Mobile entertainment studio · Jar, Norway

Six decks, one lantern-lit table, no real money on it.

Olympus Digital is the mobile entertainment studio of Mt Olympus AS. Our app is Pelican Casino — a social blackjack table aboard a 1930s paddle steamer, with a real six-deck shoe, real dealer rules and a coach who shows the basic-strategy move for every hand.

18+

Play money only. Lanterns are virtual chips: they cannot be bought, sold or cashed out and are worth nothing outside the app. Pelican Casino is a social casino game for adults and offers no real-money gambling and no chance to win real money or prizes.

Step aboard Read the house rules
The app's own felt, shoe, card back and king · dealt in CSS
Why we exist

A card table that asks nothing of you

Olympus Digital makes mobile entertainment: complete, self-contained games you can open for a few hands and close again without being asked for anything — no account, no payment screen, no advert between rounds.

Blackjack suits that well. Its rules can be written down in full, and the right move for every hand can be worked out. So Pelican Casino deals from a genuine six-deck shoe, prints every house rule on its own page, ships the strategy chart its coach uses, and states the house edge we measured on its own code.

The chips are Lanterns, and they are play money. There is nothing to buy and nothing to cash out. The app does not even request network access, so what it remembers stays on your phone.

Rules in the open

Every rule has its own page, the payouts are listed, and only the moves that are legal for your hand are enabled.

Nothing for sale

No ads, no in-app purchases, no sign-in. Lanterns come from wins, the daily Captain's Purse, rank-ups and achievements.

Offline by design

No network permission in the app at all, so it deals the same in flight mode.

Our app

Pelican Casino — blackjack on a paddle steamer

A blackjack table in a mahogany riverboat saloon at dusk, lanterns lit — onboarding art from Pelican Casino

A real shoe, real dealer rules, every option

Pelican Casino is a free social blackjack game. The Table screen has the dealer's area with the shoe and discard tray, up to three betting boxes on teal felt, an action bar and a chip rack. Get closer to 21 than the dealer without going over: hit, stand, double, split, surrender or insure — only the moves your hand allows light up.

Chips come in 5, 25, 100, 500 and 1000, with Rebet, Double-the-bet and Clear beside them. The table minimum is 5 Lanterns and each box takes up to 2 500.

5
25
100
500
1000
  • Four screens: Table, Rules, Ledger and Saloon.
  • A coached first hand: place a 25 bet, deal, read your total, take the coach's Hit or Stand, see the payout.
  • Portrait, one hand, fully offline.

A real shoe

312 cards, shuffled and cut at 75 %. Every card comes from the same shoe until the cut card appears; a depth bar shows what is left.

The coach

Shows the basic-strategy move for every hand and tells you when your choice matched it. Switch it off whenever you like.

The Ledger

Session results, hands played, strategy accuracy, blackjacks, doubles, splits and busts, plus your recent hands with the cards.

The Saloon

Five ranks from Deckhand to Captain's Guest, ten achievements and the daily Captain's Purse.

The deck

Court cards from the river

The picture cards carry the app's own engraved-style portraits of fictional riverboat characters: the Jack is a deckhand, the Queen a saloon singer, the King the captain at the wheel. The back of every card bears the lantern emblem.

J
Jack: a deckhand on a paddle steamer
J
Q
Queen: a saloon singer in a red gown
Q
K
King: the captain at the ship's wheel
K
The Pelican Casino card back with a lantern emblem

312

cards · six decks in the shoe

75%

cut card penetration

3:2

blackjack payout

0.39%

house edge · perfect basic strategy

House rules

Nine rules, each on its own card

The Rules page explains every one with its own illustration — these are the same rules, word for word in spirit.

Blackjack pays 3 to 2

3:2

An Ace with a ten-value card as your first two cards beats every dealer hand except another blackjack.

Dealer stands on soft 17

S17

The dealer draws to 16 and stands on every 17, soft or hard.

Six decks, cut at 75 %

6D

312 cards shuffled with Fisher–Yates, one card burned after each shuffle. When the cut card appears, the shoe is reshuffled after the round.

Double on any two, DAS

DAS

Double your bet on any first two cards, including after a split. You receive exactly one more card.

