Blackjack Back Then and Today

Everybody has heard of Blackjack (unless they live in total seclusion) but not so many people realise that it is at least three hundred years old and is based on a French card game called "Vingt-et-Un" which translates to "21". When the French colonists sailed across the ocean to America, they brought their game with them, and so sometime in the 19th century, Blackjack was introduced to the United States of America.

The game quickly became popular, but the problem was that back then, the American government frowned upon gaming activity and introduced laws forbidding this game and all others like it. As we all know, however, this does not mean that the game disappeared; it just meant that it was played in secret, until finally in 1931 the state of Nevada legalised casino gambling and Las Vegas was born.

Back then, however, the game known as "21" was no where close to the popularity it has nowadays so the clubs decided to sweeten the deal by offering very tempting odds; ten to one odds to any player who got dealt an ace of spades plus a black jack. And so the game became Blackjack as we know it today.

Of course, being such a popular game, we naturally like to find new ways to play it, and so over the years many different variations have been invented. In fact, just to make life more interesting, the rules of Blackjack can vary between casinos with each house creating their own unique style. Each new rule makes the game more fascinating, not to mention that there is no way you can get bored when so many variations exist!

The changes cover every aspect of the game from the most basic rules and up. For starters different variations use different numbers of decks, have different rules about when and how to split the deck as well as when and how players may split their cards. The versions are never-ending, which is one of the reasons the game is as popular as it is. It would be impossible to explain all the different rules or even to list all the different names of the variations, but some are better known than others, two of them are European Blackjack and Atlantic City Blackjack. The variations also have an effect over the game odds, which is something blackjack connoisseurs know how to use for their advantage.