The option of surrendering in blackjack is one of the newer rules that was added to give the players a little bit of a fighting chance, so to speak. The rule first appeared in the late 1970s after the first Atlantic City casino, Resorts International, opened doors to customers. Newly opened casinos on the East Coast had to comply with the regulatory requirements of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission. Said requirements included a new rule, oddly named “surrender”.

1. In a single deck game where you get to hold the cards in your hand, you signal a hit by scraping the cards gently on the table. To stand, you place the cards underneath your chips. In a multiple deck game, where the cards are face up in front of you, you signal a hit by pointing at your hand with your finger.
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4. Two methods that need to be considered. Carry a small WHITE towel and then 'throw in the towel' in the classic pugilist style of 'the squared circle'. Oh man, you just gave me a great idea with this! I suppose as a joke I could bring a towel and throw it, to surrender.

Blackjack surrender is a bit of a dark horse. Many players have heard of it, though equally many casinos do no offer this feature. So, because it's rare to find, and is rarely advertised by casinos that offer it, many gamblers are more than a little uncertain how surrender works.

Many players ignored the surrender option at the time, labelling it as a sucker move. Unfortunately, surrender continues to be one of the most misunderstood playing moves in blackjack to this day.

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But the truth of the matter is surrender could be highly beneficial for players in certain situations and it actually reduces the house edge. It is because of this that few landbased casinos currently offer it at their blackjack tables but you can find it in many online variations of the game.

If unsure whether this move is available, you can always check the rules in the help section of your chosen online blackjack game. When playing in a brick-and-mortar casino, be sure to consult the floor personnel and ask for this rule before sitting at a table.

What is a Surrender?

For the uninitiated, surrender is when the player forfeits half their bet when folding a hand in order to get the other half back. This is usually done in situations where the player knows that there is very little chance of beating the dealer.

From a purely mathematical perspective, giving up on half of your chips is still better than losing all chips. Surrendering is typically recommended whenever the hand you have been dealt has under 50% chance of winning against the dealer’s strong upcard. In fact, this is the first decision blackjack players must consider before making any other moves like doubling, splitting, hitting, or standing. Folding your hand will be impossible if you have already made any of the other moves.

After the initial deal, players must evaluate the strength of their two-card hands against the exposed card of the dealer. Given that a hand’s likelihood of beating the dealer is under 50%, the player can take advantage of the surrender option, giving up on their two cards in exchange for half of their initial wager. The dealer would give the other half of the wager back.

When playing blackjack in a landbased casino, there are two ways for you to surrender a hand. Which one you use depends on whether you are sitting at a shoe-dealt table or are playing a hand-held game. Either way, you must communicate your playing decisions by using the correct hand gesture as etiquette requires.

In shoe games that play with multiple decks, players are disallowed from touching their cards and can surrender by drawing a horizontal line with their index finger right behind their betting boxes. This hand signal kind of looks like the player is slicing their wager in half.

A different gesture is used in hand-held games that are dealt out of one or two decks only. In this case, the player must put both of their hands up as if they are conceding their defeat. The palms should be facing the dealer. It is advisable for the player to verbally state their intention of surrendering while making the hand signal.

The gestures are not uniform and may not coincide at all tables. Once you clearly indicate you want to surrender, the dealer would place your two cards into the discard tray, collect half of your wager, and leave the other half in the betting circle for you to pick up. There are two types of surrender – early surrender and late surrender. We expand on each version in the paragraphs to follow.

Early Surrender

Early surrender is most definitely the better of the two versions from the player’s perspective. This rule first emerged in Atlantic City a few years after the state of New Jersey legalized casino gambling. It is called early surrender because the player does not have to wait for the dealer to peek under their hole card to see if they have a natural.

One interesting historical fact about early surrender was that it was introduced because New Jersey’s gambling regulator had initially prohibited the peeking rule. Thus, the dealers could not see whether they had a blackjack when showing an ace or a ten until all patrons had finished playing their hands.

As we know from basic blackjack rules, if the dealer scores a natural (an ace and a ten after the initial deal), the dealer beats automatically all non-blackjack hands of the players. Hence, early surrender allows players to receive half their bets before the dealer figures out they have a blackjack. It makes sense this rule is incredibly beneficial for the patrons, which explains why Atlantic City casinos removed it shortly after its introduction. Early surrender has now become obsolete in landbased casinos, with very few venues still offering it.

Players can find it online in RNG-based games like Microgaming’s Big Five Blackjack. To our knowledge, Ezugi was the only supplier of live dealer blackjack games to offer early surrender.

Late Surrender

Most blackjack games do not support this rule but those that do lean toward late rather than early surrender. When playing at a late surrender table, you must always wait for the dealer to check under their hole card before you are allowed to forfeit a bad hand. If the dealer has a natural, then the player can do nothing and loses their full bet.

