Paul Trevor

The SP (Starting Price) is the official odds of a horse available to punters at the beginning of a race or at the ‘off’ as it’s commonly known.

The SP can be important to bettors if they chose to take the SP instead of locking the odds in as it determines the winning bet payout.

In this article, you’ll find out how SP is determined along with, the pros and cons of taking the SP and how you can ensure you always get the best possible odds for your bets.

The SP was previously determined by appointed bookies at the race track and mirrored the general consensus of the market just before the start of the race.

However, when COVID hit the nation and the UK went into lockdown in 2020, things had to change.

When horse racing resumed, restrictions were put in place which meant no bookmakers or crowds were allowed at the track. So, the <a href="http://www.thesprc.org/about-us/">Starting Price Regulatory Commission</a> (SPRC) conducted a review.

The review uncovered that only 1.4% of horse racing bets are placed at race tracks normally anyway.

With bettors only using online bookies during lockdown and the vast majority of bets being placed off-course, The SP is now determined by off-course odds taken from a group of bookies who have a significant share of the whole betting market.

Bettors are always looking for the best value and whilst they might get bonuses and offers from time to time, regular punters are on the look out for the best odds on offer day in and day out.

The <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/sports-betting-guide">online gambling market</a> is bigger than ever and with odds comparison sites, it’s easier than ever to find the best odds on an event.

The Outplayed <a href="https://outplayed.com/products/oddsmatcher#what-does-it-do">OddsMatcher Tool</a> provides real time odds updates at over 100 bookies so you always see the best odds on offer.

It does raise a question as to whether there is a need for bookies at the track.

Yet, you’ll still see plenty of them track side in their little betting booths at horse and dog races.

If you are at the races then do you use the bookie there or jump on your mobile and place your bets within seconds?

Now whilst the process is similar, the outcome may differ because the odds offered by a bookie at the track can differ to online odds.&nbsp;

Course bookies determine the odds for a race by the amount of money they take. In general, they aim to make about 10% per race.&nbsp; Once their costs are deducted they will make approximately in the region of 8%.

As an example, let’s say there is a race with only 2 horses running.

The track bookie had a substantial liability on horse A so they decide to drop the price on it to deter any more bettors backing it.

At the same time, they would increase the odds of horse B to make it more appealing, take bets and balance the books a little. The mechanics of it are a little more complex than that in reality though.

Whilst online bookies work in a similar fashion, the volumes are considerably higher as more people are betting online than are at the races.

It’s not a simple case of one is better than the other. More often than not, the online prices will be better as there is far more liquidity (money placed) in the markets.

There will always be times where one is offering better odds than the other so if you’re out for a day at the races, check both before placing your bet.

Logic would push you to think that from the selected bookmakers, an average figure would be used to determine the starting price.

The issue with this is that there could be concerns the bookies could arrange it so that the odds disadvantage the customers and given them the edge.

To avoid this, when the race starts, the odds are shared equally across the chosen bookmakers.

This results in the SP being the lowest odds offered by the bookie in the upper half of the selection.

The below example is the odds being offered by ten bookies on a horse.

They are ordered from highest to lowest odds.

As mentioned above, the SP will be the odds offered by the lowest bookmaker in the top half of the table.&nbsp; In this case, the SP is the odds of 6.5 (11/2) by Paddy Power (shown in bold).

The horse in this example had odds from 5.5 (9/2) to 7.5 (13/2) so the SP of 6.5 (11/2) in this race looks fair. Because the SP rules are set in stone by the Starting Price Regulatory Commission (SPRC), it can sometimes result in an unfair SP without bettors realising.

Here’s an example of when that might happen:

In this case, a fair SP would be 5.5 (9/2) but because of the rules, the SP is 5 (4/1).

When placing a bet on horses or dogs, bettors can choose whether to take the starting price (SP) of take the fixed odds.

Choosing to take the SP can be useful if the market conditions are uncertain and volatile with fluctuating odds as it can give you averaged odds at the time of the race.

It also provides the odds of the overall consensus of the market at the off.

