There are a large number of blackjack variants at Australian online casinos. The broad objective is the same in all these games. You have to aim for a hand value higher than the dealer’s without busting by going over 21. However there are differences in the rules and this makes the online blackjack variants more interesting. This article provides an overview of the more popular blackjack games.

There is a range of online blackjack variants referred to as American Blackjack. The main identification of these games is that both the dealer’s cards are dealt up front, the first one face up and the second one face down. If the face up card is an ace or a ten value card then the dealer peeks at his face down card to check for blackjack, before the player makes any move. If the dealer has a blackjack, then the game ends there with the dealer winning. If the dealer does not have a blackjack then the player starts making his moves. This rule is followed in the American land casinos in Atlantic City, Vegas Strip and Vegas Downtown. At each of these three gambling hot spots there are minor differences in other rules, giving rise to three variants of American online blackjack.

In the land casinos of Europe blackjack is played a bit differently. The online blackjack variant that follows this game is called European Blackjack. Here the dealer is dealt only one card face up at the beginning. The face down hole card is not dealt. Hence the dealer cannot check for blackjack up front and the player starts his moves immediately. European Blackjack has a slightly lower average return than the American Blackjack variants.

In both the above types of online blackjack games the player can see one and only one card of the dealer when he makes his moves. But this is not the case in all online blackjack games. There is a blackjack variant at Australian online casinos called Double Exposure. As the name suggests, both the dealer’s initial cards are dealt face up. Because the player can see both the cards, he has a tremendous advantage. To compensate for this blackjack pays only even money instead of 3 to 2. Pontoon goes to the other extreme. The player cannot see any of the dealer’s cards while playing his hand. Because of this disadvantage, blackjack (it is referred to as pontoon in this game) pays 2 to 1.