The history of Blackjack

There are several games which include the basic idea of blackjack and similar to it. They are Chemin de Fer, French Ferme, Vinget-et-un, a Russian game Ochko (means “The Hole”), Pontoon and of course Twenty-One.

“Chemin de fer” and “French Ferme” which translates to something like "Iron Way" and “French Firm” are considered to be the oldest predecessors of Blackjack. Later the game Vingt-et-Un that means “21” appeared in French casinos around 1700.

Another game called "Seven and a Half" was played in Italy. It was played with only 8's, 9's, 10's and face cards. The face cards were counting as a half and regular cards were valued as one point. The goal was to reach a hand of seven and a half points. The King of Diamonds was a wild card that could substitute any card, like a Joker card. When a player exceeded seven and a half he would automatically “bust”. So it’s believed that Blackjack took the term “bust” from the Italian game “Seven and a half”.

Another card game quite similar to Blackjack is the British game of Pontoon. In Pontoon players must hit when holding a hand of 15 or less. This game can be found in a large number of gaming rooms.

As for the name Blackjack it probably appeared after the French Revolution, when the game migrated to North America. Since 1800 Blackjack has been a popular game in United States. In order to gain much popularity American gambling houses offered special payouts to players if the first two cards were an Ace of Spades and either of the black jack.

This way the game got its name Blackjack

The period when numerous laws were against Blackjack made it an underground game. All gaming rooms lacked freedom for offering games. Once the prohibition has been lifted, the crowds returned to the gaming rooms and blackjack rose up again during 20’s. Since that time the game became even more popular. Eventually Nevada decided to legalize gambling in 1931. The explosion of casino rooms spread over Las Vegas and the whole country.

During the period of flourishing of blackjack a lot of new casinos were opened which attracted players with special bonuses and better odds. Books and guides were published in order to provide readers with methods for ‘beating the casino’. Casinos of course took measures to protect their interests. Many casinos introduced a change of rules for certain games as Blackjack, but those were cut down shortly.

Also it needs to be mentioned that Continuous Shuffle Machines were developed and appeared in a great number of casinos. At that time two teams of professional card-counters studied shuffle patterns of the machines. By beating them the guys were making thousands of dollars, till casinos removed the Continuous Shuffle Machines.

Today Blackjack is a widely popular game played in the US, Australia, Europe and many other places over the world. Online blackjack has gained interest of millions of players all over the world. With access to the Internet players can enjoy their favorite games whenever they want.