| BASIC PLAY (2) »
BASIC PLAY (1)
The first action you should take upon sitting down at the table is to change your currency into casino chips. Do not place your money in the marked betting square (or circle at some tables) or the dealer will think you are placing a wager on the next hand. In many casinos, you can place bets with currency. If the dealer shouts, “Money plays!” when your change is put out, then it is in the wrong place. Quickly ask for change or your first bet will be your entire buy-in.
Generally, the dealer doesn’t like to make change for over twenty units. A twenty-dollar bill at a one- or two-dollar-minimum table will usually get you ten silver dollars and two five-dollar chips. During play, if you want to break down a larger-denomination chip, merely place it beside the betting square and announce “change.” If you should run out of chips, you can buy more with currency.
There are no minimum buy-in rules at Blackjack. You can play with just one chip as long as it equals or exceeds the table minimum. You can carry your chips from table to table or even take them home overnight, or as a souvenir. If you have been betting more and more units and winning, the dealer will often pay you in larger-denomination chips, called upgrading your stack.
While some think that this is an attempt by the dealer to get you to bet more and more by giving you larger chips, you can always obtain whatever change you need at any time at your discretion. The dealer is only making change the easy way by returning fewer but larger-denomination chips, or trying not to run short of his lower-value chips in the chip tray.
If you have sat down at the finish of a deck or shoe, the deal will stop. After a thorough shuffle of the cards, the dealer offers one of the players the option of cutting. (You may refuse this if
you wish.) In a single- or two-deck game, the dealer offers the cards to a player.
