Blackjack is a very simple online casino card game but looking at the variety of blackjack games that some online casinos offer you would not get that impression but the variations are generally in the areas of splits, insurance and hard and soft 17. As an example you can find blackjack surrender at paddy power casino where the rules are that you cannot split a split hand which means that if you split two cards of the same denomination to form two hands and a second card is dealt to each hand, if one of those two cards is again the same you cannot split them again. This game also has an insurance feature whereby if the dealer is showing an ace you can place an additional bet equal to half your original bet to insure against the dealer having blackjack. If the dealer does have blackjack and you have placed an insurance bet you get all your money back but if the dealer does not have blackjack you lose your insurance bet and the game proceeds as normal. Blackjack surrender has a more normal feature of doubling after viewing your two cards but as is normal only one card will be dealt to that hand; only one card is dealt to hand containing split aces as well. There are also blackjack games that have changed so much that they bear little resemblance to the original blackjack game and in our opinion 21 duel blackjack, also available at Paddy Power online casino, is one of those where there are communal cards and even blackjack does not pay at the normal 1.5 times. The most common variations which do not affect the original blackjack game play are the number of card decks which are used and the number of hands which you can play simultaneously; at casinos.ie we prefer the original game with none of the fancy add-ons but of course the choice is yours..