However, if the dealer has not obtained a blackjack, late surrender becomes available to players. While somewhat counterintuitive, this move can be very powerful in certain situations as long as you know how to implement it properly. Late surrender still leads to a reduction in the house edge, albeit a much smaller one compared to early surrender. The exact percentage drop varies depending on deck number.

When to Surrender According to Basic Strategy?

The surrender rule is favourable to players but only on condition they can identify the situations when this is the optimal way to play out their hands. The main idea here is that one should surrender only on condition the two-card hand they have been dealt has less than 50% chance of winning against the dealer’s upcard.

By surrendering, players would lose only half their original wager rather than the whole amount. This might not sound like a big improvement but it still gives you value and saves you money in the long term. You will see what we mean after you consider the following example.

For the purposes of demonstration, we shall assume we are playing a shoe game with six decks where the S17 and the DAS are in place. A new round starts after the reshuffle and we receive a hand of hard 16 like 7/9. Meanwhile, the dealer has a Queen as their upcard.

The expected value of our hand is -0.537, or a little less than 54%. In other words, this hand will lose against the dealer’s ten approximately 54 out of every 100 times on average. Of course, these results are valid in the long run and are spread over thousands of played hands.

This is to say that we will be down roughly $54 for every $100 wagered on this hand against the dealer’s ten. Meanwhile, if we surrender in this situation consistently, as recommended by basic strategy, we shall lose only half of the money we have wagered, or 50%.

The question arises when should the player implement surrender? The basic strategy decisions for surrender depend predominantly on the dealer’s rules for standing although deck number also affects certain optimal moves.

Late Surrender Optimal Plays

We offer you a rundown of the instances that call for late surrender below. We have covered the moves for S17 games since this dealer rule is more favourable for the player than H17. You will find the optimal plays for surrendering in H17 blackjack games in the When Late Surrender is Better than Hitting section of GamblingPlex’s article on How to Hit a Hand.

Basic Strategy Recommends Late Surrender for S17 Blackjack for the following hands:

• Hard 15 against a dealer 10 when four to eight decks are in play
• Hard 16 against a dealer 9, 10, and ace when four or more decks are in play
• Hard 16 against the dealer’s 10 and ace in single-deck games
• A pair of 7/7 against the dealer’s 10 in single-deck games
• Hard 15 against the dealer’s 10 in double-deck games
• Hard 16 against the dealer’s 10 and ace in double-deck games

Early Surrender Optimal Plays

Early surrender is a real rarity in both landbased and online casinos. However, you can still find it in some online variants of 21, particularly in Big 5 Blackjack by Microgaming. Similarly to late surrender, the correct plays here are influenced by the dealer’s fixed rules. i.e. whether they hit (H17) or stand (S17) on soft 17. Deck number also plays a role here.

You will struggle to find a landbased casino in the United States that allows for this rule, the reason being it is simply far too disadvantageous for the house. Atlantic City casinos removed it shortly after introducing it as they noticed a 4.5% jump in the winning rates of blackjack players while early surrender was in force. As a matter of fact, early surrender is so powerful that it can completely destroy the house edge even if you play with basic strategy only, without counting cards.

While rare, this rule is still available in some brick-and-mortar casinos in Asia and Europe. When offered, it is supported mainly at tables that utilize the European style of card dealing. There are no hole cards in such games.

The dealer at one such table does not take a hole card but rather receives one face-up card at the start of the round and draws their second card once players have finished with their decisions.

In such games, the early surrender option becomes available when the dealers draw either a ten or an ace as their first card. There are exceptions in some Macau gambling venues where this option is offered to players only when the first card of the dealer has a value of ten. Here are the recommended plays for tables where early surrender is still an option.

Early Surrender Plays for Shoe Games

• Hard 14, hard 15, and hard 16 should be surrendered against the dealer’s 10.
• Hard 5 through hard 7 are surrendered against the dealer’s ace.
• Hard 12 through hard 17 are surrendered when the dealer has an ace.
• Hard 16 (Q/6, K/6, J/6, 10/6, and 7/9) is surrendered if the first card of the dealer is a 9. Hard 16 consisting of paired 8/8 calls for a split rather than surrendering.
• Pairs of 3/3, 6/6, 7/7, 8/8 should be surrendered when the first card of the dealer is an ace.
• Pairs of 8/8 and 7/7 also require surrendering when the dealer draws a 10 as their first card.

The Benefits of Surrendering

Many blackjack rookies, along with casino pit bosses and dealers in some cases, jeer at players who use the surrender option because they think this is a silly move. Why give up on your hand and get only half of your bet back when you can take your chances, beat the dealer, and get paid at even-money odds?

