What blackjack side bets cost on a published rules file
A side bet is a second wager in a small circle beside the main box. It settles on the first cards dealt, before you make a decision, and pays from its own paytable. The main hand rewards decisions; the side bet rewards a card pattern. That difference is why blackjack side bets cannot be lowered by strategy.
The house edge of a side bet works like the edge on any wager: 100% minus the published return. If a rules file says a bet returns 96.30%, the house keeps 3.70% of every dollar staked on it over the long run. Single sessions swing wildly around that figure, because side bets pay rarely and pay big when they do.
The cleanest single source is Evolution’s Infinite Blackjack rules file, for a table dealt at five Ontario sites. It publishes a return for the main game and for each of its four side bets on one page. The same provider’s Power Blackjack file does the same, and the rest of the figures below come from each provider’s own rules.
- 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)
Blackjack side bets compared by house edge
| Side bet (Infinite Blackjack) | Paytable as printed | Published return | House edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main hand | Blackjack pays 3:2 | 99.47% | 0.53% |
| 21+3 | 100 / 40 / 30 / 10 / 5:1 | 96.30% | 3.70% |
| Any Pair | 25:1 suited, 8:1 other | 95.90% | 4.10% |
| Hot 3 | 7-7-7 at 100:1 down to a total of 19 at 1:1 | 94.60% | 5.40% |
| Bust It | 3 cards 1:1 up to 8+ cards 250:1 | 94.12% | 5.88% |
Read the table top to bottom and the pattern is plain. The cheapest side bet on this table costs about seven times the main hand per dollar, and the dearest costs about eleven times as much. None of these blackjack side bets comes close to the 0.53% the main game gives up when you play basic strategy for every hand.
These figures belong to one table. Another provider, or another game from the same provider, can run a bet with the same name on a different paytable, and a different paytable means a different edge. The second table below shows how far the same four names move across Evolution’s own games. Names travel between tables; prices do not.
| Side bet | Infinite Blackjack | Power Blackjack | Infinite Fun Fun 21 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21+3 | 96.30% | 96.09% | 97.53% |
| Pair bet | 95.90% (Any Pair) | 96.58% (Any Pair) | 97.01% (Match) |
| Hot 3 | 94.60% | 96.21% | 97.14% |
| Bust It | 94.12% | 94.71% | 98.15% |
How the 21+3 side bet pays
21+3 takes your first two cards and the dealer’s face-up card and treats them as a three-card poker hand. If the three cards form a qualifying hand, the bet pays. The Infinite Blackjack paytable prints five payout levels: 100:1 at the top, then 40:1, 30:1, 10:1 and 5:1. Anything that does not qualify loses the stake.
The published return for 21+3 on Infinite Blackjack is 96.30%, so the house edge is 3.70%. Evolution’s classic and Speed tables, Pragmatic’s ONE Blackjack, Speed and Blackjack X, and OnAir’s seven-seat tables all print the same 96.30%. That is still about seven times the main game’s 0.53%, on every round you place it.
The figure moves on other games. Power Blackjack’s 21+3 returns 96.09% and Infinite Fun Fun 21’s returns 97.53%, an edge of 2.47%. Playtech’s All Bets Blackjack, dealt at 888casino, Betway, LeoVegas and ToonieBet, prints the same 100 to 5:1 ladder, and its six side bets return between 93.89% and 96.30%.
Perfect Pairs and Any Pair: betting on your first two cards
Pair bets settle on your first two cards alone. Evolution’s Any Pair on Infinite Blackjack pays 25:1 when the two cards form a suited pair and 8:1 for any other pair, with a published return of 95.90%, a house edge of 4.10%. On Power Blackjack the same Any Pair bet returns 96.58%, an edge of 3.42%.
Perfect Pairs is the more common name. Evolution’s classic and Speed tables and Pragmatic’s ONE Blackjack, Speed and Blackjack X print 95.90% for it, a 4.10% edge. OnAir’s seven-seat tables quote the same 95.90% with a top payout of 25:1. Infinite Fun Fun 21 runs a pair-style Match bet at 97.01%.
The dearer versions sit on other tables. Perfect Pairs on Evolution’s Always 6 Blackjack, dealt at ToonieBet, returns 93.89%, a 6.11% edge, so the same name costs half again as much as on the classic table. Playtech’s All Bets Blackjack splits the idea in two, a Perfect Player Pair and a Perfect Dealer Pair, each paying 25:1, 12:1 and 6:1.
