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Gossip Guide · Posted: Fri May 26, 2006 7:38 pm Post subject: Blackjack History

History of Blackjack

The exact origin of the game blackjack is often argued, but in most versions of the history other French games like "chemin de fer" and "french ferme" are said to be predecessors. Back in the early 18th century a game called "twenty and one" or "vingt et un" was played in French casinos and was the first known version of the game. The game became know as blackjack because players won a larger pot for winning with a Jack of Spades and an Ace of Spades.

Nevada around 1931 made blackjack a very popular game in the states where it became one of the more popular games of chance offered to gamblers. So the game of 21 or blackjack is a relatively new game (all things considered) to the United States.

Mathematicians started to analyze the game in the 50's and in 1956 Roger Baldwin wrote "The Optimum Strategy in Blackjack." The article attempted to layout the best way to play and relied on a theory based in statistics and probability designed to bring the house advantage down to a minimum.

Six years later Edward Thorp developed a system of counting cards. He believed it was capable of determining future card play and thus gaining the advantage. He published his findings in a book titled "Beat the Dealer" which was so popular among gamblers that it even made the best seller list.

Casinos were not too happy with the newly discovered method to reduce their advantage. They were so unhappy that they began changing the rules of the game to put the odds back in their favor. When players discovered they new rules they stopped playing the game. When the casinos noticed this they reverted back to the original rules and players flocked back to the casinos. Eager to put the system to use players made the game more and more popular. Fortunately for the casinos the method wasn't very easy to master so they prospered.

The 2nd edition of "Beat the Dealer" hit the stands and featured the research of Julian Braun, who had worked with IBM. He had ran thousands of lines of code and researched statistics of simulated game play utilizing IBM mainframes, some of the most powerful computers at that time. Through this work he developed a basic strategy and several methods for counting cards. Brauns work was also featured in a 1977 book by Lawrence Revere entitled "Playing Blackjack as a Business."