Five card Charlie: the rule and what it is worth

How the Charlie rule works

• Five cards, 21 or less: the hand wins at once and is paid 1:1. You do not wait for the dealer.
• A dealer blackjack depends on the table. Where the dealer checks for blackjack first, a Charlie never meets one: the round ends before you draw. At Infinite Blackjack the dealer checks only with an ace up, and a six card Charlie wins even against a blackjack. Some tables say a Charlie loses to a dealer blackjack, so read the rules screen.
• A doubled hand cannot get there: a double takes exactly one card, so it ends with three.
• A hand still stops at 21. Our numbers do not hit a soft 21 to reach five cards.
• The dealer has no Charlie: five dealer cards are just a total.

Five cards, hard 16. Without the rule this hand would lose to the dealer's 20. With five card Charlie it has already won.

What five, six and seven card Charlie are worth

The fewer cards the rule needs, the more often it pays. Five card Charlie is worth about 10 times as much as six card Charlie.

House edge as a share of the first bet. A dash: we found no real table that pays five card Charlie 1:1 with otherwise standard rules, so we give only what the rule is worth. “Chart for the rule” plays the chart below, “normal chart” plays the usual basic strategy chart and simply collects the Charlies. Worth = how much the rule lowers the house edge, in percentage points, with the chart for the rule. How often: our simulation, playing the chart for the rule. 6 decks, dealer hits soft 17, double after split, up to 4 hands, aces split once, no surrender, blackjack pays 3:2, a Charlie pays 1:1.

If you keep playing the normal chart, five card Charlie still lowers the house edge by 1.11 points. Playing the chart for the rule adds another 0.40 points, and a Charlie then comes almost twice as often: about 1 round in 44 instead of about 1 round in 81.

Where the rule helps most

The rule is worth most against a 10 (+2.30 points) and least against a 6 (+0.40). Against strong dealer cards you hit more, so more hands reach five cards; against a 4, 5 or 6 the chart stands early and waits for the dealer to bust.

Change in your average result per bet, in percentage points, against each dealer up card (chart for the rule against the normal game).

How the strategy changes with five card Charlie

With the rule, a hand of four cards is one card away from a win, so the chart hits more. The change depends on how many cards you hold, so there are three charts below. Pick the one for the number of cards in your hand.

• Four cards: hit every soft hand. A fifth card cannot bust it, so it always makes a Charlie.
• Four cards: hit hard 17 against a 9, a 10 and an ace, and hard 12 against a 4, 5 or 6, hard 13 to 15 against a 2 to 6 and hard 16 against a 2, where the normal chart stands.
• First two cards: fewer doubles and splits. Hard 11 against an ace is a hit, and some soft doubles become hits: hitting keeps the hand open for more cards. Some pairs are hit instead of split: 2s against a 2 or 3, 3s against a 2 and aces against a 9, 10 or ace.

All other two-card plays stay as in the normal basic strategy chart. Hands of five cards never need a decision: they have already won.

Six and seven card Charlie

Six card Charlie lowers the house edge by 0.14 points (0.62% to 0.47%), seven card Charlie by 0.01. The chart changes the same way, one card later: with six card Charlie, hit every soft hand of five cards and the outlined hard totals.

With seven card Charlie the same happens with six cards. A Charlie of six cards comes about 1 round in 440, of seven cards about 1 round in 5,967, so the rule barely changes the game.

Five card Charlie with other rules

The other rules of the table decide the final number. A 6:5 blackjack payout more than cancels five card Charlie: 0.47% with both rules. See 6 to 5 blackjack.

House edge with the chart for each rule set; worth = how much five card Charlie lowers it, in percentage points. A dash: no real table found with these rules (see above). All rows: double after split, no surrender, dealer peeks for blackjack. The 6:5 row: the same game with blackjack paid 6:5.

A real table: six card Charlie in Infinite Blackjack

The Charlie rule you are most likely to meet online is six card Charlie in Evolution's live Infinite Blackjack. Its other rules differ from our standard table: 8 decks, the dealer stands on soft 17, no double after a split, one split per hand, and the dealer checks for blackjack only with an ace up. A six card Charlie wins even against a dealer blackjack.

Evolution's rules for the game give a return to player of 99.47% (“based on the first hand in the shoe”), which is a house edge of 0.53%. The Charlie rule is already part of that number: the house keeps its edge. How to read a rules screen: blackjack rules.

Where you meet the rule

Five card Charlie is rare today: in October 2026 we found no online table that pays it 1:1 with otherwise standard rules. The six card version is the one you meet – in live games such as Evolution's Infinite Blackjack and Pragmatic Play's ONE Blackjack – and one online game, Six Card Charlie Blackjack by Espresso Games, even pays it 3:2. Pontoon, a British relative of blackjack, has a five card trick that pays 2:1, but there the dealer wins ties. In a game without a Charlie rule, five cards are simply a total.

Victoria's tip

If a table offers a Charlie rule, check how many cards it needs and what it pays before the first hand.

Questions people ask