Blackjack is one of the most popular casino games out there. Why? Well, possibly because it is a very easy game to learn and play. There really is only one rule. You need to get as close to twenty-one as possible without going overboard. Ta-da! That’s. There is no actual rocket science involved. If you can add, you can play. So based on that alone, that may be why it has been and will continue to be one of the most popular casino games.
But was it invented by the Americans? No. Card games as a whole were an invention of the Chinese. The earliest known forms of card games were played with paper money in China around 900 AD. From the research, they used to shuffle money and one day they said hey, that would be a great game; thus was born what they called “paper tickets”. Time and tide change all things, what a great saying, and a German gentleman named Johann Gutenberg in 1440 said: Hm, I can improve this (not really, but it’s funny to think he said that). Or it could be that you just saw a way to make a product that would be in high demand and earn you a lot of money. Smart man! So he printed the first deck of cards.
But let’s not digress, let’s go back to blackjack, the closet game when blackjack was believed to have been in France in the 1700s. It was called “twenty-one” or ta-da! twenty one. There were some wonderful card games that came out of this first game; much like a famous television series will have a spinoff program. “Seven and a Half” and a game from Spain called “One and Thirty” are just a couple that have been singled out as possible derivatives of blackjack. Then in the 1800s its popularity spread to the US Once again, time and tide turn things around because it wasn’t exactly the same as the blackjack we know and love, but so close that most agrees that its roots come from this game.
But around the year 1910, this great game had come to the American version of casinos and was being pushed towards them in an effort to entice them to play. His marketing of the game went so far as to give players a bonus if they had the “Black Jack” and the “Black Ace” in their hand. From this bonus, came the wonderful name that we all know and love now: Blackjack.
Now blackjack is a wonderful casino game or a fun family night game. Many movies have featured it in all its simplicity in their movies, further expanding its popularity. So the next time you and your family sit down for a family night, maybe it’s blackjack night. Not only will this be a great way to impart some history on the flashcards, but, don’t tell them, it will give them more practice in math.