Vegas Downtown Blackjack is, for all intents and purposes, regular, standard blackjack. The thing that makes it stand out is that it is always played with 2 decks of cards. This is what makes Vegas Downtown Blackjack particularly advantageous to the player.

The Vegas Downtown Blackjack rules are pretty much standard. The blackjack cards are shuffled after every round. The aim is to beat the dealer's hand by either getting a higher value hand, without going over 21, or by the dealer's hand going bust. Online Vegas Downtown Blackjack is available in both single-hand and multi-hand versions.

Vegas Downtown Blackjack is an American hole game - one of the dealer's cards is dealt face down. What this also means is that the dealer checks for blackjack by peeking at his hole card if his up card is a 10 or an ace. If he checks and discovers that he's sitting on a natural, the round is over.

The following rules also exist in Vegas Downtown Blackjack:

The dealer must hit with a soft 17 and must stand on a hard 17.

Late surrender is not allowed.

A player blackjack pays out 3:2.

A player may split two aces just once per game.

Split aces and 10s (or face cards) do not form a natural; they will not pay 3:2 like a regular blackjack.

Players can split hands a total of three times per game, up to 4 hands at a time.

A player can double down after a split.

When the dealer's up card is an ace, a player can make an insurance bet.

Winning insurance bets pay 2 to 1.

Depending on the player's cards and the dealer's card there is an ideal strategy for Vegas Downtown Blackjack that gives the player the best results. To use this basic Vegas Downtown Blackjack strategy, go into a site that features the game and check if they have the applicable basic strategy chart. If they do, it works like the regular blackjack basic strategy chart - you look up the cards you are holding on the left side and compare them to the dealer's up card, which reads across the top row of the chart. Follow the row and the column until they intersect and - voila - you'll find the right thing to do (hit, stand, or double) in your given situation. If you are playing Vegas Downtown Blackjack in an online casino, you can keep your blackjack basic strategy chart by your computer to refer to guide you through every hand of blackjack.

Good luck and have fun playing Vegas Downtown Blackjack!