History of Blackjack
The history of blackjack is an interesting one though not completely clear even today. It is thought that the game originated in the 1600s in France as a game called Vingt En Un. Translated as "21", this game, while not blackjack, laid the foundation for the game that is played today. The player competed against the dealer and the player and was able to bet after each round, like in poker, with the objective being to reach 21. The ideal hand in this game consisted of an ace of spades and jack, thus, the name "blackjack."
While the French were busy with Vingt En Un, the Italians were playing a different game called Seven and a Half where players attempted to get as close to seven-and-a-half points without going over. The act of exceeding this point total was called "busting", the root of this very term in today's game of blackjack.
Blackjack Moves to North America
After the French Revolution in 1789, blackjack made its way to North America where it flourished without any gambling prohibition. Strategies were developed and the game became popular before anti-gambling measures took effect in the 1800s due to a fear that gambling would lead to corruption and crime.
As the U.S. government did its best to eliminate gambling, a landmark event happened changing the history of the industry forever: the state of Nevada legalized gambling in the 1930s and Las Vegas became the capital of North American gambling, paving the way for online casinos so many years later.
Modern Day Blackjack
In the 1950s, a man named Roger Baldwin used statistics and mathematics to reveal the secrets behind the cards and give players help to beat the house. Only a few years later, a professor named Edward Thorp published a book called "Beat the Dealer" in which he created the first ever system to win at blackjack, a system which would become a thorn in the side of casinos around the world: card counting. Consequently, casinos took action and changed the rules to maintain the house edge, introducing multiple-card shoes and rules against card counting.
Many have since heard about the MIT blackjack team, documented in the best-selling book "Bringing Down the House", the inspiration for today's "21" movie. Using team card-counting, these students had unprecedented success beating the house with an almost impossible-to-detect system. Of course, as expected, the casinos have evolved as well with better security to make this system difficult to succeed.
With today's online casinos, blackjack has achieved great success and is certain to flourish in the future as one of the most popular casino games in the online gambling world.
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