Split up to 4 hands

MAX 4

Split equal-value cards up to three times per box. Split aces get one card each and cannot be split again; 21 after a split pays 1:1.

Late surrender

LATE

After the dealer checks for blackjack you may give up your first two cards and take back half of the bet.

Dealer peeks

PEEK

With an Ace or ten-value card showing, the dealer checks for blackjack first, so doubles and splits are never lost to a dealer natural.

Insurance on dealer Ace

2:1

Costs half your bet and pays 2:1 if the dealer has blackjack. Basic strategy declines it.

Push returns the bet

PUSH

Equal totals push and your stake comes back. Stakes run from 5 to 2 500 per box.

Saloon payouts

Natural 21 (blackjack)3 to 2
Standard winning hand1 to 1
Dealer busts1 to 1
Insurance bet2 to 1
Push / tieBet returned
Late surrenderHalf bet returned

Table stakes

  • Table minimum 5, maximum 2 500 per box.
  • Up to three boxes at once — box 2 and box 3 open as you climb the ranks.
  • Rebet repeats your last layout; Double doubles it; Clear lifts it.
Open box
Opens with rank

Every move at a real table

The action bar holds all six. Only the ones that are legal for the hand in front of you are enabled.

Hit

Take another card.

Stand

Keep your total.

Double

Twice the bet, one card.

Split

A pair becomes two hands.

Surrender

Half the bet back.

Insurance

Offered on a dealer Ace.

The coach

The chart the coach reads from

Switch the coach on from the hint chip and it shows the basic-strategy move for the hand in front of you, with a short reason, and tells you afterwards whether your choice matched it. Your strategy accuracy is kept in the Ledger.

This is the chart, as the Rules page shows it: computed for six decks, S17, double after split and late surrender. Your hand runs down the side, the dealer's up-card across the top.

Measured on the app's own code

House edge 0.39%

With perfect basic strategy over 40 000 000 simulated rounds on this exact shoe and these rules (0.391 %, ±0.035 % at 95 %). Any other play costs more. The same figure is printed on the Rules page.

Hand2345678910A
5–8HHHHHHHHHH
9HDDDDHHHHH
10DDDDDDDDHH
11DDDDDDDDDH
12HHSSSHHHHH
13–14SSSSSHHHHH
15SSSSSHHHRH
16SSSSSHHRRR
17+SSSSSSSSSS
Hand2345678910A
A,2 / A,3HHHDDHHHHH
A,4 / A,5HHDDDHHHHH
A,6HDDDDHHHHH
A,7SDsDsDsDsSSHHH
A,8 / A,9SSSSSSSSSS
Hand2345678910A
A,APPPPPPPPPP
10,10SSSSSSSSSS
9,9PPPPPSPPSS
8,8PPPPPPPPPP
7,7PPPPPPHHHH
6,6PPPPPHHHHH
5,5DDDDDDDDHH
4,4HHHPPHHHHH
3,3PPPPPPHHHH
2,2PPPPPPHHHH
H Hit S Stand D Double, else hit Ds Double, else stand P Split R Surrender, else hit

Pair cells that are not P play exactly like the matching hard total. Never take insurance.

Checked, not claimed

How 41 million hands ended

Before release we ran the app's own shoe, hand and coach code headless for 40 000 000 rounds of perfect basic strategy. Each of the 41 114 303 player hands ended like this:

Win38.206%
Loss31.717%
Bust13.036%
Push8.296%
Blackjack4.401%
Surrender4.345%

Simulation output from docs/balance_harness.log, not player data. Bar length is relative to 40 %.

Payouts settle correctly

11 scripted hands from a stacked shoe — 3:2 blackjack, 2:1 insurance, surrender, split and double settlement, soft-17 stand, dealer peek — all pass.

Every rank equally often

Across 217 022 644 dealt cards each of the 13 ranks came out at 7.692 % (expected 7.692 %), largest deviation 0.001 percentage points.

The shuffle is uniform

10 000 shuffles checked position by position across all 312 slots: chi-square 3708.6 on 3732 degrees of freedom — a pass.