Hot 3 and Bust It: totals and dealer busts
Hot 3 adds your first two cards to the dealer’s face-up card and pays on the total. On Infinite Blackjack the top line is three sevens at 100:1, the bottom line a total of 19 at 1:1. The rules file publishes a return of 94.60%, so the edge is 5.40%, roughly ten times the main hand.
Bust It is a bet on the dealer. It pays when the dealer busts, and the payout climbs with the number of cards the dealer drew: 1:1 for three cards up to 250:1 for eight or more. It pushes if you have blackjack. The published return is 94.12%, an edge of 5.88%, the highest of the four.
Both bets run on more than one Evolution table, at very different prices. Bust It returns 94.71% on Power Blackjack, 98.15% on Infinite Fun Fun 21 and 93.81% on Easy Blackjack, dealt at Casino Days and LeoVegas. Hot 3 returns 96.21% on Power Blackjack and 97.14% on Fun Fun 21. Pragmatic’s ONE Blackjack runs its own dealer-bust bet at 94.12%.
Insurance is a side bet too
Insurance is offered when the dealer shows an Ace, and it settles on whether the dealer has blackjack. It is separate from your hand, which makes it a side bet in all but name. On a six-deck shoe, counting no cards already seen, insurance at 2:1 returns about 92.60%. That is a house edge of 7.40%.
That figure is higher than every side bet in the Infinite table above. Insurance feels like protection for a good hand, but it is a separate wager on the dealer’s hole card, and basic strategy declines it. On Infinite Blackjack the dealer peeks only with an Ace up, and with a ten-value card showing there is no insurance at all.
Lightning Blackjack adds another reason to decline. Its rules file says that taking insurance forfeits both the Lightning fee and the multiplier on that round. You pay for insurance twice there: once in the edge built into the insurance bet itself, and again in losing what the fee had bought.
Side bets with the biggest top payouts
The bets with the largest top lines are rarely the cheapest. Pragmatic’s Crazy 7 on ONE Blackjack pays up to 2,000 to 1 for three suited sevens and returns 94.77%, a 5.23% edge. Lucky Ladies on Evolution’s Always 6 tables tops out at 200 to 1 and returns 91.42%, an edge of 8.58%.
Playtech’s All Bets Blackjack prints Top 3 at 270:1, 180:1 and 90:1, Buster Blackjack up to 2,000:1 and Lucky Lucky up to 200:1, within its 93.89% to 96.30% range. Evolution’s Bust It reaches 250:1 on Infinite Blackjack while returning 94.12%, the dearest of that table’s four side bets. Each top line is a long shot, priced into the return.
A large top payout tells you little about the price. A 2,000:1 line can sit on a bet with a high edge, because the chance of hitting it is tiny and the lower lines pay little. Rank these bets by their published return, never by the top line, and compare each with the main hand’s edge on the same table.
Side bets per round: an illustrative example
The cost of a side bet scales with how often you place it. Expected loss is stake × house edge, every round. The example below uses round figures chosen for illustration; it describes a long-run average across many rounds, not the result of any session, and actual outcomes swing far above and below it.
Example only: a C$10 main bet on Infinite Blackjack costs about C$0.05 per round on average at 0.53%. Add a C$5 21+3 bet at 3.70% and that side bet alone costs about C$0.19 per round. Over 50 rounds the main hand averages about C$2.65 and the side bet about C$9.25.
The side bet is half the stake and more than three times the cost. Swap 21+3 for Bust It at 5.88% and the side bet averages about C$14.70 over the same 50 rounds. These are averages, and a single large payout can mask the cost for a while, but the arithmetic catches up over enough rounds.
Checks before placing a side bet
Open the table’s help screen and find the return figure next to each side bet. Subtract it from 100% and compare the result with the main game’s edge. Then compare it with the figures on this page: a 21+3 at 96.30% or a Perfect Pairs at 95.90% matches the common Evolution and Pragmatic paytables.
Then check the paytable on the screen against the figures here. A bet called 21+3 or Perfect Pairs can carry different payouts from one provider to the next, and a lower top line changes the edge. If the paytable differs from the one printed here, rely on the return printed in that game’s own help screen.