In land casinos blackjack is a multiplayer game. A number of players sit at the table and play their individual hands against the dealer hand. Many online casino software providers have multiplayer blackjack variants in their portfolio. Cryptologic offers a blackjack variant called Video Blackjack, which in addition to being a multiplayer game is also a multi dealer game. A number of player’s hands are simultaneously played against a number of dealer’s hands.

The number of player’s hands can vary from 1 to 5. These have to be played against at least 3 dealer’s hands. But the number of dealer’s hands can be as high as 50. This means that players can simultaneously wager on up to 250 blackjack hands. The bet per hand varies from $0.10 to $50. The total bet is obtained by multiplying this by the number of player’s hands and the number of dealer’s hands.

The game play of Cryptologic Video Blackjack follows the usual pattern. Two cards are dealt for each player hand and two cards are dealt for each dealer hand. Both the player’s cards are dealt face up, whereas in the dealer’s hands one card is dealt face down and the other is dealt face up. The face up card will be the same for all the dealer’s hands. This is an important stipulation because it allows player’s to use the optimum blackjack strategy for each hand and keep the house edge to the minimum. If the dealer’s face up cards were different, the player would by default use strategy that is not optimum against some hands and that could increase the house edge to unviable levels. The exact rules are laid out within the game and players should go through them before wagering.

The player completes each of his hands in turn. Then the face down cards in the dealer’s hands are turned over and the hands are completed according to the blackjack rules. Simultaneously the comparison of each player hand with each dealer hand takes place and the payouts are awarded. The software will make no mistake in awarding the payouts. But the process is illustrated on the screen in a transparent manner. Below each of the player’s hands are three colored boxes. The green box indicates the number of wins, the orange box indicates the number of pushes and the red box indicates the number of losses incurred for that hand. The total has to be equal to the number of dealer’s hands. For the number of losses the player does not get anything; for each push the player is returned the original wager and for each win the player is paid even money and returned his original wager. If the win is with a blackjack then the player is paid at 3 to 2 instead of even money. The payouts are accumulated across all the player’s hands and credited to the player’s account. Another feature is that when the cursor is moved over the green box of a player’s hand, the dealer’s hands that have lost against this hand are highlighted and the other hands fade away. This is applicable for the other boxes as well. It helps the new player in tracing his position.

Video Blackjack is available in two formats. One is played with four decks and the other with eight decks. It is live at all Cryptologic online casinos like InterCasino and VIP Casino.