Pontoon (card Game) - Rules

Rules

Pontoon has similar rules to Spanish 21, with some notable differences, listed below.

  1. Just like in Australian, Asian, and European blackjack, the dealer has no hole card (NHC). This means that the players do not know whether or not the dealer has a natural (a.k.a. Blackjack, an Ace and a 10-valued card) until the end of the round, when the dealer draws his second card. Therefore, it is possible to draw to "21" and win against a dealer natural, which is player advantageous and not possible in either Spanish 21 or Blackjack.
  2. Because the dealer has no hole card, it is possible to double and/or split and lose multiple bets to a dealer natural. All casinos, except for Adelaide Casino, offer either BB+1 or OBBO to compensate.
  3. An Ace in a pre-double hand is always counted as 1, rather than 1 or 11. For example, if the player doubles on soft 18 (an Ace plus one or more cards totaling 7), he/she is essentially doubling on 8. This rule makes doubling on soft hands highly inadvisable.
  4. Players are not allowed to draw on split Aces (NDSA), which means that if the player splits Aces, he/she is given one card only on each Ace.
  5. Compared with Spanish 21, which allows splitting to four hands (SPL3), there are limitations on how many hands players are allowed to split to. Casinos in Queensland and New South Wales do not permit resplitting (SPL1). In most venues, players cannot resplit Aces (SPA1), apart from Burswood Casino, Perth, and Casino de Genting, Malaysia, where it is allowed to resplit once (SPL2).
  6. Players can only surrender against a dealer Ace or face (a.k.a. Picture) card. If the dealer ends up with a natural, the player will still lose the entire bet; moreover, he/she missed out on the opportunity to draw to "21" and win unconditionally. This is why surrendering is a less valuable play in Pontoon than in Spanish 21.
  7. In Adelaide Casino, and Casino de Genting, Malaysia, it is allowed to double only on two-card hands. Elsewhere, players can double on any number of cards, which is called "not last chance" (NLC) doubling.
  8. The dealer always hits on soft 17, abbreviated as H17.
  9. Pontoon has the same super bonus payouts are Spanish 21, with the exception of Casino de Genting, Malaysia, which has a super bonus payout of RM1,000 on bets of RM10 to RM99, and RM5,000 on bets of RM100 or above.

Despite the player disadvantage of rules 2–9, on average, the house edges for Pontoon are lower than for Spanish 21, because rule 1 is so profoundly player advantageous. The rule differences mean that there are several significant strategy differences between Spanish 21 and Pontoon.

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