Blackjack Players’ Choice

Blackjack Players’ Choice by 1X2 Gaming adds an unusual decision to conventional blackjack: you choose both your starting hand and the dealer’s hand using partial information about five concealed card pairs. It is an interesting deduction-based variant, although its 98.37% RTP and restrictive rules make it less favourable than many traditional blackjack games.

How Does Blackjack Players’ Choice Work?

The game begins with five concealed two-card hands. You can see the total values of all five hands, but those values are displayed in a random order, so you don’t initially know which total belongs to which pair of cards.

Your task is to choose a hand for yourself and then one for the dealer. By revealing individual cards and comparing them with the available totals, you can sometimes eliminate possibilities before making a decision.

Once both hands have been selected, the game proceeds much like blackjack, although several familiar rules have been removed or changed.

Step 1: Place Your Bet and Examine the Five Hands

In the version we reviewed, the betting range was 0.10 to 200.00 in the selected currency. After placing a bet, clicking Deal produces five face-down pairs and displays their possible totals.

In our example, the displayed totals were 11, 15, soft 21, 17, and soft 14. The asterisk identifies a soft hand containing an ace counted as 11.

These values do not correspond to the positions of the hands on the table. You therefore cannot simply select the pair beneath your preferred total.

Step 2: Reveal a Card and Decide Whether to Keep the Hand

We selected the middle pair, revealing a nine.

Knowing that one card is a nine allows us to narrow down the possible totals:

• 11: Possible, with a second card worth two.
• 15: Possible, with a second card worth six.
• 17: Possible, with a second card worth eight.
• Soft 14 or soft 21: Not possible with a nine as one of the two cards.

We therefore know the selected hand must total 11, 15, or 17, but cannot identify its exact value.

At this point, you can keep the hand or discard it. In the version we reviewed, you are permitted one discard, after which your next selection becomes your playing hand.

Step 3: Choose Your Hand and the Dealer’s Hand

We discarded the first pair and selected another. This time, a five was revealed.

The five could form an initial hard total of 11 or 15 from the possibilities remaining in our example. With the discard already used, we had to accept the selected pair.

The next decision was which remaining pair to assign to the dealer. This adds another layer of deduction because you must consider the possible dealer totals alongside information revealed during your own selections.

In our recorded round, the dealer revealed a ten. Based on the information available at that stage, we narrowed the dealer’s possible hand to hard 17 or soft 21.

Our own hand ultimately totalled 15. We drew a five to reach 20, then stood. The dealer revealed 17, subsequently drew another card, and busted.

The round illustrates the main appeal of Players’ Choice. You aren’t simply responding to the cards you’re dealt. You’re using incomplete information to influence which starting hands enter play.

What Are the Blackjack Players’ Choice Rules?

Although the game retains the objective of beating the dealer without exceeding 21, several rules differ from conventional blackjack.

One particularly unusual rule concerns the dealer. Rather than always following the familiar requirement to draw until reaching 17, the dealer’s behaviour can depend on the player’s standing total. In the rules documented during our review, the dealer can stop below 18 when that is sufficient to beat or tie the player’s hand.

The loss of half your stake on a tie is another substantial difference. In standard blackjack, an ordinary push returns your full original bet. Here, even an equal final total can produce a loss.

These changes help explain why the ability to select starting hands doesn’t translate into an unusually high return to player.

What Is the Blackjack Players’ Choice RTP?

Blackjack Players’ Choice has a published theoretical return to player of 98.37%, equivalent to a house edge of 1.63%.

That means the game’s mathematical expected loss is approximately $1.63 for every $100 wagered over the long run, assuming the strategy underlying the published RTP. It does not mean that every $100 session returns exactly $98.37.

For comparison, some conventional blackjack games can have a house edge below 0.5% when played with favourable rules and appropriate basic strategy. Their theoretical RTP can therefore exceed 99.5%.

Consider $1,000 in total wagering turnover:

These are theoretical averages rather than predictions of individual results. Nevertheless, the comparison demonstrates that Players’ Choice has more than three times the expected loss per dollar wagered of the illustrative 99.50% RTP blackjack game.

Being able to choose your starting hand and influence the dealer’s hand does not mean Players’ Choice offers better odds than conventional blackjack.

Why Does Blackjack Players’ Choice Have a Higher House Edge?

The extra control provided during hand selection is offset by several changes to the standard blackjack rules.

The 6:5 blackjack payout is less favourable than the conventional 3:2 payout. On a $10 stake, a winning natural blackjack pays $12 at 6:5 rather than $15 at 3:2.

More importantly, ties are costly. In standard blackjack, an ordinary tie results in a push, with your original stake returned. Losing half your wager on tied hands introduces an additional cost that can occur repeatedly during play.

You also cannot double down or split pairs. These options are important features of conventional blackjack strategy because they allow players to adjust their stakes or hands under favourable conditions.

Players’ Choice compensates for these restrictions by allowing you to influence the starting hands, but the published RTP demonstrates that the combined rules still favour the casino by 1.63% under the game’s theoretical strategy assumptions.

Does Normal Blackjack Basic Strategy Work in Players’ Choice?

No. Conventional blackjack basic strategy cannot be applied unchanged because Players’ Choice uses different dealer rules, removes doubling and splitting, penalises ties, and introduces decisions before either hand is fully revealed.

The hand-selection stage also requires reasoning about incomplete information. Rather than knowing your exact starting cards immediately, you must consider several possible totals based on the cards revealed and the displayed list of hands.

For example, suppose the displayed hard totals are 8, 9, 10, 18, and 20. If you reveal a ten from one of the pairs, the hand must be 18 or 20 because neither 8, 9, nor 10 can contain a ten-valued card under these conditions.

That information is useful even though it does not identify the exact hand. Subsequent selections can narrow the possibilities further, especially after one pair has been discarded.

However, deduction doesn’t eliminate gambling risk. Even when you identify the possible totals correctly, the game can still produce an unfavourable result. A mathematically optimal strategy for this variant would need to account for its complete rules and the probabilities associated with each available decision.

Is Blackjack Players’ Choice Worth Playing?

Blackjack Players’ Choice offers an interesting alternative to conventional blackjack because of its hand-selection mechanic. The opportunity to reveal cards, eliminate possible totals, and influence the dealer’s starting hand gives the game a puzzle-like quality absent from most blackjack variants.

During our original review, we found ourselves spending more time evaluating hand possibilities before each round. This reduced the number of hands we played per hour compared with a conventional blackjack session.

That can reduce betting turnover over a fixed period if stakes remain unchanged, but it doesn’t improve the game’s house edge. Your expected loss still depends on the amount wagered and the game’s mathematical return.

For players primarily interested in favourable blackjack odds, the 98.37% RTP is a significant drawback compared with conventional games offering higher theoretical returns.

Players’ Choice is more interesting as a deduction-based blackjack variation than as a game offering particularly competitive odds.

Can You Play Blackjack Players’ Choice for Free?

Blackjack Players’ Choice was originally available through an embedded demo from the NYX gaming platform. However, the older demo used Adobe Flash, which is no longer supported by modern browsers.

To play the game today, you would need to find a casino or game catalogue offering a compatible version. Availability can vary by operator and jurisdiction, and the original Flash demonstration should not be treated as a functioning modern game client.