Canal 21 Blackjack

For residents of the Central American nation of Panama, or visitors to the area’s many casinos, one of the most popular local variants on traditional real money blackjack is known as Canal 21 Blackjack.

Taking its name from the ubiquitous Panama Canal – one of the greatest feats of human engineering ever completed and a source of great pride for the Panamanian people – Canal 21 blackjack is a hybrid that incorporates several exciting wrinkles into the gameplay.

This page was written to help players decide whether Canal 21 blackjack is the game for them, so you’ll find a detailed breakdown of the game’s rules and structure. Next, we’ll provide a useful list of places where Canal 21 blackjack can be found, before finishing things off with an introduction to basic strategy, the game’s house edge, and other crucial information.

Rules and How to Play

Unlike most blackjack variants, which are based on the same foundation as traditional blackjack before including a few adjustments to the rules, Canal 21 is based on Panamanian blackjack.

The national version of this age old classic offers a very liberal rules setup, with most of the variable rules (dealer hitting or standing on soft 17s, players allowed to double down on more than two cards, etc.) tilted to favor the player.

To begin with, we’ll run through a list of fundamental rules which are common to both Panamanian blackjack and Canal 21:

The rules above are common to both Canal 21 blackjack and regular Panamanian blackjack, so you should familiarize yourself with this gameplay setup before sitting down to play in Panama.

If you’re sticking solely to Canal 21 blackjack, the following rule adjustments have been included to augment the basic form of blackjack:

As you can see, the appeal of Canal 21 blackjack lies in the fact that players have many ways to win. In addition to the even money payout for making blackjacks, players have no less than seven alternative paths to earning a payout.

While making most of these special hands may be quite difficult to achieve, players don’t have to pay for a bonus bet in order to be eligible for the additional payouts. Simply playing a hand of Canal 21 blackjack for the table minimum entitles players to an opportunity for payouts of up to 20 to 1, provided the cards are dealt out in the perfect order.

As you’ll discover in the strategy section, even as these changes appear to favor the player, the game’s house edge actually increases slightly when compared to basic Panamanian blackjack, or the traditional forms found throughout American, Europe, and Asia.

If excitement is what you seek from a casino game, Canal 21 is the blackjack variant for you, combining liberal base rules with a variety of special hands and escalating payouts to form an entertaining hybrid table game.

Best Places to Play Canal 21 Blackjack

As a regional variant on a global game, Canal 21 blackjack is local to the casinos and card rooms of Panama.

With over 40 casinos located in Panama, visitors there should have no problem finding a Canal 21 blackjack table at some point on their journey.

The country’s capital of Panama City is home to 29 casinos itself, while the city of Colon has three, and Herrera and Chiriquí each have two. Several other cities in Panama, such as Penonome, El Dorado, Santiago, and David are home to a single casino.

With that said, not all casinos in Panama are equipped for table games, and in fact, the majority are slots-only affairs. We’ve compiled a list of the Panamanian casinos which do run table games, including Canal 21 blackjack, below in order of city and table game concentration:

When it comes to the online casino landscape, Canal 21 blackjack has yet to be adapted for play over the internet. This may be due to the game’s localized appeal, or simply because so many blackjack variants already exist on most online casino platforms. In any case, playing live at a casino in Panama is your best bet for finding a Canal 21 blackjack table.

Canal 21 Blackjack Strategy

The most important strategic concern when assessing whether or not to play a particular table game is based on one all-important figure: house edge.

This percentage is used to determine a casino game’s favorability from the player’s perspective, with a higher house edge obviously favoring the casino, and a lower house edge giving players a chance to win more (or at least lose less) over the long term.

When playing traditional blackjack under American or European rules, the average house edge offered to players who rely on nothing more than their gut instinct stands at right around 1.5 percent. By employing basic strategy guidelines to help govern your decision making, this number can be reduced all the way to under 0.5 percent – making ordinary blackjack one of the best bets on any casino floor.

To put things into perspective, the house edge on a single-wheel roulette wheel is 2.70 percent, and that number jumps to 5.26 percent on the American-style double-zero wheels. Most hybrid table games like Let It Ride and Three Card Poker offer house edges between 3 percent and 6 percent, depending on the different side bets involved, and “sucker” games like keno and the Big Six wheel hold huge house edges between 11.11 percent and 29 percent.

Sufficed to say, blackjack games are always among the most favorable games on the casino floor, providing players with the ability to play at breakeven levels for the most part while chasing a hot run of good cards.

When playing basic blackjack in Panama, the very liberal rules used there (dealer stands on soft 17s, the player may double any two cards, etc.) reduce the house edge even further, dropping the number all the way down to 0.12 percent when playing according to basic strategy.

Simply put, from a strategic standpoint, you’ll always be better off sticking to the regular blackjack tables when playing in Panama. By sitting down at a Canal 21 blackjack table when a normal blackjack game is running nearby, you immediately sacrifice more than 1 percent in total house edge or a 90 percent reduction overall.

The difference between 0.12 percent and 1.20 percent may not seem all that significant, but when assessed over the infinite long run, playing a game like Canal 21 blackjack will result in more losing sessions. If playing casino games with sound strategy is your objective, the best approach to Canal 21 is to avoid the game whenever possible. This is because you’ll always have a much better bet offered at the ordinary blackjack tables.

With all of that said, some players are intent on trying new things, and if you must play Canal 21 blackjack at some point or another, a basic strategy chart has been devised.

Note that even with a number of additions to the payout structure, Canal 21 blackjack still follows the same overall gameplay pattern of Panamanian blackjack, so the actual strategy chart can be used for both ordinary “21” and Canal 21 blackjack on your next visit to Panama.

Panama Blackjack Variation Created

Depending on the particular Panamanian casino you find yourself frequenting, the game may be presented under a different name, with most venues simply substituting their own name for the word “canal.” Thus, you may find Majestic 21 at the Majestic Casino, Soloy 21 at the Grand Hotel Soloy & Fiesta Casino, and so on.

In any event, these “21” games in Panama all play according to the same set of rules and overall structure, so the information presented on this page pertains to both Canal 21 blackjack and its associated derivatives.

Because the concept of gambling is considered more of a pastime in Panama, a source of relaxation rather than thrill-seeking, players there are accustomed to a more entertaining experience. Canal 21 blackjack was designed with this spirit in mind, which means the game includes several new ways for players to earn payouts, along with escalating “bonus” payouts for making rare hands.

For the average Panamanian player, Canal 21’s creative gameplay enhancements serve the purpose of spicing up traditional blackjack, a game which can often become an exercise in rote memorization. However, for experienced blackjack players who prefer the game because of its inherently low house edge, these tweaks to fundamental aspects of “21” may create unfavorable situations.