Surrender Hand Signal In Blackjack

Well, here is the thing. Such people are clearly oblivious to basic strategy, which is why we suggest you refrain from taking their advice. Basic strategy would never recommend this move had it not been the most optimal play for some hands, compared to hitting, standing, splitting, and so on.

Surrender Saves You Money

Surrender is one of those playing options that aim at saving players money in the long term. By surrendering properly, you can minimize the damages your blackjack bankroll will suffer when you get dealt hands that are sure losers against the dealer’s strong cards.

One example is when the dealer starts their hand with a ten-value card, in which case, they would go over 21 roughly 23 in every 100 hands. A dealer with a ten also gets high totals like 21 or 20 approximately 41 per every 100 hands.

Meanwhile, if the dealer starts with an ace but does not have a natural, they will get totals of 19 or higher 46 per every 100 hands while breaking their hand only 17 per every 100 hands. As you can see, such hands are next to impossible to beat with weak totals like hard 15 and hard 16.

Surrender Dents the House Edge

The availability of surrender effectively reduces the house edge, causing you to lose less money than you otherwise would. By how much exactly depends on whether you use early or late surrender. Late surrender against a dealer who shows a ten is known to cause a 0.07% drop in the house edge but this percentage can increase to 0.10% based on the rest of the playing conditions at a given table.

As for early surrender, it is not surprising it is hard to come by, especially given that it reduces the house edge by 0.39% against the dealer’s ace and 0.24% against the dealer’s ten. This is enough to completely offset the house advantage in some blackjack games.

Surrender Helps Flatten Bad Swings

Another benefit of using the surrender option is that it allows you to better handle bad swings, which, in turn, would help you preserve your blackjack bankroll for longer. To wrap things up, we suggest you ask the dealer or the pit boss whether the tables you are interested in support the surrender option. Unlike the payouts for blackjacks and insurance and the dealer’s fixed rules, the tables’ layout does not feature any information about surrender.

More Articles Covering Blackjack

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Blackjack Variations
Multi Hand Blackjack
Single Deck Blackjack Rules
Vegas Downtown Blackjack
Vegas Strip Blackjack Rules
Atlantic City Blackjack
How to Hit a Hand
Splitting Hands in Blackjack
Insurance in Blackjack
Surrender in Blackjack
Standing a Hand
Blackjack Double Down
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We guess everyone knows what surrendering means even if they have never played a single hand of blackjack in their life. The word itself bears negative connotations as it is synonymous with giving up, admitting defeat, throwing in the towel etc. And this is something many casual blackjack players hate to do.

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Yet, surrendering is the smartest decision you can make with certain hands compared to some of the other possible playing options like standing or hitting. The only trouble is surrendering is vastly misunderstood, with fewer and fewer players taking advantage of this option these days. The latter has even been entirely ditched by some landbased casinos because almost no one bothers using it at the tables so and so.

However, surrendering can be very advantageous for the player when used correctly. It helps you save money when you are the underdog in losing situations and is one of the select few playing decisions that can actually decrease the casino’s edge. The following article explains how surrendering works in blackjack and tackles the instances in which this is the optimal playing decision.

The Surrender Playing Decision in Blackjack

Surrendering in blackjack is similar to folding in poker but there are two main differences between the two games. Blackjack players are allowed to surrender only on condition the hand they forfeit consists of no more than two cards. Another difference results from the fact that in blackjack, you automatically forfeit half of your initial stake and get to keep the other half. It makes sense this option should be exercised only when you have terrible two-card hands where the chances of you beating the dealer are minuscule.

Surrendering is not available in all gambling venues or even at all blackjack tables within the same establishment. What is worse, the availability of surrender is never indicated by any plaques at the table. It is not written on the felt, either. The only way to know with certainty whether this is an option is by directly asking the dealer or the pit boss. Many casual players are averse to using the surrender option, so at times, you will have to put up with eye-rolls or scathing remarks when you decide to forfeit a hand.

The Surrender Playing Decision in Blackjack Additional TipsIf you are looking to surrender your hand, you must do so at the very start of the round before you have drawn any additional cards. Players are also required to use the correct hand signal when surrendering. This usually involves drawing a horizontal line behind your chips using your index finger.

In some casinos, players signal surrendering by lifting both their hands up as if to say “I am giving up”. Since there is no universal hand gesture for this blackjack play, it is recommended to accompany your signal with a verbal statement. This helps prevent confusion and misunderstandings.

Regardless of which of the two gestures you use, the dealer will collect half of your original stake off the felt. Your starting hand will no longer be in action after you forfeit it so the cards will be placed in the discard tray along with those dealt on previous rounds.

Early and Late Surrender – What Is the Difference?

