The History of Blackjack: It All Started With a Famous Writer’s Saucy Tale
The casino card game known as Blackjack is the most popular in the world. Most of its popularity came after the 1961 publication of the book Beat the Dealer by Edward O. Thorpe. Before that time, although it was offered in casinos, it was often only played at a table or two, much less popular than the dominant Craps. Its rise to casino supremacy is only the latest chapter in the twist-filled history of Blackjack.
It All Started With Cervantes
What’s now called Blackjack evolved from an old card game called Twenty-One. Cervantes, author of the famous novel Don Quixote, was a gambler as well as a writer. In one of his stories written in 1601 or 1602, a couple of Spanish ne’er-do-wells make their living by playing Ventiuna, which is Spanish for Twenty-One.
Ventiuna Was Played Quite Differently From Today
In the tale, Cervantes exposits the rules of Ventiuna, a game in which the object is to get as close to 21 points as a total of card values without going over. He also first showed that the Ace in such games could be played either with a value of 1 or a value of 11. In Cervantes’ tale, the game is played in a deck with no 8, 9, or 10 cards. That would certainly make the game more challenging in modern-day Blackjack!
Colors and Suits Made a Difference in Early Blackjack
The game of Twenty-One spread throughout Spain and France, eventually coming to the United States via settlers from those countries. Gambling establishments in the States offered premiums on some games to stir up interest and get players to try them. Once such premium was to give a 10-to-1 payout on Twenty-One games if the player held an Ace of spades along with a black Jack, either the Jack of clubs or the Jack of spades. This caught on as the name of the game itself, and Twenty-One morphed into Blackjack, even though the 10-to-1 bonus payout didn’t last for long. Now, in addition to the name of the game, Blackjack means any 10-value card paired with an Ace on the initial deal of the cards. Also, these days the suit of the Ace or other cards doesn’t matter — it’s only the value that counts.