As Pennsylvania casinos and their platform partners prepare to launch online gaming in the state, some are questioning whether or not the same rules will apply for online table games as apply to live blackjack in the state.
Pennsylvania’s gaming regulations for live blackjack are player-friendly, paying 3:2 for blackjack and allowing late surrender. That puts the theoretical house edge around 1 percent with optimal strategy. Many casinos in the U.S., particularly on the Las Vegas Strip, have moved to 6:5 blackjack.
According to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, online gaming software needs to comply with those blackjack rules, unless a special request is made to review software that tightens the rules. In response to a question from the Play Pennsylvania news site, gaming board spokesman Doug Harbach said:
“The rules running within the software will be fine when they match our existing table-games rules for the casinos. Anything different from those rules would need to be reviewed individually, and the software changes approved by the gaming lab.”