There are times when people will get tips or stable information too.

This can help in that if they know the price is lower than it should be, taking the SP should give them better odds when the race starts.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using the SP?

Choosing the SP is pretty straight forward and is generally the same for most bookmakers.

If a bettor deals with a betting shop or on course bookie, they can tell the bookie they want to take the SP. Alternatively, you can choose the SP yourself at online bookmakers.

Below are examples where they might slightly differ.

With William Hill, they display both the current odds and another option to click on the SP.

This then opens the bet slip as above with the SP selected.&nbsp; If you changed your mind and wanted to take the current odds, you simply either click the on-screen odds of 1.15 or click on the 1.15 odds in the bet slip.

Bet365 slightly differ to William Hill in that they don’t have columns for the current odds and starting price. Instead, you would need to click on the current odds to open the bet slip.

Once the bet slip is open, if you click on the 1.14 you‘ll then see a pop up with the option of clicking on the SP.

One thing to mention is when using the William Hill mobile app, you won’t see the current odds and SP columns.

It will display current odds only but once you click on the odds, the bet slip opens and you can chose the SP as you would do with Bet365.&nbsp; With so many online bookies about, some might slightly differ in their layout but the option to take the SP will be available somewhere.

This selection is a good example of where taking the SP might be a good idea. Aurora Vega has extremely low odds so a punter may think the only way these odds will go is up.

If you take the SP and the odds drift out higher, then you’ll make more profit.

Let’s say you decide to place a £10 win bet on Aurora Vega.&nbsp; The current odds are 1.15 but you decide to take the SP and the horse wins.

This case demonstrates how the SP can have a big influence on your profits.

These were extremely low odds but if you imagine a similar scenario with higher odds, you can see how it’s possible to vastly increase your profits.

However, don’t forget it can also work the other way around and your profits could take a big hit in the wrong direction.

This leads to another little gem on offer from quite a few of the bookmakers – Best Odds Guaranteed.

This completely removes the need to even consider whether or not to use the starting price or take the fixed odds.

BOG basically merges the benefits of placing fixed odds bets with a potential advantage of SP bets.&nbsp; In essence, it means a bettor cannot be disadvantaged with their choice of odds.&nbsp; You put a £10 win bet on a horse at fixed odds of 5 (4/1) but when the race started, the SP was 10 (9/1).

This means that if the horse wins, you get £100 back instead of £50 thanks to the BOG being offered by the bookie. You can read more about this with our comprehensive <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/best-odds-guaranteed-in-matched-betting">Best Odds Guaranteed</a> guide.

What Does SP Mean In Horse Racing?

Ben Adams

During much of 2024, <a href="https://outplayed.com/">Outplayed</a> have been hard at work building one of the most powerful betting tools ever available.

A select few individuals were able to use the <a href="https://outplayed.com/products/steam-chaser">Steam Chaser tool</a> as part of the vigorous testing done to ensure its profitability over the long run.

One of these testers made an incredible £86,124 profit over eight months.

Luke (whose name has been changed to protect his identity) has volunteered to share his journey revealing the process he followed to make over £86k using the Steam Chaser.

Before jumping in, keep in mind that Luke has been <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/what-is-value-betting">value betting</a> for many years and has a larger bankroll than most, but you will be able to learn a lot from his story and can use that to emulate his results using your own level of experience and bankroll.

Discovering Value Betting And Steam Chaser Success

Like many others, Luke first started his profitable betting journey <a href="https://outplayed.com/what-is-matched-betting">using Matched Betting</a> but now focuses almost exclusively on value betting and has done so for around five years:

“I don’t do much Matched Betting anymore, but if I’m ever offered a free bet of over £10, I’ll likely grab that.

I focus on value betting most of the time and the tools I use the most are (in order):

Since he started using the Steam Chaser around eight months ago, Luke has made £86,124 in pure profit. He did this by turning over £716,541 worth of bets on UK bookies giving him a yield of 12%.

