Match the Dealer and other Spanish 21 side bets
Match the Dealer is the standard Spanish 21 side bet. It costs about six times what the main game costs.
Short answer
Match the Dealer pays when one of your two cards has the same rank as the dealer's upcard. On the common six-deck pay table, 9:1 for a suited match and 4:1 for a non-suited match, the house edge is 3.055% EXACT. At least one match happens on 15.41% of hands. That edge is roughly six times the edge on the main Spanish 21 bet, so the side bet is a strictly worse use of the same money.
How Match the Dealer works
You place the bet before the deal. Each of your two cards is compared to the dealer's upcard. A card of the same rank pays. A card of the same rank and suit pays more. Both of your cards can match, and both are paid.
The six-deck pay table, priced
| Result | Pays |
|---|---|
| Suited match | 9:1 |
| Non-suited match | 4:1 |
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Expected value per unit staked | -0.030555 |
| House edge | 3.055% |
| Probability of at least one match | 15.41% |
Computed by exact enumeration over the six-deck Spanish shoe, with ranks treated as distinct: a jack matches only a jack, not a queen or a king. EXACT
That last point matters. Because a Spanish deck has 12 ten-valued cards but they belong to three different ranks, jacks, queens and kings do not match each other. A side bet priced as if all ten-valued cards matched would look far better than it is.
Why it is a worse bet than the game itself
The main Spanish 21 bet runs a house edge of 0.495% when the dealer stands on soft 17 SIM. Match the Dealer runs 3.055%. Every dollar moved from the main bet to the side bet is multiplied in cost by about six. Over a hundred hands at $5, that is roughly $15 of expected loss on the side bet against about $2.50 on the same money played in the game.
Side bets are entertainment, not strategy. If you play one, play it knowing what it costs.
Other pay tables
Two-deck Spanish 21 games use a different Match the Dealer pay table, commonly 12:1 suited and 3:1 non-suited. That is a different bet with a different edge and it has not been computed here.
[TODO: compute the two-deck Match the Dealer pay table (12:1 suited, 3:1 non-suited) and any progressive side bet offered on Spanish 21 tables.]
Common questions
Can both of my cards match?
Yes, and both are paid. That possibility is included in the 3.055% figure above.
Do a jack and a queen match?
No. Match the Dealer matches rank, not value. A jack matches only another jack.
Does counting help the side bet?
A depleted shoe changes the match probability, so in principle a side-bet count exists. This site does not publish one until it has been computed and validated here.