Blackjack Card Values
The card value chart
In blackjack, each card is worth its number, face cards are worth 10, and an Ace is worth 1 or 11. Here is every card:
| Card | Value |
|---|---|
| 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 | Face value (2 through 10) |
| Jack (J) | 10 |
| Queen (Q) | 10 |
| King (K) | 10 |
| Ace (A) | 1 or 11 |
You add the value of your cards to make a hand total. The aim is to get closer to 21 than the dealer without going over — see the full blackjack rules for how a hand plays out.
The Ace: 1 or 11
The Ace is the only card with two values, and it is what makes blackjack interesting. An Ace counts as 11 by default, but drops to 1 automatically the moment counting it as 11 would bust your hand (take you over 21).
Example: you hold an Ace and a 6. That is a soft 17 (11 + 6). If you hit and draw a 9, the Ace must become 1, so the hand is now a hard 16 (1 + 6 + 9) rather than a busted 26. A hand where the Ace still counts as 11 is called a soft hand because it cannot bust on the next card.
Why the 10-value cards matter so much
Because Jacks, Queens and Kings are all worth 10, each deck holds sixteen ten-value cards — the four 10s plus twelve face cards. That is far more than any other value, and it shapes the entire game:
- An Ace plus any 10-value card is a blackjack, the best hand, paying 3:2.
- The dealer is most likely to draw a 10, so a dealer showing a weak card (4, 5, 6) is likely to bust.
- The abundance of 10s is exactly what card counting tracks.
Card values are the same in every variant
These values hold across almost every blackjack game — Classic, European, Vegas Strip, Atlantic City and the rest. The main exceptions are the Spanish-deck games (Spanish 21 and Double Attack), which remove the four 10s from the deck but keep the face cards. The card values do not change there — there are simply fewer 10-point cards in play.
Ready to put it into practice? Try a hand on our free blackjack games — the running total is shown for you while you learn.