The History of Blackjack
The history of the Blackjack card game is steeped in mystery and its origins are quite debatable. Some say that it was borne from other some French games such as "chemin de fer" and "French Ferme". BlackJack originated in French casinos around 1700 where it was called "vingt-et-un" which means "twenty-and-one". It reached the American shores around the 1800s and has become a hugely popular game since then.
The name BlackJack came around when a player got a Jack of Spades and an Ace of Spades as the first two cards leading to the player being additionally rewarded.
In 1931 when Nevada re-legalized casino gambling, BlackJack became one of the primary games of chance offered to gamblers. After Atlantic City in New Jersey legalized gambling in 1978, twenty states in the US have had a number of small time casinos sprout up in places such as Black Hawk and Cripple Creek, Colorado and in river boats on the Mississippi. In addition to the United States, countries operating casinos include France, England, Monaco, Monte Carlo and quite a few in the Caribbean islands.
The very first attempt to apply mathematical theories to BlackJack began in 1953. A paper written by Roger Baldwin in 1956 was published in the Journal of the American Statistical Association titled "The Optimum Strategy in BlackJack". These pioneers used calculators and probability and statistics theory to substantially reduce the house advantage.
In 1962, Professor Edward O. Thorp refined the previously established basic strategy and developed the first card counting techniques. He published his results in "Beat the Dealer". The book received great acclaim and also managed to create a scare among the casinos that were put at a disadvantage. In fact, they were so affected that they started to change the rules of the game to make it more difficult for players to win.
However, players started protesting the new Blackjack and the unfavourable rules resulted in a loss of income for the casinos. It forced the casinos to go back to the original game and rules. However, Thorp's "Ten-Count" method wasn't easy to master or understand for the common man and what it ended up doing was popularizing the game to the eventual benefit of the casinos.
Another major contributor in the history of winning BlackJack play is Julian Braun, who worked at IBM. His efforts resulted in The Basic Strategy, and a number of card counting techniques. His conclusions were used in a second edition of Beat the Dealer, and later in Lawrence Revere's 1977 book "Playing BlackJack as a Business".
Lastly, Ken Uston who had five computers strategically built into the shoes of members of his playing team in 1977 deserves a mention. They won over a hundred thousand dollars in a very short time but one of the computers was confiscated and sent to the FBI which after several tests concluded that it was not a cheating device.
For more information on Blackjack and the different definition of blackjack check our article list on it.