This comes in at over £10k profit per month on average which is seriously impressive. However, placing over £700k worth of bets seems like a huge amount of bets but Luke explains how he achieved this over the course of 2024 and shared some screenshots of his bets and profit/loss statements:

“To place the volume I did, I used nearly 100 different UK bookmaker accounts.

I don’t record bets on an individual basis because it’s time-consuming and all I want to do is try and record a large volume of bets. Instead, I record the starting balances of accounts, end balances, and how much is wagered on each account if the account is eventually stake-restricted.

My average bet size is around £100 on each bookmaker, but I may take a bet multiple times over multiple bookmakers if the bet is particularly high value or the opportunity is around for a while. This means I have placed around 7,165 bets this calendar year, which works out at around 30 bets per day on average.

As I don’t record individual bets it’s hard to say the exact average odds I use but I’d imagine on the Steam Chaser the average odds I take are around 2.5 - 3.0.”

Steam Chaser Filters And Optimising Turnover

The Steam Chaser interface can look daunting at first glance with the wide range of filters and settings available. Luke explains how he sets up the Steam Chaser for his bets:

“In terms of sports I mainly look out for Soccer, but do mix in some Basketball/Tennis/Hockey when I’m using bookmakers I don’t care about losing too much.

I don’t filter by bookie because I think it’s always worth looking for the match on bookmakers I have open anyway.

Some bet selections can often have slightly varied names to the software, so sometimes you need to find them based on kick-off time or by looking for similar names.

On the “markets” filter - I filter out Team Totals, I’m not sure if they will lead to <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/top-tips-to-avoid-being-gubbed">gubbings</a> as I’ve never tried many, but it feels too obscure so I avoid them.

I set the steam % filter to 15% and leave the odds range filter set to min odds 0 and max odds of 4.0.

For the periods filter - I choose the soccer full match only option when using soccer bet.

I set the time until filter to the next 12 hours. I would imagine that any longer than this is going to be suspicious for a bookmaker, reducing this further might be wise for bookmakers that you want to keep for longer.

Any other filters I leave as the default.

In my Steam Chaser settings I also often have .75 and .25 “spread intervals”, “totals intervals” and “show team goals” turned off to reduce the clutter on the page.”

Luke goes on to explain how he’s been able to optimise his turnover by forward planning and a professional office setup:

“I have multiple bookmakers always loaded and often hit the same selection over multiple sites when possible. I also plan ahead when big sports events are taking place and work as many Saturdays as possible when there are lots of soccer matches taking place around the world.

I also have six monitors. I’ve always thought that investing in additional monitors is one of the easiest ways to increase your betting volume, as it becomes much easier to monitor bookie's odds vs the Steam Chaser as well as allowing you to use other betting strategies at the same time.

The best time to place bets is always Saturday in the build up to kick-off times. I get down around five times more volume on a Saturday than on a Monday for example, and the days leading up to Saturday get increasingly better. Sunday is often not bad for football when there are lots of matches taking place.”

Dealing With Variance, Account Limitations And Best Bookies

Using value betting tools such as Steam Chaser requires a long-term focus and the ability to deal with inevitable periods of downswings in profit. Luke describes how he has learnt to manage this over time:

“I’ve been gambling for a living for over ten years now from poker, high-risk casino and now mainly value betting and have had multiple large downswings, but you eventually remove yourself from both winning and losing.

After numerous years of value betting, I know the strategies are working, the results are out of my control, and downswings are inevitable. I advise anyone starting always to bet a maximum of a quarter <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/kelly-criterion-betting-system">Kelly staking strategy</a> and to adjust their bankrolls in line with this when on down/upswings.

The most prolonged losing period this year has been around two months; in previous years I’ve had 3 - 4 months before I was back to the previous peak, but fortunately, nothing as severe this year. As I say, I don’t record individual bets, but if I had to guess, my biggest downswing using the Steam Chaser this year was around £7k.”

Using long-term strategies like value betting you also need to be able to handle when bookmakers limit your betting accounts. Luke sticks to a set of rules to help him prolong the life of his accounts:

“I place bets close to kick-off and mainly stick to soccer bets. I also avoid handball and volleyball on most sites even where there are available bets showing on the software.

