Out of all the many casino games one can encounter in the 21st Century these days, it is still the ones using cards that end up looking like the most iconic. And there’s a reason for this too, because games such as Poker genuinely are some of the most legendary gambling games the human world has ever thought up. It’s true: even most slot machines resort to using playing card symbols to designate at least the low value icons, it is testimony to the long running success of playing cards within gambling. In fact, it would be tempting to argue the point that gambling wouldn’t even exist without the humble playing card, although there would certainly be a number of counter arguments against that. Regardless, you just cannot separate playing cards from the world of gambling – it is pretty much impossible. And you know one of the biggest reasons why? The game of Blackjack of course. This article can help beginners on how to play Blackjack at the casino.
Oh yes, Blackjack is one of the most popular gambling games in the whole entire world, and is even played by a whole host of other people who wouldn’t normally call themselves gamblers either. School kids, for example, have long been known to play Blackjack amongst themselves whilst on a break, and teachers even encourage this practise because of its closeness to arithmetic and basic numeracy. For those of us that don’t know, Blackjack is a very simple game that centres around the quest to get as close as possible to the number 21 with your had. The only problem, however, is that if you go over this number you automatically lose. Blackjack, in casinos at least, is always played against the dealer and therefore the house, differentiating it from other card games such as Poker. But that’s enough rambling, read on for a comprehensive look into the origins of Blackjack.
Ancient History & Gambling
Gambling, of course, hasn’t always been the heavily institutionalised thing that it is now, with casinos and the like only actually appearing after the 17th and 18th Centuries. However, this is not to say that gambling didn’t exist before this, far from it! As should be immensely clear in the modern day, humans just love to gamble, and this has been true for a very long time indeed. Archaeologists, for instance, regularly make findings that lead them to believe that our earliest homo-sapien ancestors would enjoy playing rudimentary gambling games.
If you fast-forward a little into the golden heyday of Ancient history you can see countless references to the practise of gambling. We hear the most about this from the Ancient Greeks and Romans, but in reality gambling was something that was going on all around the Ancient world, from Europe to Asia. The origins of Blackjack, therefore, can be traced way back into antiquity.
The origins of playing cards
So, we’ve established that gambling has been a prominent feature of human civilization since the very beginnings, but the next thing to do on our quest to find the origins of Blackjack is to look briefly at the history of actual playing cards themselves. Without these items it would be impossible to really play Blackjack, so this is quite an essential cornerstone to touch on.
Most historians will tell you that playing cards are widely accepted to have been invented in 9th Century China during the Tang dynasty, at first being created from wooden blocks. Over the next hundred years these creations spread all across the world, until they could be commonly found pretty much anywhere. The earliest written record of a gambling game involving playing cards comes from 1294, it is not known exactly what game was being played, but chances are it was at least close to resembling Blackjack.
Miguel de Cervantes and “Ventiuna”
So, as you might imagine, with the emergence proper of playing cards it cannot have been very long until the game we now know as Blackjack entered the public gambling fray. Whilst it is almost impossible to know for certain when exactly the game was invented and where, there are a variety of clues that gambling historians have made sure they are paying attention too.
The most useful of these comes from the legendary Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes, author of “Don Quixote” the first novel in the world. In one of his shorter stories he makes mention of a game called “Ventiuna” (21 when translated into English) – something that sounds very familiar to the particular gambling game we are tracking the history of… This was in the 16th Century, so we can say pretty much for certain that Blackjack was around by this time.
Blackjack and the rise of casinos
Now, this was around about the same kind of time as the world’s first genuine and legitimate casino opened in Venice, something that paved the way for Blackjack’s ever increasing popularity. The Casino di Venezia, as it was called, was originally only opened over the harvest celebrations, however the local council quickly decided to keep it open indefinitely, spotting an opportunity to consolidate their wealth.
Now it was the turn for other provinces to follow their example, and by the 18th Century one could find decadent casinos all around Central Europe and beyond. This was fantastic news for the game of Blackjack, as it simultaneously granted it a proper legitimacy, and also way more public attention. Where it was once a game played in the shadows of dodgy taverns, it could now be played in the wonderful early casino establishments.
Blackjack in the 20th Century
Blackjack, therefore, has been on the rise since the 16th Century, and it was in the rapidly modernising 20th Century that it really ended up finding its feet. By now most of the population would know about Blackjack, even school children who used it to hone their mathematical skills at school (without money on the line though, of course).
It was especially popular in places like Las Vegas where the pay outs on offer were getting stupendously big – and it still is today!
