Casino Games - Blackjack

History of BlackJack

Blackjack's precursor was Twenty-one, a game of unknown origin. The first written reference is found in a book by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, who is most famous for writing Don Quixote. Cervantes was a gambler, and the main characters of his tale "Rinconete y Cortadillo", from "Novelas Ejemplares", are a couple of cheaters working in Seville. They are proficient at cheating at "ventiuna" (Spanish for twenty-one), and state that the object of the game is to reach 21 points without busting and that the ace values 1 or 11. The game is played with the Spanish baraja deck, which lacks eights, nines and tens. This short story was written between 1601 and 1602, implying that the ventiuna was played in Castilia since the beginning of the 17th Century or earlier. Later references to this game are found in France and Spain.

When Twenty-one was introduced in the United States, it was not popular, so gambling houses tried offering various bonus payouts to get the players to the tables. One such bonus was a ten-to-one payout if the player's hand consisted of the ace of spades and a black jack (either the jack of clubs or the jack of spades). This hand was called a "blackjack" and the name stuck to the game, even though the bonus payout was soon abolished. In the modern game, a "natural" or "blackjack" is simply an ace plus a ten-value card.

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