Blackjack History
Gambling with playing cards spread steadily throughout Europe, after
Johann Gutenberg printed the first deck in Germany in 1440 and many of
the games involved drawing cards to reach a certain total. Although the
exact relationship remains obscure, blackjack is believed to have
evolved from several of these early games. Baccarat with the magic
number of nine, appeared in Italy about 1490, followed by the game of
seven and a half, which seems to be the first game where the player
automatically lost if he went over the desired number. The game of one
and thirty was first played sometime before 1570 in Spain, and the duke
of Wellington, the marquess of Queensbury, and Prime Minister Disraeli
all played quince (fifteen) in Crockford's, the famous English casino,
which flourished between 1827 and 1844. From France came trente et
quarante (thirty and forty) and finally vingt un or vingt et un
twenty-one or (twenty and one), which crossed the Atlantic ocean and was
listed in American Hoyle of 1875.
As first played in the United States, blackjack was a private game, but
by the early 1900s, tables for twenty-one were being offered in gambling
parlors of Evansville, Indiana. Acceptance was slow, and, to stimulate
interest, operators offered to pay three to two for count of twenty-one
in the first two cards, and ten to one if the twenty-one consisted of
the ace of spades and either the jack of des or the jack of clubs. This
hand was called, of course, blackjack. The ten-to-one payoff was soon
eliminated, but the term remianed, first as the name of any two-card
twenty-one hand and sequently as the name of the game itself, although
twenty-one would have been more appropriate.
By 1919, tables covered with green felt and emblazoned in gold letters;
announcing "Blackjack Pays Odds of 3 to 2" were being manufactured in
Chicago and appeared in illegal gambling halls oughout the country. The
popularity of the game grew slowly until gambling was legalized in
Nevada in 1931, then blackjack became the third most successful game,
outstripping faro, but trailing both roulette and craps. Because of the
prohibitive casino edge 5.26 percent in roulette, discouraged players
drifted away from the game, and by 1948 blackjack had become the
second-biggest casino moneymaker.
Next... Official Casino Blackjack Rules
