Perfect Pairs Blackjack Side Bet: Pay Tables, Odds and House Edge

The wager goes in its own spot before the cards are dealt. When your first two cards are face up, the bet is decided by them alone. The dealer's cards, the third card of a hit and the outcome of the main hand are not part of it.

A pair means two cards of the same rank, so a king and a queen are not a pair, and a king and a ten are not either. Three kinds of pair pay. A perfect pair is the same rank and the same suit, which needs at least two decks because a single deck holds only one of each card. A coloured pair is the same rank and the same colour in a different suit, such as the king of hearts with the king of diamonds. A mixed pair is the same rank in different colours, such as the king of hearts with the king of spades. Only the highest kind pays.

The same bet is offered in Pontoon on 48-card decks. Those decks have the four pip tens removed from every deck, while jacks, queens and kings stay, and the rest of the rules are the same. The Star Sydney rules and the Crown Melbourne pairs table are the regulator documents behind that version.

Four tables have a published figure. All four pay for the same three kinds of pair, and only the multiples differ.

• The 25 / 12 / 6 table, printed as Pennsylvania 58 Pa. Code 633c.1 table A, Nevada table A and the Nevada live-dealer rules, pays 25 to 1 for a perfect pair, 12 to 1 for a coloured pair and 6 to 1 for a mixed pair.
• The 30 / 10 / 5 table, Pennsylvania table B and Nevada table B, pays 30 to 1, 10 to 1 and 5 to 1.
• The 25 / 15 / 5 table, Nevada table D, pays 25 to 1, 15 to 1 and 5 to 1.
• The 25 / 10 / 5 table for 48-card decks, from the Star Sydney rules and the Crown Melbourne pairs table, pays 25 to 1, 10 to 1 and 5 to 1.

Other tables are documented and shown with no figure. They are Nevada table C, the Canberra Pontoon approval on 48-card decks and the Crown Melbourne options for four to eight decks. For each, the printed pays have not been confirmed against the document, so the pays and the house edge are left out rather than guessed. The compare block further down lists them with the reason.

The house edge of a side bet is the average loss as a share of the side bet itself. It is one minus the average return, where each paying pair returns the stake plus its pay. The multiples decide it, and the deck count changes it as much.

At six decks the 25 / 12 / 6 table costs 6.11% (House edge, Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 12 / 6, 6 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.), the 30 / 10 / 5 table 5.79% (House edge, Perfect Pairs, pay table 30 / 10 / 5, 6 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.), and the 25 / 15 / 5 table 4.18% (House edge, Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 15 / 5, 6 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.). The 25 / 15 / 5 table is the cheapest at every deck count. Its 15 to 1 pay for the coloured pair lands on a hand that comes up more often than the rare perfect pair, so it returns more than the top pay of the other tables does. The 48-card table costs 6.62% (House edge, Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 10 / 5, 6 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) at six decks.

The ranking of two tables can flip when the shoe changes. At four decks the 30 / 10 / 5 table costs 10.63% (House edge, Perfect Pairs, pay table 30 / 10 / 5, 4 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) against 10.14% (House edge, Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 12 / 6, 4 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) for the 25 / 12 / 6 table. At eight decks the order reverses, with 3.37% (House edge, Perfect Pairs, pay table 30 / 10 / 5, 8 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) against 4.10% (House edge, Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 12 / 6, 8 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.). A higher top pay is worth more when more decks make perfect pairs more frequent, so the table with the bigger top award gains ground as decks are added.

For comparison, the main game under the comparison rules used on this site costs 0.62% (Comparison rules: 6 decks, dealer hits soft 17, double after split, blackjack pays 3:2. 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, dealer hits soft 17, dealer checks for blackjack with a hole card, blackjack pays 3:2, double on any first two cards, double after split, split up to 4 hands, aces are not resplit, one card to each split ace, no surrender. The player follows the printed strategy chart for these rules from a full shoe, and never takes insurance or even money.). Every Perfect Pairs table costs a multiple of that.

