Ever
heard of Quinze, One-and-Thirty
or Trente-et-Quarante? How about
Vingt-Un and Seven-and-a-Half?
Or Baccarat perhaps?
Certainly some of these games will be known to you, but do you know what they
all have in common? They're all games that claim or are credited to be the
origin of today's Blackjack.
Standardized decks of cards first appeared in 1440 when Johann Guttenberg printed
the 50 card deck. Within a few years his cards and the games played with them
were hugely popular among the rich and the royal. Many of those games involved
reaching a certain card-count total.
In Baccarat, which appeared in Italy in the 1490's, the total was of course
9. Another Italian contender to Blackjack's ancestry was Seven-and-a-half which
was played with only Eights, Nines, Tens and face cards which counted as the
Half. The King of Diamonds was wild. This was the first game where the player
would automatically "bust" if the cards totalled over the desired
number of 7-1/2.
The Spanish game One-and-Thirty is first recorded in the book "The Comical
History of Rinconete and Cortadillo" dated 1570. In this game each player
antes in and is dealt three cards followed by three community cards dealt to
center table. Each player takes one community card and replaces it with a discard
from their hand. The process continues until each player is "content" at
which point the totals are taken. Only three-card Flushes qualify in the counting:
a total of 31 is the highest hand; three-of-a-kind is valued at 30-1/2; followed
by the pip counts 30, 29, and so on.
By the early 1800's the French game Quinze had become quite popular. In this
game the desired total was, predictably, 15. In fact it was Quinze that helped
the famous English casino Crockford's flourish from 1827 through 1844. Princes,
Dukes, Marquees and Prime Ministers all crowded the Quinze tables, often hiding
their faces behind masks to conceal their emotions and identities.
Another French game, Trente-et-Quarante (aka Rouge-et-Noir), was and is still
played with 6 decks of cards, with a croupier dealing out a row of black cards
and a row of red cards sequentially after players have bet on either row. When
each row totals over 30 the hand is closed. Bets on the row closest to 31 win
even money. A tie, both rows totalling 31, sees the house pocket half of all
players' wagers. A variety of in-row bets are possible bringing Trente-et-Quarante
closer to Roulette in it's play than Blackjack.
The French game Vingt-Un ("21") is certainly the most promising sounding
candidate for the "original Blackjack" but the game itself is was
originally played quite differently. While the goal of the game was to get
or reach a "Natural" --cards totalling 21-- the cards were actually
dealt in rounds followed by betting each round. Only the dealer could Double
and if he got a Natural he'd get paid triple by the other players.
In fact it was Vingt-Un that finally crossed the ocean from Europe to America
in the late 1800's. The first appearance in America is recorded in 1875 in "American
Hoyle" and "Foster's Hoyle" of 1905 names it Vingt-et-Un. Although
it began strictly as a private game "Twenty-One" finally appeared
in American gambling halls in early 1910, reportedly first seen in Evansville,
Indiana.
So how did "Twenty-One" become "Blackjack"? Apparently
when the game was first introduced in American it wasn't very popular so the
gambling houses tried various bonus payouts to get the players to the tables.
On such bonus was a 10-to-1 payout if the player's hand consisted of the Ace
of Spades and a black Jack (either the Jack of Clubs of the Jack of Spades).
This hand was called a "blackjack" for obvious reasons and the name
stuck even though the bonus payout was soon abolished.
So, by 1919 special green-felted Blackjack tables were being made and by 1931
Blackjack was the third most popular Nevada casino game after Roulette and
Craps. By 1948 it was second only to Craps. In 1958 the first numerically proven
basic strategies appeared and Blackjack was well on it's way to being number
one.
