Five-Card Charlie: What Regulators Document for a Five-Card 21

The two rules sound alike and behave very differently.

An automatic win means a five-card hand wins as long as it does not bust, whatever the total. A hand of 2, 3, 2, 3 and 4 for a total of 14 would beat a dealer 20. That is the rule the name Charlie describes.

A five-card 21 bonus needs the total to be exactly 21, and then it changes only what a winning hand pays. The hand still has to win on its total. It pays more than 1 to 1 because it took five cards to get there.

Everything the regulators document belongs to the second kind. In the regulator library assembled for this site, no document uses the word Charlie, and none makes a five-card hand under 21 an automatic winner. So this page does not present an automatic five-card win as a rule of any regulated game. Where such a rule is described, the only description comes from casino guides, and it is covered in its own section at the end.

New Jersey and Massachusetts both allow a casino to offer a bonus for five cards totaling 21 at a blackjack table. The New Jersey rule is numbered 13:69F-2.16, and the Massachusetts one is section 16 of the blackjack regulation. The wording is close to identical.

• What it pays. A five-card 21 pays 2 to 1, where an ordinary winning hand pays 1 to 1.
• When it pays. Only if the dealer has not achieved a blackjack or a score of 21. A dealer who busts or stands below 21 loses to it.
• When the dealer has 21 in three or more cards. The player's wager is void and returned. Nobody wins.
• When the dealer has blackjack. The player's five-card 21 is a simple 21, which loses to a dealer blackjack under the ordinary settlement rule.

It is optional. The casino chooses whether to offer it, and the regulator requires notice to players before the offer is withdrawn. It is one item on a list of optional payouts that also includes a 6-7-8 of one suit at 2 to 1 and three sevens at 3 to 2.

Take a bet of 10. Five cards make 21 and the dealer finishes with 19. The hand pays 20. The same five cards against a dealer 21 made of four cards return the 10, and against a dealer blackjack cost the 10.

The rule covers exactly five cards. A six-card 21 is an ordinary winning hand at 1 to 1 in these documents, which makes the bonus narrower than the Spanish 21 schedule below.

Spanish 21 uses the idea as part of a fixed bonus schedule instead of an optional extra. The Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington, Nevada and Massachusetts documents agree on the core.

• A five-card 21 pays 3 to 2.
• A six-card 21 pays 2 to 1.
• A 21 of seven or more cards pays 3 to 1.

The schedule sits next to the 6-7-8 and 7-7-7 bonuses, which are separate. The documents attach some conditions. The Pennsylvania and Massachusetts texts say the bonuses are paid at 1 to 1 only when the player has doubled down, and Washington states that doubled or split hands do not qualify. A 21 of three or more cards also beats a dealer 21 of three or more cards, and the Massachusetts text adds that it loses to a dealer blackjack. Nevada's sheet gives the same schedule with the note that players win on 21 when the dealer has 21 in three cards or more.

The bonuses are inside the published house edge. The figures for Spanish 21 are 0.41% (Spanish 21, dealer stands on soft 17. House edge per starting bet: the average loss per round as a share of the bet placed before the cards are dealt, doubles and splits included in the result. Rules: 6 decks of 48 cards (the ten-spot cards removed), dealer stands on soft 17, dealer checks for blackjack with a hole card, blackjack pays 3:2, double on any number of cards, double after split, split up to 4 hands, aces may be resplit, split aces may be hit, late surrender, a doubled bet may be rescued, a player 21 beats a dealer 21, bonus payouts: 5-card 21 pays 3:2, 6-card 21 pays 2:1, 7-or-more-card 21 pays 3:1, 6-7-8 mixed pays 3:2, 6-7-8 suited pays 2:1, 6-7-8 in spades pays 3:1, 7-7-7 mixed pays 3:2, 7-7-7 suited pays 2:1, 7-7-7 in spades pays 3:1, bonuses are not paid on split hands. The player follows the printed strategy chart for these rules from a full shoe, and never takes insurance or even money.) with the dealer standing on soft 17 and 0.81% (Spanish 21, dealer hits soft 17. House edge per starting bet: the average loss per round as a share of the bet placed before the cards are dealt, doubles and splits included in the result. Rules: 6 decks of 48 cards (the ten-spot cards removed), dealer hits soft 17, dealer checks for blackjack with a hole card, blackjack pays 3:2, double on any number of cards, double after split, split up to 4 hands, aces may be resplit, split aces may be hit, late surrender, a doubled bet may be rescued, a player 21 beats a dealer 21, bonus payouts: 5-card 21 pays 3:2, 6-card 21 pays 2:1, 7-or-more-card 21 pays 3:1, 6-7-8 mixed pays 3:2, 6-7-8 suited pays 2:1, 6-7-8 in spades pays 3:1, 7-7-7 mixed pays 3:2, 7-7-7 suited pays 2:1, 7-7-7 in spades pays 3:1, bonuses are not paid on split hands. The player follows the printed strategy chart for these rules from a full shoe, and never takes insurance or even money.) with the dealer hitting it, and they include the bonus schedule with bonuses not paid on split hands. This site does not publish how much of that figure comes from the five-card bonus alone.

