Blackjack Blackjack is a card game in " " , playable in any of the six working . Playing 10 hands of Blackjack grants the player character the Double Down . Rules . All casinos in New Vegas use the following rules . House rules . Each casino has its own rules regarding blackjack payouts and when the dealer must draw . The rules can be seen on the table felts in each casino floor . Barring variations from Luck , the best odds are found at The Tops , Ultra - Luxe , or Sierra Madre Casino . The worst odds are found at the Atomic Wrangler , thanks to the low blackjack pay out . House rules explanation . Blackjack payout . A " blackjack " is a hand that is an Ace and a 10 - point card ( it is special since it is a 21 with only two cards ) . If the dealer gets a blackjack , the player ' s second card will be revealed to determine if the player also has blackjack . If not , the player instantly loses , without any opportunity to play . If the player gets a blackjack and the dealer does not , the player instantly wins and gets a bonus payout based on the casino . A blackjack payout of 3 to 2 means the player gets back 3 chips for 2 chip they wagered . If both the dealer and the player get blackjack , it is a push and the player keeps his bet . Given neutral luck ( 6 or less ) , a blackjack will occur roughly 5 % of the time . A reduced blackjack payout strongly favors the casino . Dealer must draw to 16 , and stand on all 17s . No matter what , if the dealer has a total less than 17 , s / he continues to hit . If the dealer has a total of 17 or higher , the dealer stays . Dealer must hit soft 17 . A " soft " hand is a hand that involves an Ace , since an Ace can be either 1 or 11 . A soft 17 is any hand where the Ace is used as an 11 , since there is still a choice on what the Ace can be . This is contrast to a " hard " 17 that uses an Ace , such as Jack - 4 - 2 - Ace . In this case , the Ace has to be a 1 in order to prevent a bust . Under this rule then , the dealer normally stays on 17 , unless that 17 was made initially by an Ace being used as 11 , at which point the dealer hits again . On the one hand , this can be seen as increasing the chance of a bust , but because the Ace can be used as a 1 or 11 , if the dealer draws a high card , the initial Ace can be used as a 1 instead . Especially since the dealer does not need to play at all if the player busts , the net result of this rule is that the odds increase in favor of the casino . For this reason , Gomorrah and Primm ranks below the Strip casinos in terms of fairness . Playing to Win . As in real life , Blackjack is the closest to being " fair " a casino game can get . That being said , with neutral luck , even with optimal , standard strategy ( see which includes a table on when to stay , hit , double - down , and surrender ) , the odds still favor the house by a margin of a percent or so ( though worse at Gomorrah and Primm , even more so at Atomic Wrangler ) . Essentially , each game becomes a coin flip . Starting with a Luck of 7 , the odds shift in the player ' s favor given optimal play . With a Luck of 8 , a player can play suboptimally ( not surrendering or doubling down on certain hands , for example ) and still pull ahead . With a Luck of 10 , the player pretty much has to try to intentionally lose in order to not make a scad of from Blackjack . This influence of above average luck means that optimal strategy in a New Vegas casino can be very different than what an experienced Blackjack player may have learned . In particular , the tendency not to bust when a character has a high luck value makes doubling down effective in many more situations and removes the incentive to surrender when dealt what would otherwise be a weak hand . With a low level of Luck , the game will be strongly rigged against the player . The dealer will get blackjacks far more often than normal , and the statement " You feel unlucky " will appear whenever the game has rigged the hand against you . Playing to win without a high luck level is suicide unless you resort to save scumming , which the point below addresses . If you try to cheat the system by loading after a loss , the dealer will take a minute to ' change out the deck ' before you can continue playing . Appearances . Blackjack can only be played in " " .