Believed to be an early form of blackjack, Pontoon has many similarities to both Spanish 21 and blackjack, but all three games mentioned have plenty of rule variations, and each would use different basic strategies to bring the house edge to less than 1%.

Pontoon is played with eight 52-card decks with all cards having the same value as in blackjack. With Pontoon, any five-card hand, or a pontoon (a blackjack), pays 2 to 1, even after splitting.

However, there is no dealer up-card and the dealer wins all ties. A five-card trick is any 5-card hand that has not busted. Stateside, Cliff, we call it a five-card Charlie, but you are not paid for them here. All five-card tricks are of the same value; the point total does not matter.

There are plenty of other differences between Pontoon, Spanish 21 and blackjack.

Regarding the more popular game, Spanish 21, there are two notable exceptions when comparing it to a regular blackjack game. In Spanish 21, all the 10s (not the Jacks, Queens, Kings) are removed from the deck.

In addition, the player is paid for a hand total of 21, or the standard three-to-two payoff for a blackjack, even if the dealer's hand is a natural blackjack.

Additional player friendly rules are; doubling down on two or more cards, pair splitting and double downs up to four times after splits, bonus payoffs for different combination 21s, and a super bonus that pays out $1,000 for a suited 7-7-7 when the dealer's up card is a seven.

So, guys, is Pontoon or Spanish 21, a decent play from the player's side of the table? Yes, definitely, if you utilize perfect basic strategy specific to each game.

By employing Spanish 21 basic strategy - which obviously differs from normal blackjack strategy - you can reduce the house edge down to .8 percent.

As for Pontoon, the house edge can be as low as 0.17%, so long as you follow correct play.

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