How to play
Seven and a Half is the Italian sette e mezzo, also played in Turkey as yedi buçuk and in Spain as siete y media. It looks like a small blackjack, but the numbers are different enough that blackjack habits will lead you astray.
The deck has 40 cards: Ace to 7 and the Jack, Queen and King of each suit. It’s freshly shuffled for every hand, so nothing carries over between rounds.
- Ace is worth 1.
- 2 to 7 are worth their number.
- Jack, Queen and King are worth ½ each.
A round goes like this:
- Pick a chip and tap the Bet spot. Bets run from 10 to 500 credits in steps of 10.
- Press Deal. You get a single card, face up. The dealer has nothing yet.
- Press Card to draw another, as many times as you like, or Stand to stop. Pass 7½ and you lose straight away. Hit exactly 7½ and you stand automatically.
- Once you stand, the dealer draws until reaching 5½ or more, then stops.
Clear removes your chips before the deal and Rebet repeats your last bet.
Who wins and what it pays
| Result | Pays |
|---|---|
| You go over 7½ | you lose, whatever the dealer would have drawn |
| Dealer goes over 7½ | 1 to 1 |
| Your total beats the dealer’s | 1 to 1 |
| Same total | the dealer wins |
| Your first two cards make 7½ (a 7 and a picture) | 5 to 2 |
| Both you and the dealer have a two-card 7½ | push, bet returned |
Ties going to the dealer is the rule that shapes everything. A 7½ built from three or more cards is just a strong total: it beats every dealer total except 7½ and loses on a tie.
The dealer’s numbers
Because the dealer always stops somewhere between 5½ and 7½, it helps to know where they tend to land. From a full deck:
| Dealer ends on | Chance |
|---|---|
| Over 7½ (bust) | 36.6% |
| 5½ | 12.7% |
| 6 | 18.4% |
| 6½ | 6.7% |
| 7 | 18.6% |
| 7½ | 6.9% |
Since a tie loses, standing on 5½ is no better than standing on 3: both win only when the dealer busts. That’s why a hand worth anything from 2 to 5½ is worth about the same if you stop, roughly a quarter of your bet lost on average.
Strategy
The game’s best play was worked out exactly, card by card, from what’s left in the deck. In plain terms:
- With one picture card (½), always draw. It’s the only start where drawing is clearly good, and it’s your only route to the 5 to 2 natural.
- With a lone Ace, draw. With a lone 2, 3, 4 or 5, stand. That feels wrong, but almost any draw from there risks passing 7½ for very little gain.
- Two-card totals: draw on 1, 1½ and 2½; stand on 2 and on 3 or more.
- A lone 6 or 7: stand. A 7 by itself wins over half your bet on average. Drawing for a picture to make 7½ sounds tempting, but most cards bust you, and the expected result falls to almost nothing.
- Never draw to “match” the dealer. You don’t win ties, so a total of 5½ buys you nothing over 3.
Played this way, the game returns 95.59% of your bets over time. No betting pattern changes that, and because every hand starts from a new deck, there’s no counting to do.
If you want the 21-point version with more decisions, Blackjack has doubling and splitting. Monte Bank uses the same 40-card deck for a quite different game.
If you enjoy Seven and a Half, try Seven Card Stud or Seven Push Baccarat next.
