How and When to Split Aces in Blackjack?

When you split aces in blackjack, you essentially place a second wager and start two new hands with each ace. Each hand is dealt separately. So, even if you lose one hand, you can still win the second one. It also means that you can beat the dealer twice in the same round, or lose twice.

Since splitting aces is very favorable to the player, casinos usually apply the following rules:

• No blackjack payouts: if you split aces and you hit a blackjack, you get a normal payout for winning the hand, not the “natural” blackjack payout.
• No re-splits: Another rule is that you can’t split aces more than once, so re-splitting is not allowed.
• One card and that’s it: When you split aces, you only get one more card per hand. You can’t hit or double on split aces.

Even with the extra rules in play, splitting aces in 21 still works in your favor most of the time.

You should almost always split aces in blackjack because both new hands have an excellent chance of winning. Even with the restrictions on split ace hands, this is still among the best times to split in blackjack because aces are worth 11 points and you have a high chance of a good score, but you can’t bust.

There are only two situations when you should not split aces. The more common case is when the dealer’s face-up card is also an ace in a no-hole blackjack, indicating they might have a blackjack.

“No-hole” means that the second card of the dealer, called the “hole card”, is only shown after the players have acted. If that’s the case, any doubles or splits (including aces) would lead to higher losses if the dealer hits a blackjack.

If the dealer “peeks” for blackjack before the players act and doesn’t have one, you should again split aces, even if the dealer has an ace.

The other situation when you shouldn’t split aces is if you can’t afford it for any reason.