California No Bust Blackjack

As the name suggests, California No Bust Blackjack is a variant on classic blackjack that has been popularized throughout California. The game’s “No Bust” element is created by the addition of rules which still allow players to win on busted totals, provided they are lower than the dealer’s busted hand.

Through this guide, you will find a detailed rundown of the rules and regulations. These include particular gameplay procedures which define California No Bust Blackjack. Also find detailed descriptions whenever the game diverges from the regular version. Next up is a comprehensive guide to locating casinos and card clubs in California, including a county by county breakdown to help locals find the closest venues. Finally, we’ll point you in the right direction when it comes to strategy tips, with a basic strategy chart devised by casino gaming experts specifically to tackle California No Bust Blackjack.

Game Rules

Before we move on to the nuts and bolts of this regional blackjack variant, readers who may not be familiar with the classic form of the game should head over to our main blackjack page first.

Once you know about the foundation of blackjack gameplay, you’ll be much better prepared to learn about the California No Bust variety.

This game utilizes a standard 52 card deck of playing cards, which is supplemented with the addition of a single joker card to create a 53 card deck. Most houses will use a six deck shoe to make the game more efficient.

The joker serves as a wild card which can hold any value – even one higher than 11. Whenever you hold a joker combined with a 2 through K (holding two or more cards), the total automatically becomes 21 and you will be forced to stand.

Imagine you’ve been dealt a lowly 2 along with a joker. In this game, that joker would act as a 19 value card, immediately creating 21.

Aside from the joker, the rest of the cards in California No Bust Blackjack hold their usual values, so 2s through 9s are valued at their numerical rank, 10s and face cards (Js, Qs, Ks) are valued at 10, and aces hold a variable value of either 1 or 11 depending on the current total.

In normal blackjack, the best possible hand is an ace combined with any 10 value card, which is known as “blackjack” and results in an automatic winner.

California No Bust Blackjack mixes things up, however, and several hands actually outrank the traditional blackjack in this game.

The best possible hands in California No Bust Blackjack are known as “naturals,” and a natural can be made using the following two card combinations:

• Two Jokers
• Two Aces
• One Ace and One Joker

The natural hands shown above have no rankings in and of themselves, which is to say, any natural is just as strong as any other.

When you land a natural as your first two cards, you must declare that fact to the dealer immediately. When the dealer doesn’t produce a natural of their own, you’ll win 2 to 1 on your ante wager for making a natural.

In this game, an ace combined with a 10 value card is still valued at 21, but unlike in regular blackjack, these “pat” hands don’t outrank other 21 totals. So, if you land an ace and a king for 21, but the dealer hits their 14 up to a 21 as well, you won’t win automatically, and your bet will simply be returned as a push.

Playing California No Bust Blackjack

Best Places to Play California No Bust Blackjack

California is home to several premier gambling destinations, including the Commerce Casino and the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles County, Bay 101 in Santa Clara, and Pechanga Resort & Casino in Riverside.

Players would be well served by visiting any of these modern, resort-style casino settings for their next session of California No Bust Blackjack.

The Golden State is also quite large, however, so even California natives may not be all that close to L.A. or the Bay Area. Fortunately, California is also home to dozens of licensed card clubs, tribal casinos, and other smaller scale gambling establishments.

Due to the complex and ever fluctuating gaming laws in California, which require certain venues to run “pari-mutuel” table gaming only, you’re sure to find California No Bust Blackjack being played somewhere nearby.

Check out the extensive list below, which features every card club and casino in California, to find the locations nearest you. We provide you the first fifteen casinos and card rooms that are located in California. For a more in-depth look at the casinos in California take a look at our California state casinos page for all of the details you need.

California No Bust Blackjack Strategy

This is the most accurate basic strategy chart for California No Bust Blackjack. Click on the image to view the full chart.

Michael Shackleford, the legendary casino game theorist better known online as the Wizard of Odds, has devoted his professional career to analyzing casino games on a mathematical level. Through his Wizard of Odds page, he has analyzed hundreds of unique casino games, including nearly all known variants on casino classics like blackjack.

By using the strategy advice contained on the chart, players can create game conditions which offer an overall house edge of 0.56 percent. This is right on par with traditional blackjack played according to basic strategy, so players who prefer the California No Bust variety aren’t sacrificing anything at all in terms of overall expectation.

California Created Blackjack Variant

At one point, due to the strict gaming regulations in place throughout California, most casinos and card clubs were not permitted to run “house-banked” games in the traditional sense. This meant that casino operators were forced to get creative if they hoped to run standard games like blackjack, so the concept of “player banking” was introduced to satisfy the law.

Today, many gambling venues have been around long enough to secure the necessary licensing and regulatory approval to run house-banked games. The game of California No Bust Blackjack is steeped in tradition throughout the Golden State, so even in venues which also carry regular blackjack, you’ll still find this creative offshoot. Many of the smaller card clubs which are sprinkled throughout the state don’t even bother with basic blackjack, knowing that their clientele prefers the cultural curiosity known as California No Bust Blackjack.

Along with this interesting wrinkle, California No Bust Blackjack also includes several other major points of departure from traditional blackjack. The deck contains a joker, for example, and players alternate between “banking” the game or serving as both the house and the dealer.

If you’re planning a trip to the West Coast at some point, or you already live in California but have yet to experience this exciting take on an old classic, this page will provide all of the information you need to know before placing your first wagers.