Cashback Blackjack

A much more readily available version of Blackjack Early Payout, Cashback Blackjack is an RNG based game from well known game developer Playtech.

It’s a very accessible game with table limits of £1 – £5,000 per hand, which also gives the player an opportunity to make more tactical decisions, allowing them to end the game early after the initial deal for a fixed return.

It is possible to play up to 5 hands per game round, with side bets also available as an option but with no obligation to use them.

Gameplay and Rules

The game is played using a 6 deck shoe, and the table layout will be familiar to the majority of people, with the usual areas to place your regular bets, and side bets.

All of the usual options will become available at the relevant time such as splitting, doubling and insurance, but there will also be an additional button allowing the player to effectively cash out of the hand which we will cover below.

Other than that the game follows Las Vegas Strip rules, with a few changes such as:

• Deck is shuffled after each hand.
• Splitting is only allowed once.
• Only one further card to split Aces.
• Doubling after splitting is allowed, but a player cannot double more than once.
• Cannot double more than once.
• If dealer has Ace and player doubles then dealer gets blackjack, player loses full stake. If dealer has 10 value card and player doubles then dealer gets blackjack, player loses 50% of whole stake.
• Dealer does not check for blackjack.
• Dealer stands on all 17’s.

Assuming the player does not take the cashback option, the game proceeds as normal with the option to stand or hit etc. until the hand is played and ultimately lost or won (or pushed).

Cashback Option

The cashback option will always be offered after the initial deal in this game, but the amount of cashback on offer will depend entirely on the cards in view on the table.

It will not take into account the dealer’s hole card though as the game doesn’t technically know what that is at this point.

Even if the player has a strong hand, the ability to end the game early will be available, albeit at a rate a little lower than what would be won should the player see the game through and win.

As you can see in our example image above, we bet £10, have drawn a 15 against a dealers up card of 7, and have been offered £6.21 to end the game here.

This is reflective of our chances of ultimately winning based on the information available at this stage, but of course we must be aware that the game is not giving us fair value, it is offering a little under to maintain the edge.

If we were in a stronger position the amount offered might be more than our bet amount, but even if we drew 21 it would not offer us an amount equal to 1:1.

Side Bets

Along with the above there is the option to place a couple of side bets in this game.

These are completely optional, but you must place a bet on the game itself to be bale to play the side bets, you can’t play them independently. That said, you can play more than one hand at the same time and choose which hands, if any, you want to play the side bets on, so there is flexibility.

Those side bets are:

• Pairs
• 21+3

These are fairly standard side bets, with pairs being available to bet on via both the player’s and the dealer’s hand, and 21+3 paying out on various poker style card combinations, using the players first two cards and the dealer’s up card.

The payouts are as follows:

Pairs

21+3

RTP

The theoretical return to player percentage for the base game of blackjack here is 99.55%.

This is assuming the player knows how to play optimally in any given situation.

The side bets come with their own RTPs though, which are 95.38% for 21+3, and 93.89% for the pairs side bet.