History of Blackjack

Do you know the first person in history who mentioned blackjack as a card game is? Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes. Yes, that guy who also wrote Don Quixote. Cervantes was also a famous gambler, and in his tale "Rinconete y Cortadillo"; he talks about a card game named "ventuina" (Spanish for twenty-one). He also gives information about the history of this game; it seems that ventuina was played in Italy since the beginning of 17th century. The object of the game was to reach 21 points without going over and ace values 1 or 11.

In other words, blackjack was known as "twenty-one" at the beginning and in Europe, it is still played under this name in casinos. The term "blackjack" is an American "invention". When twenty-one was introduced in the United States for the first time, casinos added bonus features into the game, to gain popularity. One of the additions was about a special hand – if the player gets the ace of spades and jack of clubs together, it was an instant win with a ten-to-one payout. This special hand was called a "blackjack", and even this hand (and its bonus) was later withdrawn from the game, the name stuck. (Today, any hand of an ace plus a face card –or ten- is considered as the winning hand.)

Blackjack gained popularity pretty quickly. The rules were simple: you needed to create a card total of 21 or a total higher than the dealer's hand. Nowadays this is still the main rule, but there are additions to the game like "side bet", "double", "split" and "surrender". These additions were mandatory for the casinos, because blackjack is the only game which doesn't provide a house advantage over than %0.65. At the beginning, this ratio was even lower: %0.17. This is also why blackjack is known as the card game of "clever" people. Today, land-based casinos are forced by law to serve blackjack game to gamblers. This is because every casino in the United States is legally bound to serve a game with a 0 winning possibility. Blackjack is that game – in fact, it is the only game. That's right, when played right, you can win every blackjack game played.

Now, before you rush to the blackjack table with dollar signs in your eyes, let us tell that this isn't simple as you think. Mathematical analyses show us that it is possible to predict every next card in the game, but basically, you need to be a genius to do that. And by genius, we mean it – this isn't something which every gambler can do by following a "system". The proven way of winning at blackjack is card counting, but this is why casinos use eight decks in tables; it is impossible for "normal" people to count that many cards. Although, a group of MIT students did exactly that in 1980 and won hundreds of millions of dollars – look for "MIT blackjack team" for details. Card counting isn't illegal unless you are using an external device; but as we mentioned, you need to be a genius to be able to do that.

 

Source : articlesbase.com