The History of Blackjack
The history of blackjack is quite long but vague too. It is thought to have evolved from old French games called “chemin de fer” and “French Ferme”. It made its casino debut in France in the 1700’s where its name was “21” and then it started in America during the 1800’s. Blackjack got its current name from a bet that doesn’t get used anymore. The bet paid 10-1 if you got an Ace of Spades and a Jack of Spades as the first two cards dealt to you.
Mathematical info was published in the 1950’s and 1960’s which showed blackjack gamblers how to get the advantage from the casino. One of the books was so popular that it got voted in the New York Times best seller list. All this sparked a huge interest in blackjack casino games and made it the most popular table game played in casinos in the US from the 1960’s onwards. It’s as popular online with so many gamblers playing online casino blackjack.
The casinos didn’t like how the books showed gamblers at how to win at blackjack, so they changed the blackjack rules to make it harder to win. But blackjack players revolted against the new rules and didn’t play blackjack anymore, so the casinos had to revert back to the original rules. The casino did however stick to changes to increase the casino’s blackjack odds. They increased the number of decks used per game and started using shuffling machines as well. Those changes and the fact you had to be quite clever at math to make use of the blackjack techniques described in the books restored the advantage to the casinos… Or so they thought.
Online blackjack card counting, now that’s a technique casinos can’t control.