If you are a lover of online casino games, you probably stumbled upon a game called “pontoon.” However weird-sounding the name of the game is, you need to take into account that you have actually played that games many times before. In fact, all USA online blackjack players played pontoon before, as the game is nothing more but a variant of blackjack with a couple of different rules that you should take into account.

First of all, you should understand that the terminology used for some actions by US and UK (and Australian) players is completely different. If you tell a pontoon dealer to “hit,” they will not understand the command (or they will, but just not how it is said in pontoon). Instead, you need to tell them to “twist” if you want them to hit you. Similarly, commanding them to “stand” is not a valid option. Instead, you need to tell them to “stick.” Finally, if you want to “double down,” you will have to say “buy” instead.

One of the ways pontoon differs from blackjack is their treatment of a tie. If both the dealer and the player have the same number of points, blackjack calls that “a push” and returns the original bet to the player, calling it a tie. However, pontoon favors the dealer in this case. In other words, if both you and the dealer have, say, 18 points, the dealer will win the hand.

Furthermore, pontoon allows one more way for players to win money, which is called the “five card trick.” If they manage to collect five cards that are less or equal than 21, they will win the dealers hand, even if it has a non-pontoon 21.

There are a couple of other interesting differences that you should definitely take into account, such as the fact that there are no hole cards in pontoon, which opens additional options. Make sure to research additional pontoon rules and strategies or simply explore the free version of online pontoon yourself and get accustomed to the rules before you switch to play for real money.

If you live in the US and you want to play pontoon, make sure to check out USA friendly blackjack sites that also offer pontoon. Once you register, feel free to claim welcome bonuses which can help you explore pontoon with real money and bring you rewards if you are lucky. You just need to take into account that pontoon also has some strategies that you should stick to in order to maximize your winnings.