I’m extra cautious with the bookies that provide most value, these can change often, but over the long run if I had to pick my top three I’d go for Bet365, Sky Bet and 888sport.

I tend to not use Betfair Sportsbook and Paddy Power anymore as they seem to limit bets very quickly in my experience. I also avoid using Steam Chaser on some bookmakers and use a different strategy to begin with like 2UPs, for example. This helps keep the account open for much longer than hitting the Steam Chaser straight after the account set-up.

The lesser-known bookies that I don’t use for anything else will always just get used straight away to hit the Steam Chaser as I'd rather extract as much as possible in the shortest time possible and then move on to the next opportunity.”

The Steam Chaser and value betting is not for everyone and you do need a certain level of experience, bankroll and time to begin. Luke describes how he has learnt to manage this over time:

“I would start with at least around £2000 - £3000, but I would try to heavily avoid spending this bankroll and let it grow, preferably mixing in things like low-risk casino/sports Matched Betting offers to get this building up as quickly as possible. Money makes money, and at the start of value betting, the difference in hourly rate vs using a larger bankroll size will be massive.

I place value bets full-time but “work” more/less during busy/quiet times. If you have a relatively big bankroll and don’t mind big swings in profit, then only having Saturdays available would still make value betting very worthwhile, but of course, the more time you put in, the more you’ll get out.”

Luke’s results are quite extraordinary and it's great to see how they are broken down to see exactly how he achieved them using the Steam Chaser tool.

At Outplayed we’re looking forward to seeing more amazing results from<a href="https://outplayed.com/products/steam-chaser"> using the powerful Steam Chaser</a> and if you have any questions or if you want to share your own results please do <a href="https://outplayed.com/contact">get in touch</a>.

How I Made £86,124 Using Outplayed’s Steam Chaser Tool

Lynsey Thompson

Roulette is one of the most iconic casino games of all time and has mass appeal to casino players both in person and online.

Named after the French word meaning little wheel, Roulette has everything you want in a casino game – simplicity, speed, anticipation, excitement and decent payouts. It is also lots of fun too.

Many people play Roulette like a guessing game, picking their favourite numbers and moving around the board trying out different bets. However, others apply strategy and mathematical processes to try to maximise their payouts.

Either way, Roulette offers the chance to do both and has multiple variations to keep things interesting too.

So, let's take a look at Roulette in more detail; how to play it, what variants you can find, what the house edge is and which strategies you can use when playing.

In a standard single-zero roulette game there is a wheel with 37 different segments, or pockets as they are sometimes referred to, and a corresponding board.

The wheel segments are numbered 0 – 36 and each has a colour. Almost half of the numbers (18 of them) are red, another 18 are black and the number ‘0’ is green.

Before the wheel is spun, players place bets on which number they think the wheel will land on. They do this by placing casino chips on the board and there are various bets they can choose to place.

We’ll go into this in more detail below but, as an example, you can choose specific numbers, whether it will land on a red or black number, whether it will be odd or even, or if it will fall within a number range laid out on the board.

Once all bets are placed, the croupier spins the wheel in one direction and throws a small ball in the other direction around the tilted track on the outside of the wheel. When the wheel stops spinning, the ball will land in one of the numbered pockets and this is the winner.

Let’s look at a standard European Roulette board in order to understand the different bets that can be placed.

As you can see from this image, a standard Roulette board, which can be referred to as the ‘layout’, has a green cloth background and includes the green, red and black numbered segments which correspond exactly to those on the wheel. You will also see other boxes where specific bets can be placed.

Roulette bets are split into two different types – inside bets and outside bets. Inside bets are those that are more precise, which means they are harder to get right but pay better when they land.

Outside bets are less precise and give you a better chance of winning but pay much lower when you do.

Here’s a list of the main inside Roulette bets you can place, where to place your chips and what payout you can expect.

