History

The original year of start playing the blackjack is unknown but people think that this game was first played in Italy or France. In the early years of 17th century in Italy a card game was played named the 7 and half. The game was played using the seven, eight, nine and the face cards. The seven, eight and nine cards had same value 1 and face cards had same value ½ point. The king of the diamond was the wild card and if the player hands had point above 7 and ½ then that hand would be busted the player would lose the game. This rule is similar with the modern blackjack and people think it was the first version of modern blackjack.

Blackjack in America

In the late 17th century after the revolution of France, this game was first brought to the United States by the emigrants of France to America. In that time France had some strict laws about gambling while the United States had no law against gambling and this helped to spread the gambling all over America.

Players from all over Europe who wanted to gamble boarded on ship to America to play betting games and gamble. In that time different players were tried to improve their skills and strategies to win more than usual. At the starting of the 19th century some rules were made the United Stated government to stop the gambling and blackjack was banned by this law. The government thought that this game brought crime to the casinos than other games.

Blackjack doesn't give up

Though, banning could stop legal playing the game but many secret casinos and clubs had been built in this time to continue playing the game. People, who wanted to play the game, played the game in those secret casinos by avoiding the police and other laws. The laws for banning the game were becoming easier in the 1920s and in 1931; blackjack was legal again in Las Vegas. The new law was that, you could only play the game in the licensed casinos.

The game then spread all over America again as a legal game and in 1953, the first manual to play the game was published by Roger Baldwin. To minimize the house edge, in 1956, another book was published based on the strategies to increase winning chances and decrease the house edge.

That information was not enough to secure the money and increase the odds but in 1962 when Ed Thorp first published Beat the Dealer, everything changed and people learnt a lot about blackjack, blackjack strategies and card counting methods. Casinos were not happy with such books and they were changed many of their rules to avoid the increasing losses.