Blackjack History

All history has a “once upon a time,” concept associated with it.  Blackjack history tells a bit about the once upon a time of Blackjack.

The exact history of blackjack has got away from scholars until now. The first origins of blackjack are universally granted to have appeared in the 17th century in France. In French casinos a game that was termed Vingt En Un was played customarily. Vingt-en-Un is "twenty one" in French that evidently was not the first blackjack ancestor; however it is clear that blackjack originated from it, nevertheless the rules of blackjack don’t look like it in all features.

Vingt en Un was much like blackjack, with minor variations. The English name blackjack derived from a Vingt en Un special feature, a hand of a Jack and an Ace of spades. In Italy a game known as Seven and a Half was played in olden days. This card game was played with face cards, 7's, 8's, 9's and ones; with the intention of being able to achieve a hand of seven and a half points.

After the French Revolution, the game was transferred to North America. It was another sturdy turning point in the blackjack history. The game had started gaining recognition in the early 19th century as the US government had prohibited and banned gambling. The game achieved yet a bit more of popularity as the government's control stiffened around the game during the 1920's, and lastly Nevada made a conclusion to permit gambling in 1931 and Las Vegas appeared.

The initial attempt to study the game was made in 1953 by Roger Baldwin and his group. They employed statistical theories and calculations for reducing the house edge in blackjack. Their results were published in the American Statistical Association in 1956 under the title "Optimum Strategy in Blackjack”.

The book "Beat the Dealer" was published by Thorp in 1962, it was narrating a blackjack card counting system as a big success and it took the first position of the seller list of books of the New York Times in 1963. When the casinos realized that Thorp's "Beat the Dealer" did not intimidate them, they restored the conventional blackjack. Throughout the 60's, 70's and 80's blackjack was the card raising star among the casinos.

Ken Uston was not the last who employed computerized methods and in the 1990's the casino halls were hit by another set of players, The MIT Blackjack Team who used card counting methods. They made millions of US dollars till 1997 when The MIT Blackjack Team was forbidden from the casinos after the Griffin Investigation, a private detectives agencies that recognize card counters and protected casinos worldwide from cheating gamblers.

At present, blackjack is a famous game played in Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia and many other places in the world. Also, online blackjack is meeting up with popularity in the internet.