Because inside bets involve you focusing your predictions on anything from one to six numbers, the payouts are higher ranging from 5-1 for a Double Street Bet to 35 – 1 for a Straight Bet.

You may want to spread your bets a little more by placing outside bets over a wider selection of numbers to give you a better chance of winning.

Possible outside Roulette bets, their chip placement and payouts are below:

Because outside bets aren’t as precise as inside bets and include you betting on a range of 12 – 18 numbers, the odds are much lower ranging from 1-1 to 2-1.

The important thing to remember about outside bets is that although they cover a wider selection of numbers and therefore have more chance of winning, no outside bets cover the ‘0’. This means that if the wheel lands on zero, all outside bets lose.

There are a series of additional bets which are sometimes used in Roulette, which are commonly referred to as ‘French Bets’.

These aren’t available in all versions of Roulette and, truthfully, would only ever be used by more experienced gamblers. While most bets in Roulette are centred around the layout of the numbers on the board, these bets are based around the layout of numbers on the wheel.

For example, the Voisins du zero bet which means ‘neighbours of zero’ refers to the 17 numbers that lie either side of the green ‘0’ on the wheel. This series of numbers would be 22-18-29-7-28-12-35-3-26-0-32-15-19-4-21-2-25.

The Le tiers du cylindre (third of the wheel) bet, more commonly known as just ‘tiers’ is a series of 12 adjacent numbers on the wheel opposite to the zero which are 27-13-36-11-30-8-23-10-5-24-16-33.

Meanwhile, the Neighbours bet, refers to a five-chip bet that covers one number and the two numbers on either side of it on the wheel. For example, ‘0 and the neighbours" is on 3, 26, 0, 32, and 15.

These examples are given only as a reference for those who may want to seek out further details about more intricate bet sequences that are available in some versions of Roulette.

Roulette betting, as with all table games, is done with casino chips. Think of chips like getting currency to travel abroad. You convert your cash to chips to play in the casino and then you convert chips back to cash, if you’re lucky enough to have any left.

Just like currency, chips come in all different denominations. When playing in a real casino, the lowest chip denomination is usually £1 although it can be as low as 10p in an online casino.

When you place a chip on a Roulette square, you are betting the value of that chip. So, if you place a £1 chip, it’s a £1 bet and a £10 chip is a £10 bet. Always ensure you know what chips you are placing as it can be easy to place the wrong chip by accident. Often chips have different colours for varying denominations to help you distinguish between them.

If you are playing in a real-life casino, you may also be given your own coloured chips. For example, you may play with red chips, while fellow players have blue and white chips. This is just to help the croupier distinguish between the players and who placed which bet on the board.

In some cases, Roulette tables have a minimum bet level, and this applies separately to inside and outside bets. For example, if the bet minimum is £5 at the Roulette table, you can’t place a mixture of inside and outside bets up to the £5 value.

You would normally have to place £5 worth of bets on either inside or outside bets. If you want to place bets on both, you would have to bet £10 minimum (£5 on inside bets and £5 on outside bets).

So far, we have focused on the single-zero Roulette game which is usually referred to as European Roulette. However, this is the most basic and also the most player-friendly version of Roulette you can find.

Other versions include a double-zero Roulette game, triple zero Roulette game, plus lots of other weird and wonderful variations.

Double-zero Roulette, or American Roulette as it is often referred to, has become much more common in both <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-casinos">brick-and-mortar casinos and online</a>. The reason is because it gives more advantage to the casino and less to the player.

As discussed earlier, outside bets already don’t cover when the wheel lands on the single 0. By also including a double zero ‘00’, it means there is double the chance of wiping out all outside bets.

Even worse than that, triple zero Roulette is becoming more common in places like Las Vegas, which gives the casino an even bigger advantage.

In terms of other Roulette variations, there are far too many to go into in detail. However, here’s a brief summary of three of the most popular online Roulette games and how they differ from the basic format.

