Pontoon (British, home game)
British Pontoon is a home banking card game with a rotating bank. No official rule set exists.
The simulator does not deal this game.
What the game is
British Pontoon is played in homes rather than in casinos. The bank passes from one player to the next. A Pontoon is 21 in two cards. A Five Card Trick is five cards totalling 21 or less.
How the game works
Each player bets against whoever holds the bank. Pontoons and Five Card Tricks are paid double. The banker wins tied hands under the modern published rules. Historical Vingt Un rules pushed tied hands instead. A banker Pontoon is exposed at once and collects from every player.
Recorded figures
Every figure below is read from the data record for this page.
No house edge is published for British Pontoon, so the row below carries no figure.
- Decks
- 1 or 2
- Deck composition
- Standard 52 cards
- Bank
- Rotates between players
- Dealer peek
- No
- Published house edge
- n.a.
Payouts
| Outcome | Pays |
|---|---|
| Winning hand | 1:1 |
| Pontoon, meaning 21 in two cards | 2:1 |
| Five Card Trick | 2:1 |
| Tied hand | Banker wins |
Not playable here
The engine deals blackjack rule sets against a fixed house. British Pontoon needs a rotating bank, a Five Card Trick hand class and its own hand ranking. The engine holds none of those three parts. Adding them would build a second game rather than a rule set. So British Pontoon is documented here and dealt nowhere on this site.
Findings
No published house edge exists for British Pontoon, and none can exist. The bank rotates between players and no official rule set exists. Any site quoting a house edge for British Pontoon has invented the figure. The absence of a figure is a finding, not an omission.
Where these rules come from
Every rule set on this site is recorded against a published source.