The size of the schedule matters more than it looks. In ordinary blackjack the same hand earns 1 to 1, or 2 to 1 if the casino has chosen the option. In Spanish 21 it earns 3 to 2, and more for longer hands, and the game is priced with those payouts in mind. See the Spanish 21 page for the rules as a whole.

The Australian Pontoon documents pay the same schedule as Spanish 21: a five-card 21 pays 3 to 2, a six-card 21 pays 2 to 1 and a 21 of seven or more cards pays 3 to 1. The Australian Capital Territory approval, Crown Melbourne's rules and the Star Sydney rules print it in matching tables, next to a Pontoon (a two-card 21) at 3 to 2 and the 6-7-8 and 7-7-7 hands.

The Crown text states it precisely: the first five cards dealt to a player hand total 21. The odds are read from a table, and the table on the sign at the game is the one that applies.

Australian Pontoon settles a 21 differently from ordinary blackjack. Under the ACT rules a player whose hand totals 21 wins, and the only thing that beats it is a dealer Pontoon. So a five-card 21 does not need to worry about a dealer 21 made of more cards. This site's Pontoon page covers the game and the difference between the Australian rules and the British game.

British Pontoon is where an automatic five-card win is described. Casino guides say a hand of five cards that does not exceed 21 wins outright, and that Pontoons and five-card tricks are paid double. One of those guides adds that the dealer cannot achieve a five-card hand because the dealer always sticks on four-card hands under 21.

No regulator document in the library confirms any of this. The library holds no British rules document from a regulator. This site therefore treats the British five-card trick as an unverified description. It does not use it to set a payout, a house edge or a strategy. The Australian rules above are the sourced ones, and they show a bonus for a five-card 21, not an automatic win.

Because the rule is optional in blackjack and printed in a schedule elsewhere, the sign at the table is the authority. Four things are worth reading before you rely on a five-card hand.

1. Whether the bonus is offered at all. In ordinary blackjack a casino may choose not to, and the regulator lets it withdraw the offer with notice.
2. The card count. Blackjack pays the bonus for exactly five cards. Spanish 21 and Australian Pontoon step up at five, six and seven or more.
3. What happens against a dealer 21. The three games settle it differently: a void bet in blackjack, a win in Spanish 21, a win unless the dealer holds a Pontoon in the ACT rules.
4. Whether doubling or splitting cancels it. Several Spanish 21 documents say a doubled hand is paid 1 to 1, and Washington excludes split hands as well.

If any of these is not printed, ask the dealer before the hand, not after. The documents cited below are the reference for what each regulator allows, not for what a particular casino has chosen to offer.

Three gaps are worth stating before you rely on any claim about five-card rules.

The documents do not list any regulated game where a five-card hand under 21 wins automatically. If a table advertises Five-card Charlie, the rule belongs to that table and its posted sign, and no regulator page cited here defines it.

They do not give a house edge or a frequency for the five-card 21. The bonus is included in the Spanish 21 figures above and left out of the ordinary blackjack figures, since the optional payout is not part of the comparison rules. This site publishes no chance of drawing five cards to a 21 either. The odds data records dealer outcomes and the chance of a natural, not card-count distributions.

They do not settle every corner. Whether the bonus applies to a split hand differs between Spanish 21 documents, and for Australian Pontoon the split-hand bonus rules are not all confirmed. Ask the dealer or read the sign before a hand that depends on it.