Blackjack side bets, the 21+3, Perfect Pairs, Hot 3 and Bust It payouts and RTP set side by side with the main game
2026-11-11
Open an Evolution blackjack table and there are small spots next to the main betting circle. A 7-seat table has two, Infinite Blackjack has four. Big payouts sit on top of them: 25:1, 100:1, 250:1.
Once a chip is on the main bet, the ALL SIDE BETS button lights up, and one tap puts the selected chip on every side spot at once.
Those spots are the blackjack side bets.
We copied the payouts and return figures from the game's own rule sheets and set them against the main game.
1.What do blackjack side bets pay on?
They are small bets settled apart from the main game.
The Evolution blackjack rules published by Loto-Quebec say a side bet can win whether the main bet later wins or loses.
Side bet: an optional bet next to the main bet, on the first cards' shape, settled whatever the main result.
A 7-seat table offers Perfect Pairs and 21+3. The Infinite Blackjack rules list four: Any Pair, 21+3, Hot 3 and Bust It.
- Perfect Pairs, Any Pair: your first two cards are the same rank
- 21+3: your first two cards plus the dealer's upcard make a poker hand
- Hot 3: those three cards total 19, 20 or 21, or are three 7s
- Bust It: the dealer goes over 21. If you have Blackjack, the bet is a push
Insurance on a dealer ace works the same way, as a bet on the side. By the guide page, insurance breaks even only if the dealer has blackjack 33.3% of the time, and in practice it is about 30.8%.
2.What do the payout tables say?
Here are the payouts as the two rule sheets print them. The :1 means how many times the stake is paid on top.
- Perfect Pairs (7-seat): same suit 25:1, same colour other suit 12:1, mixed colour 6:1
- Any Pair (Infinite): suited 25:1, any other pair 8:1
- 21+3 (both tables): suited trips 100:1, straight flush 40:1, three of a kind 30:1, straight 10:1, flush 5:1
- Hot 3: 7-7-7 100:1, suited 21 20:1, 21 4:1, 20 2:1, 19 1:1
- Bust It: dealer busts with 8 or more cards 250:1, 7 cards 100:1, 6 cards 50:1, 5 cards 9:1, 4 cards 2:1, 3 cards 1:1
The largest payouts sit on the rarest shapes.
Bust It's 250:1 needs the dealer to take eight or more cards and then bust. The spots that hit often pay small, 1:1 or 2:1.
3.How far is side bet RTP from the main game?
The Return to Player section at the end of each rule sheet shows the gap at once. The main game is 99.29% at a 7-seat table (the Loto-Quebec copy prints 99.28%) and 99.47% at Infinite Blackjack. Every side bet is at 96.30% or below.
- 21+3: 96.30%
- Perfect Pairs, Any Pair: 95.90%
- Hot 3: 94.60%
- Bust It: 94.12%
What $100 a bet costs on average
Expected loss is the stake times (100% minus RTP). On an assumed $100 bet:
- Infinite main game: $0.53
- 7-seat main game: $0.71
- 21+3: $3.70
- Perfect Pairs: $4.10
- Hot 3: $5.40
- Bust It: $5.88
Bust It's expected loss is about 11 times the Infinite main game's. Perfect Pairs is 5.8 times the 7-seat main game. A loss kept small by following the basic strategy chart can grow again with one side spot.
Checking the 95.90% Perfect Pairs figure ourselves
We worked out where the rule sheet number comes from with 8 decks. Of the 415 cards left after the first card is dealt from 416, 31 share its rank. Seven are the same suit, 8 the same colour in another suit, and 16 the other colour.
The chance of a pair is 31/415, about 7.47%. A win returns the stake too, so 25:1 gives back 26 times, 12:1 gives 13 and 6:1 gives 7.
(7x26 + 8x13 + 16x7) / 415 = 398/415 = 95.90%.
Our own calculation matches the rule sheet RTP to two decimal places.
A pair comes about once in thirteen rounds, and the payouts still do not cover how rare that is.
More spots, more loss added up
At Infinite Blackjack one tap of ALL SIDE BETS puts the same chip on four spots. With a $100 chip, $400 of side bets join the $100 main bet, and the expected loss goes from $0.53 to $0.53 + $3.70 + $4.10 + $5.40 + $5.88 = $19.61 (assumed amounts).
The stake per round grows five times and the expected loss about 37 times.
Side spots are a cost that builds up every round, so it shows more in automatic betting, where the round count is high.
4.What to check before turning side bets on
Before putting a chip on a side spot
- Checked whether the table is 7-seat (two side bets) or Infinite Blackjack (four)
- Found each side bet's RTP in the Return to Player section of that table's rules
- Know the expected loss per $100 is $0.53 to $0.71 on the main game and $3.70 to $5.88 on side bets
- Know one tap of ALL SIDE BETS multiplies the stake by the number of spots
- Count side bet amounts in when setting a daily loss limit
Hiddenpick is a Windows program that keeps on its server the betting rules that pick owners do not make public, and runs them as they are on the PC of the person who received them through a referral code. It currently runs on Evolution live baccarat and blackjack (21) at Stake (stake.com). Which chart produces the main game's 99.29% and 99.47% is set out in the blackjack basic strategy guide.
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