under an iGaming Ontario agreement | Whether the site may be listed at all |
| 1 | House edge of the best table | The long-run cost of every hand at that table |
| 2 | Limit breadth | Whether low and high stakes are both covered |
| 3 | Rule-set count | How many distinct tables you can choose from |
Eleven sites pass the gate: the private operators registered with the AGCO that run under an agreement with iGaming Ontario. Each of them deals blackjack only to players who are 19 or older and physically present in Ontario, and checks both at sign-up and again when a session starts. The ranking reads the record fields and nothing else.
Why put the edge first? Because it is the one number that applies to every hand you play at that table, and the differences are real. The register runs from 0.31% on Vegas Single Deck Blackjack to 2.77% on Evolution’s Easy Blackjack, a gap of about nine times on the same starting bet.
Limit breadth comes next because a good rule set is little use if its minimum is out of reach. Evolution’s Classic Live Blackjack record runs from C$10 to C$10,000, while First Person Blackjack runs from C$0.50 to C$500. A site with both kinds of table serves a wider range of players than a site with only one of them.
What we do not do
We do not run withdrawal tests, open test accounts or publish timings for payouts we never requested. We do not write that a table was tested when the record came from a rules file. If a statement rests on a source, that source is on the placard, and every figure on the site traces back to one of them.
Operator links on the site are affiliate links, as the site’s disclosure explains. The commission is not one of the inputs above. The ranking is produced from the record fields alone, so a table with a worse house edge stays below a better one whatever the commercial arrangement behind it, and no site can buy a higher place.
We also do not tell anyone a table will pay. A house edge is a long-run average over millions of hands, and a single session can land anywhere. Basic strategy is the play that gives up the least on average; every departure from it costs money over time, and following it still costs the house edge.
Checking how blackjack tables are measured at a real table
You can repeat most of this yourself. Open the game, find the help or rules panel, and read four lines: the number of decks, what the dealer does on soft 17, what a blackjack pays, and whether you may double after a split. Those four carry most of the weight in a house edge.
Then compare what you read with the placard for that table in our table register, or enter the rules in the house edge calculator. This is the same check that sits behind how blackjack tables are measured here, so a mismatch is either a change at the table or an error on our side.
Either way we want to hear about it. Send the table name, the Ontario site you played at, the rule you saw and, if possible, the rules-file page where it appears, through the contact page. A correction with a source gets checked against the record and, if it holds, the placard changes and the date moves.
Change log
- 5 October 2026: first publication of the register.
- 6 October 2026: every record carries a house edge, most of them from the provider’s published RTP.
- 12 October 2026: the register lists only the 27 tables dealt on Ontario-registered sites; 26 use a published RTP and 1 is computed.
The second update brought the published figures in from provider rules files and specialist game sites. Live games from Evolution, Pragmatic Play, Playtech and OnAir now show the return their providers print. The third update narrowed the register to the tables Ontario sites deal, which leaves Blackjack X as the only computed record.