Blackjack Surrender Hand Signal

There are two types of surrender in blackjack and it is advisable for you to learn to distinguish between them, even though the first one has become nearly obsolete these days. The surrender option was first introduced in Atlantic City’s Resorts International as a form of an experiment.

Early surrender (ES) gives players the opportunity to forfeit their hand before the dealer has checked for a blackjack under their Ace (or/and their ten-value card depending on the casino’s rules). This is the more player-favorable variation of the surrender rule. It is known to reduce the house edge in six-deck games where the dealer stands on soft 17 by as much as 0.63%.

When late surrender (LS) is available, players can forfeit their starting two-card hands only after the dealer has peeked for a blackjack under their hole card. Provided that the dealer indeed has a natural, surrendering your hand will no longer be an option in this case.

Early and Late Surrender Additional TipsInstead, you automatically end up losing your entire stake unless you, too, have obtained a blackjack and push with the dealer. This variation of the rule takes away the meager 0.07% from the casino’s edge but is still better than no surrender at all.

Keep in mind that you will hardly find multiple-deck blackjack tables that use hole cards and offer the early surrender rule these days. Most casinos across the United States have altogether done away with early surrender for the simple reason it significantly decreases their edge.

Early surrender is still available in some casinos in Asia and Europe. However, the dealers in such games deal themselves one face-up card at the beginning of the round and draw a second card only after all patrons have finished playing their hands. This peculiarity leads to discrepancies in the optimal playing strategies for early and late-surrender games.

Strategy for Surrendering in Blackjack

We are not going to discuss the strategy for early surrender here because as was explained, this option has become largely obsolete in multiple-deck blackjack games where dealer hole cards are in play.

Similarly to the other playing decisions, the optimal strategy for late surrendering is affected by variables like deck number and the house rules the dealer must adhere to. Of course, what upcard the dealer exposes also plays a crucial role here. Because of these discrepancies, we have broken down the optimal surrender plays on the basis of the number of decks in play.

Surrendering is a good idea when you have certain hard totals and the dealer is in a favorable position showing very strong upcards. The dealer is likely to outdraw you when they start with a powerful card. Meanwhile, if you decide to take a hit on your hard total, you stand a significant chance of busting by drawing an additional card.

The probability of you winning with such hard totals should be under 50% for surrender to be the optimal decision. In single-deck blackjack variations, you should resort to surrendering under the following circumstances only:

• With a hard 16 versus a dealer with an Ace or a 10 in both S17 and H17 games
• With a pair of 7s for a hard 14 against a dealer with a 10 in S17 games
• With a hard 15 against a dealer with an Ace in H17 games
• With a pair of 7s for hard 14 against a dealer Ace and 10 in H17 games
• With hard 17 against a dealer’s Ace in H17 games

Hard 17 is forfeited in this case because it is below the average winning hand total of 18.5 while the dealer stands good chances of outdrawing you with their Ace or 10. The strategy for surrendering changes a little bit when we add a second deck of cards to the game.

Because of this, it is of utmost importance for you to know how many decks you are playing against and what the fixed drawing conditions for the dealer are. Thus, when you play double-deck blackjack, the strategy decrees that you surrender in the following instances:

Blackjack Surrender Hand Signals

• When you have hard 15 against a dealer’s 10 in S17 games
• When you have a hard 16 against the dealer’s 10 or Ace in S17 games
• With hard 15 and hard 16 against the dealer’s 10 or Ace in H17 variations
• With hard 17 against the dealer’s Ace in H17 variations
• When you have a pair of 8s versus an Ace in H17 games

Note that surrendering the pair of 8s against a dealer with an Ace, who hits their soft 17, is the optimal play only on condition you are not permitted to double down (NDAS) after you split the 8s. If DAS is available, you should split and double afterward if you happen to catch a 2 or a 3 on your 8.

And finally, below are the correct surrender decisions for players who attempt to take on the dealers’ in multiple-deck blackjack games. We suggest you do your best to memorize these surrender plays well because most blackjack variations with decent, liberal rules these days utilize four, six or eight decks of cards.

Blackjack Surrender Hand Signal

• Surrender hard 15 against a 10 in S17 blackjack
• Surrender hard 16 against 9, 10, or Ace is both S17 and H17 games
• Surrender hard 15 against 10 or Ace in H17 games
• Surrender hard 17 against a dealer Ace in H17 games
• Surrender pairs of 8s against an Ace in H17 variations

Being forced to admit defeat is never a pleasant sensation, neither in life nor at the blackjack table. However, the ability to recognize the situations where your hands are sure losers against the dealer’s powerful upcards spares you lots of frustration and money in the long term, so be sure to at least learn the surrender plays for the blackjack variation you play the most frequently.