History of Blackjack

In the case of blackjack, as well as the many casino games current, it is difficult to date and place for birth. There are several schools of thought, but certainly the most widespread is that which places its origins in the seventeenth-century France. According to this theory, blackjack originated from another game, called vingt et un, or twenty-one, way back then that it was spreading by the local French country game. It is very possible that the blackjack drink directly from that game, even with significant variations in their rules.

Twenty-one blackjack differs from the two points in particular. First the dealer was only allowed to double the bet. The other difference was that the player could bet after each round. According to this theory, the current blackjack also drink other types of French, such as chemin de fer and french ferme.

Another theory is that quite says that the game comes from a variant known in Italy and Spain, the half past seven. Here the figures worth half a point and there was a placeholder, the king of diamonds. The seven and a half was played with the cards face up, including the seven, eight and nine, and when the player has passed, used the term “bust”, which is something that is still used in the current blackjack.

Coinciding with the French Revolution, the game arrived in the United States at a time that had not yet issued any ban to the game in any of the recent state of the country. The blackjack was spreading rapidly throughout the U.S., partly because of its simple rules, easy to remember. In the late nineteenth century the game was banned in the United States because it was linked to organized crime and delinquency, but this did not discourage the players, organizing illegal gambling thus further grow the popularity of blackjack. These laws ban is tightened further during the 20s.

Then, in 1931, the state of Nevada legalized gambling within their borders. Nevada was a state path, which at the beginning of the twentieth century experienced a large increase in population due to the large number of workers who came to build the railway. When he was finished, new inhabitants arrived in the same way, to build the gigantic Hoover Dam, which took decades to complete. At the time, Las Vegas was already one of the most important cities in the U.S.. In the city of lights, blackjack is one of the most popular games.

With the normalization of the game arrived specialists. In 1953 he published the first study of the game, hand of Roger Baldwin and his team. In this study, called “The optimal strategy of blackjack and was published in the Journal of American Statistical Association, researchers developed a system to give advantage to the player in front of the home using mainly mathematics, probability and statistics method although valid, was too difficult to implement without more help than the memory itself.

This problem is solved Professor Edward O. Thorp. Used the same assumptions that Baldwin, but he had the help of the new IBM computers, the workplace. With the help of machines, Thorp developed a reliable system that would count in the famous letters.

In 1963 he published one of the most celebrated books in the history of the game, “Beat the dealer” ( “Win the dealer). The book became one of the best sellers, so much so that today remains one of the guides referred to in dealing with this game. The casinos saw him as a great threat, so they began to take the time to catch the card counters. Continually changing rules, and adding more cards to the pile to make it more difficult to count the cards remaining to leave.

Another of the key characters in the history of blackjack was Ken Uston, a mathematical genius of the course professor at Harvard University. Uston organized groups cronies started heading to Las Vegas. It was the first group to be aware that they have used in situ ordenarores to help with counting letters. Specifically, Uston and his group wore hidden in his shoes, launched and operated signals between them, seek to dominate the table where they were. Uston and his team found themselves with time banned all U.S. casinos and some of the rest of the world, which was not prevented from continuing in the gap, and he became a master of disguise.

Today, thanks to the internet, blackjack’s popularity continues to grow and has become one of the most popular games for players.