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The Rich History of Blackjack

Blackjack is a relatively new game that probably originated from the French game Chemin de Fer. Blackjack arrived in American shores in the 19th century and from then on, steadily grew in popularity partly because of the legalization of casino gambling in many US states.

The word blackjack probably originated from a game where the jack and the ace of spades are worth extra points. Since the ace of spades is black in color, the word "black" was merged with "jack" and so the word blackjack was born.

In the 1960s, public interest in blackjack has grown so much to the point that players began to study and understand the game like never before. Soon, blackjack strategies were created to help ordinary players increase or improve their chances of beating the dealer. The book "Beat The Dealer" became a sensational hit and frightened the casinos afraid of losing profits. The casinos responded by changing some of the rules of the game, though the new rules were short-lived. Some blackjack players protested the new rules and even boycotted the casinos.

The introduction of powerful computers capable of performing complex calculations and simulate millions of hands made possible the creation of even more powerful blackjack strategies. Soon, academic people and scientists joined the blackjack bandwagon and developed strategies based on mathematics and science. Many books like Stanley Robert's Winning Blackjack made it possible for ordinary players to win handsome amounts of money at the blackjack tables.

The casinos tried to counter the strategies by introducing multiple-deck games. These games uses a "shoe" of 2-8 decks of cards. The idea was to make blackjack more difficult to play and to minimize the possibility of cheating and card counting tricks.

With better and more powerful strategies already available in the market, casinos started experimenting and implementing multiple-deck games as well as cutting off the decks. The multiple-deck games made blackjack even more difficult to play, but it doesn't mean that ordinary players no longer have a chance to win. Casinos are always on the lookout for customers and given the fierce competition among casinos nowadays, they want to attract more players by giving them a realistic chance to win the game. Besides, there are also some casinos who have reintroduced single-deck games.

Over the years, blackjack strategies like HI-OPT II are studied and learned by millions of players around the world. The casinos, on the other hand, are always smart enough to counter these strategies. In the end, everybody wins because in blackjack, nobody remains a loser forever, not the casinos and certainly not the millions of players all over the world.