The first one is something you’d probably expect to find at the other side of the casino at the sports gambling pit, but it’s present right here at the blackjack online table. And it’s called over/under 13. This little side game is actually growing in popularity in the United States’ most famous gambling hot spots of Vegas and Atlantic City, so you might have seen it already, or can expect to see it available the next time you hit the bright lights.

What this “side bet” allows you to do is put separate money on whether your first two cards will add up to be more than 14 or fewer than 13. You can bet on either side. A couple of things that right off the bat work to your disadvantage, though. First, Aces are always worth one (that hurts at least for the over), and the dealer wins if you hit 13 on the nose. The payoff is even money, which really just makes me shrug my shoulder into a world of gambling indifference. It’s like playing casino war. Really, why bother? But some people love it since it’s becoming more popular. And if the casinos can make money off the “side show”, you can bet you’ll find it somewhere to play.

Variation number two is commonly called Double Exposure. At first, this might appear to be a player’s dream. You play against a dealer who shows no hidden cards at any point throughout the hand. That’s right, both his first two cards are face-up. Huge advantage for the player, right? Eh, sort of. There’s no push in this game, you lose every tie. Plus, you get no bonus payoff at all for scoring a blackjack strategy (not that you did any of the work to get that hand anyway). As you can imagine, how you perfect your strategy factors greatly from standard 6-8 deck blackjack.

So those are a couple “jokers” so to speak that you’ll find at the tables to spice up a game that doesn’t need any more seasoning that it already has. But if trying something new and multi-tasking your chips is your kinda thing, you’ll no doubt enjoy these.