The History of Blackjack

Have you ever heard before about such games as One-and-Thirty, Seven-and-a-Half or Quinze? All these games have one common feature they can be called the origin of the modern Blackjack game. It was in 1440 when Johann Guttenberg printed the fist standardizes deck of cards. Just several years later the card games became extremely popular among the nobility, some of that games based on the counting of the card numbers.

The other famous gamble was Baccarat which appeared in Italy in the middle of the 15th century and the card count total was equal to 9. The next Italian game which was closed to Blackjack, was Seven-and-a-half played using only faced cards counted as the half each and cards from 8 to 10. It was the first game where you can automatically bust if you could collect 7.5 points.

The French Vingt-Un (which means 21) is the most likely variant of the Blackjack ancestor. Though the rules differ from blackjack the main aim of the players is to collect the “Natural” or 21 points. But, in the end of the 19th century the game came to America, and in 1910s it appeared at the gambling halls under the name of “Twenty-One”.

But when did the game change its original name and how become the Blackjack? When it just appeared in America it was not too popular and gambling halls tried to offer different bonuses in order to interest the players. One of such first promotions was the high prize of 10-to-1 payout if the winner’s hand included Ace of Spades and Jack of Clubs or Jack of Spades, in other words any black Jack. That’s why such hand was called the blackjack and later it became the name of the game.

In 1919 was invented the special green Blackjack tables, and already in 1930th this game became one of the leaders of the gambling industry in Nevada, in several years it became the second game after Craps. In 1957 was established the first basic strategy of blackjack based on the card counting which converted the game into the most popular one.