Chart and coach agree

All 350 cells of the printed chart were compared with the coach's live advice. Every one matched.

Voyage ledger

Every round, written down

The Ledger keeps the tally of your play: session net, hands played, the win / push / loss split, blackjacks, doubles won, splits, busts and your strategy accuracy with the coach's chart.

Below it sit your last 20 hands, each with the dealer's cards and yours, so you can see exactly how a round went. All of it is kept on your phone only.

An open ledger book beside a brass lantern on a saloon table — Ledger header art from Pelican Casino

Hands played

Blackjacks

Doubles won

Splits

Busts

Strategy accuracy

The Saloon

From Deckhand to Captain's Guest

Ranks follow the total Lanterns you have wagered. Each one raises the daily Captain's Purse, pays a one-time rank-up bonus, and two of them open another box on the felt.

Rank 1

Deckhand

Rank 2

Card Sharp's Apprentice

Rank 3

Regular

Rank 4

High Roller

Rank 5

Captain's Guest

RankLanterns wageredBoxesDaily Captain's PurseRank-up bonus
Deckhand01500—
Card Sharp's Apprentice2 5002750250
Regular10 00021 000500
High Roller40 00031 5001 000
Captain's Guest150 00032 5002 500

Ten achievements

Counted from your real play. Each pays its Lantern reward once, when you claim it in the Saloon.

First Natural 21

Get dealt an Ace and a ten-value card.

+50

Double Down Victor

Win 5 doubled hands.

+100

Split Master

Win every hand of a split 3 times.

+150

Century Club

Play 100 rounds at the table.

+250

Dealer Bust Streak

See the dealer bust 3 rounds in a row.

+150

Back-to-Back Naturals

Get a blackjack in 2 rounds in a row.

+300

Steamboat High Staker

Stake 1 000 Lanterns on a single box.

+200

Night Owl

Play a round between midnight and 4 AM.

+100

Sharp Eye

Follow basic strategy on 25 decisions in a row.

+500

Captain's Table

Reach the Captain's Guest rank.

+1 000

A captain's leather purse full of amber chips on the brass rail

The Captain's Purse

Once a day the Saloon hands you free Lanterns — 500 as a Deckhand, up to 2 500 as Captain's Guest. After you claim it, it refills at midnight.

An empty leather purse lying on the table rail

When the purse runs dry

If your Lanterns fall below the table minimum of 5, the Empty Purse screen appears. The way back is the Captain's Purse, once a day — there is no shop and nothing to buy.

Questions

Is this real-money gambling?

No. Pelican Casino is a social casino game with play money only. Lanterns have no cash value and cannot be bought, sold or cashed out. There are no in-app purchases and no payments of any kind.

Can I win real money or prizes?

No. Nothing in the app can be exchanged for money, goods or prizes. Practice or success at social casino gaming does not imply future success at real-money gambling.

Is the dealing fair?

Cards come off one six-deck shoe in shuffled order — a Fisher–Yates shuffle driven by the system's secure random generator — until the cut card at 75 %. Nothing is chosen for the hand. We checked it over 217 million dealt cards and 10 000 shuffles; the figures are in the section above.

Does it work offline? What does it collect?

It works fully offline — the app has no network permission. It collects nothing: no account, no analytics, no advertising. Your Lanterns, rank, achievements, statistics and recent hands are stored only on your phone and are not included in cloud backup or device transfer. See the Privacy Policy.

What if I run out of Lanterns?

The Captain's Purse brings you back once a day, from 500 to 2 500 Lanterns depending on your rank. Lanterns cannot be bought.

Who can play?

The game simulates casino blackjack and is intended for adults aged 18 and over. It is not directed at children.

Who makes Pelican Casino?

Olympus Digital, the developer name of Mt Olympus AS — a mobile entertainment studio at Ringstabekkveien 33, JAR 1358, Norway. Write to us at henry.walker.gb@gmail.com.

Contact

Questions about Pelican Casino, feedback on the table, or anything about this site and its privacy policy — write to us at the address below.

Olympus Digital

Mobile entertainment studio

Mt Olympus AS

Ringstabekkveien 33

JAR 1358

Norway (NO)

henry.walker.gb@gmail.com