The Spanish Black Jack Deck
The key to understanding how Spanish black jack works is by understanding the composition of the Spanish black jack deck. In this real money black jack variation the deck is the same classic online black jack deck with all the 10 cards removed (i.e. in a regular 52 card deck like that used for standard online black jack games, there would remain only 48 cards after removal of the 10s). This removal of the 10 cards may not sound like a very big difference; it serves to reduce the incidence of natural black jacks significantly and thus tends to improve the house advantage. While this might seem like a terrible thing that should cause players to immediately leave off playing Spanish black jack, in practice the result is quite the opposite. Online black jack players love Spanish black jackand many prefer this game over the more standard variations of real money black jack. The reason for that is elaborated on in the next two paragraphs.
Spanish Black Jack Rules Favor the Player
Since by removing the 10 cards from the Spanish Black Jack deck, the house has gained a considerable advantage, this allows the house to allow a great deal of online black jack rules that favor the player. The end result of these rules is that the house advantage in Spanish black jack drops to a level approximately equivalent to that seen in other real money black jack games. Examples of such rules are that ties of 21 go to the player, doubling and redoubling is usually allowed and there are many special winning combinations available to the Spanish black jack players which are not normally offered to real money black jack players. Such combinations include things like special payouts for 5, 6 and even 7 card 21s. In addition, there may be hands which grant special payout sums like a hand of three 7s (which totals 21). These bonus hands may award the lucky Spanish black jack player a fixed sum or they might simply be rather high payout rates. A standard bonus payout for such a hand at Spanish black jack could easily be as high as 1000$ for the lower end wagers (typically - below 25$) and 5000$ or more for the upper end of the standard betting sums.
A Shift from Classic Online Black Jack
The option of winning somewhat larger payouts at Spanish black jack than are available at regular real money black jack variations represents a shift form the classic online black jack game. In the classic online black jack games the payouts are usually 1:1 or 2:1 and there is no chance of winning something big. Spanish black jack is not like that. As I have described in the previous paragraph, in this variation of real money black jack there are often chances of winning larger payouts. This chance of winning bigger sums serves to add significantly to the excitement and fun of this particular real money black jack variation and has served to make Spanish black jack quite popular with many online black jack players.