Every figure is an exact count. All the two-card combinations of a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe are counted without replacement, so nothing is estimated. On the 25 / 12 / 6 table at six decks:

• Perfect pair: 1.61% (Chance of Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 12 / 6, 6 decks: Perfect pair. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.), or 1 in 62.
• Coloured pair: 1.93% (Chance of Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 12 / 6, 6 decks: Coloured pair. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.), or 1 in 52.
• Mixed pair: 3.86% (Chance of Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 12 / 6, 6 decks: Mixed pair. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.), or 1 in 26.

Together the bet pays on 7.40% (Chance of a win, Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 12 / 6, 6 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) of rounds, and the rest lose the stake. The exact counts are 1,560 of 97,032 two-card combinations for a perfect pair, 1,872 of 97,032 for a coloured pair and 3,744 of 97,032 for a mixed pair.

Mixed pairs are the most common because there are more ways to match a rank in a different colour than in the same colour. That is the reason the pay list falls from the perfect pair to the mixed pair. The pays are set so that the rarer the pair, the higher the multiple, and the tables differ in where they put the money.

Pontoon on 48-card decks has a higher chance of some pair, 8.01% (Chance of a win, Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 10 / 5, 6 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) at six decks, against 7.40% (Chance of a win, Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 12 / 6, 6 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) on a 52-card shoe. Removing the pip tens leaves fewer ranks to match, so a pair is likelier.

The house edge falls quickly as decks are added. The 25 / 12 / 6 table costs 10.14% (House edge, Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 12 / 6, 4 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) at four decks, 7.72% (House edge, Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 12 / 6, 5 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) at five, 6.11% (House edge, Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 12 / 6, 6 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) at six and 4.10% (House edge, Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 12 / 6, 8 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) at eight. The 25 / 15 / 5 table falls from 8.21% (House edge, Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 15 / 5, 4 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) to 2.17% (House edge, Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 15 / 5, 8 decks. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) over the same range.

The cause is the perfect pair, the top award. It needs the second card to be one of the identical cards left in the shoe. The first card removes one of them from play, and in a small shoe that removal is a larger share of the total than in a big one. The chance of a perfect pair is 1.45% (Chance of Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 12 / 6, 4 decks: Perfect pair. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) at four decks and 1.69% (Chance of Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 12 / 6, 8 decks: Perfect pair. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) at eight. The coloured and mixed pairs hardly move, at 1.93% (Chance of Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 12 / 6, 4 decks: Coloured pair. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) and 1.93% (Chance of Perfect Pairs, pay table 25 / 12 / 6, 8 decks: Coloured pair. Exact count over a fresh, randomly shuffled shoe.) for the coloured pair. One award grows, and it is the one that pays most.

A single deck is not in the documents for this bet, because a perfect pair cannot happen there with two different cards. Every figure is for a fresh shoe. This page has nothing to say about a shoe that has been partly dealt.

No. The bet is decided by your first two cards, which are on the table before you make any decision. Hitting, standing, doubling, splitting or surrendering cannot change it. The strategy that fits the rules of the game stays the same whether or not you staked on the side.

One point deserves care because the two wagers look connected. If your first two cards are a pair, you may be able to split them in the main game. The side bet has already been settled by then, and the split neither adds to nor takes from it. The reverse holds too. A side bet that wins does not make a split right or wrong, and the main hand is still played to the same rules.

The bet is a separate wager with its own stake and its own house edge, and the edge is a cost on that stake, not a change to the main game's edge of 0.62% (Comparison rules: 6 decks, dealer hits soft 17, double after split, blackjack pays 3:2. 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, dealer hits soft 17, dealer checks for blackjack with a hole card, blackjack pays 3:2, double on any first two cards, double after split, split up to 4 hands, aces are not resplit, one card to each split ace, no surrender. The player follows the printed strategy chart for these rules from a full shoe, and never takes insurance or even money.). None of this is advice to place it. Each pay table costs more than the main game. Everything on the site is for information and play money only.