This is an online live dealer experience, although the host does not have any involvement with spinning the wheel or ball. Bets can be placed from 50p up to £500 and once betting is finalised and the wheel starts spinning, random multipliers ranging from 50x to 500x are allocated to five numbers. If you place a straight up bet on any of those numbers and it wins, you will have your win multiplied.

Mega Roulette and Lightning Roulette are similar to the above offering random multipliers to numbers on each spin.

This is a quick online version of Roulette which only has 25 seconds from one spin to the next. There is no down time for betting, as soon as one number lands, the wheel is spun again and betting happens during the spin. It enables an extra 50 rounds of betting per hour over normal live Roulette games.

This version offers a single-zero Roulette game and on each spin up to five numbers are randomly chosen as the lucky numbers. When chosen, the number is allocated a symbol – diamond, spin coin or multiplier coin.

If the wheel lands on one of these numbers, a bonus game is triggered, which can be anything from a multiplying progressive wheel to a Cash Collect game grid.

There are four options when it comes to playing Roulette in the UK. You can physically go to a casino where you’ll find live Roulette tables with a croupier who spins the wheel and other players at the table.

You can also choose to play electronic Roulette in a casino, as most of them offer it now. This involves sitting at a machine in the casino, selecting your Roulette bets on the screen and an automated wheel will spin either on the screen or physically beside you.

Alternatively, you can play Roulette online, and once again, you can select a live dealer online game or an electronic game too.

It really depends upon what your own personal preference is. For many, nothing beats a live croupier and playing with other players in person for that social interaction, but for others this would be too pressuring or time-consuming.

Playing online does have its advantages in terms of being able to play whenever and wherever you want. You can also choose to have some social element by playing live online Roulette games which come with an interactive croupier and a chat function.

The point is, really, that Roulette is now available in so many forms and formats and so many variations that you can take your pick of when and where you play it. Just always remember to do so safely and responsibly within a set budget.

We’ve already mentioned some of the different variations of Roulette that are available, but we haven’t yet touched on House Edge and how that works.

Many people believe that some of the bets in Roulette are 50/50 such as red or black, odd or even, and the number ranges 1-18 and 19 – 36. Because most of the numbers fall into one or the other of these bets, the common misconception is that they are 50/50.

However, what they aren’t taking into account is the green ‘0’ pocket. If one player bets on red and another player bets on black and the wheel lands on zero, then both players lose.

The single zero therefore gives the <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/are-online-casinos-rigged">casino an advantage</a>, which is called the House Edge.

If you bet on red rather than having a 50% chance of winning, you actually have a 48.65% chance. Meanwhile the casino has a 51.35% chance of winning as it could land on black or the green ‘0’.

The difference between these two numbers (51.35% and 48.65%) is 2.70% which is the House Edge for European Roulette.

If we then apply the same mathematics to double zero and triple zero Roulette, it explains why casinos are keen to offer more of these games to players.

Double zero Roulette has a house edge of 5.26% while it goes up to 7.69% in triple zero Roulette.

The higher the house edge, the less chance the player has of winning. So it pays to try to stick to single zero European Roulette if you have the choice.

As a comparison to other casino games, <a href="https://outplayed.com/news/matched-betting/how-to-play-blackjack">Blackjack</a> has a House Edge of between 0.42% - 2% which is considered the lowest, while slots have a House Edge of between 1.2% - 14% depending on which game you choose and its <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/what-does-rtp-mean-in-gambling">RTP</a>.

For every casino game, there are a dozen strategies that players swear by. Of course, there is no winning formula. If there were, we’d all be millionaires and the casinos would be out of business!

However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t play Roulette strategically to either minimise your losses or cover the most numbers on the board.

The key to using strategies is to know when to stop playing. We can all hit a lucky streak or a lucky spin, in the case of Roulette, but if you continue to play then the chances are that the casino will win overall.

That’s exactly what House Edge is, and why it is achieved over a huge sample of players over a long period of time.

Below we’ll take a look at a few of the most popular Roulette strategies for you to consider.

<a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/does-martingale-strategy-work" title="">Martingale Strategy</a>

This is a very well-known strategy for Roulette and other casino games. With Roulette it’s focused on the outside even money bets of red/black, odd/even etc.

The strategy centres around doubling up your bet size after a loss. So, say you have bet £5 on red for your first bet and it wins, you will receive £10 in return (£5 stake plus £5 winnings).

However, say you didn’t win and the wheel landed on black so you lost £5. With the <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/does-martingale-strategy-work">Martingale Strategy</a>, your next bet would be £10 on red. If it lost again you would then bet £20 on red and if it lost again then £40 on red. However, if you then won, you would receive £80 back (£40 stake plus £40 win).

This would cover all of your previous bets (£5 + £10 + £20 +£40) plus give you £5 profit.

In this strategy, after a win, you reset back to the original stake and start again with a £5 bet.

There are several negatives with this strategy, firstly it assumes you have an unlimited bankroll to begin with so that if you have a long period without a win, you have enough money to continue betting.

If you start with a low bankroll, you can be wiped out before you even implement it. It can also be very tedious betting on the same thing over and over again with different stakes.

Finally, if it gets to the point where you are betting significant amounts, Roulette tables often have bet limits so you could find that you then can’t place the bets you need to recoup your losses.

How to Play Roulette 2026 Guide

Simon Thatcher

Blackjack is one of the world’s most popular card and gambling games. It can be found in thousands of casinos, both real world and online.&nbsp;

You can learn about blackjack in our <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/how-to-play-blackjack" target="_blank" title="">How To Play Blackjack Ultimate 2026 Guide</a>. If you’re interested in knowing how likely you are to win blackjack, and similarities between blackjack probabilities and betting odds, this is covered <a href="https://outplayed.com/blog/what-are-the-odds-of-winning-blackjack" target="_blank" title="">here</a>.

The topic of splitting cards is a common source of confusion amongst blackjack players. This article will cover the rules for splitting and when you should split your cards, so you can have more confidence in your play. 

When a round of blackjack is dealt, each player initially receives two face-up cards, whilst the dealer is dealt one face-down and one face-up card in most blackjack variants.&nbsp;

The screenshot below shows five hands dealt in Premium Blackjack, a popular computerised blackjack game played in online casinos:

In this case, none of the hands can be split. The reason for this is easily explained using the blackjack split rule, which we’ll go through in the next section.&nbsp;

You can split cards if your first two cards are a pair with the same value.

Examples of cards that can be split are a pair of aces, a pair of 8s or a pair of 7s. Most casinos allow any pair of 10-value cards to be split, for example J-K or 10-Q, even though the cards don’t have the same rank.&nbsp;

However, some casinos only allow 10-value cards to be split if they have the same rank (for example, allowing a pair of jacks to be split, but not a king and a queen).&nbsp;

To signal that you want to split in a real-world casino, first place the same value of chips already staked next to your current chips, to double your stake.&nbsp;

Then, with your palm downwards, separate your index and middle fingers into a V-shape and place the fingertips of these fingers on the table.

Splitting in online blackjack is even easier - if you’re allowed to split, there will be a ‘Split’ button that you can click.&nbsp;

The dealer will split the two cards by moving them side-by-side, making two hands, then deal another face-up card onto each card.

Unless the cards that you split were aces, you'll then be able to hit either of your hands and, depending on the rules of the game, in some cases, double or split again (known as re-splitting). Each of your split hands is treated as an individual hand.

Once you have split your hand you’ll end up with two separate hands, which are played individually, one at a time.&nbsp;

If you’ve split aces, you’ll only be dealt one more card and won’t be able to double. If you’re dealt a 10-value card to your ace, it will normally count as 21 but not blackjack.&nbsp;

For any other value of cards split, you can stand, or hit as many times as you want to. You’ll normally be allowed to double after splitting.&nbsp;

With many blackjack variants, you’ll only be allowed to split your hand once, using the two cards initially dealt to you.&nbsp;

Some casinos and blackjack variants allow you to split more than once. As mentioned previously, this is known as re-splitting.&nbsp;

Outplayed Blog

Latest Posts

Page 7