History of gambling in casinos
BlackJack in the early days was construed to be a private game rather than one of the well known casino housing games, it became in a short space of time one the most popular card games ever, giving the well known game of Poker a run for it's money, you may be surprised this was as far back as the first World War. Who would of ever guessed that this game would be a major player in the history of gambling in casinos please read on to find out more. Coming into the second World war the United States Army soldiers nicknamed GIs (short for "galvanized iron") played the new version of blackjack more than any other card game in that era. It has been recorded one of the largest prize sums won, was in the region of $130,00US plus which is a staggering amount of money was in that time period.
As you can well imagine there is great controversy over the origin of Black Jack as there is over any of the other popular card games we enjoy playing today. European countries like Spain, Italy and even France have argued long and bitter that they gave birth to this fascinating game we all enjoy today. The French strong argued profusely that this game is there creation due to their game of Vingt-Un and Trente et Quarante. The Spanish say it is an adaption of their One and Thirty. The Italians insist that it is a spin off version of the well love game Baccara . We at Ace and a ten believe that this dispute of this well loved game will not be resolved anytime time in the near further, but we thank them for it.
The basic object of the three games display close similarity:
- Blackjack in order to win one objective is to reach a count of 21.
- To win in Baccara one must achieve a score of 9.
- Seven and a half the gold aim for is and 7½.
The playing deck in the Seven and a Half only contains 40 cards, the eights, nines and tens being are not required in this particular game. Court cards each count ½ , the others count their numerical value. Please note that the king of diamonds is wild and may have any value. When a player, trying to get as close to a count of 7 ½ as possible, if a player draws cards totaling 8 or more, he busts, in a similar fashion when the player does when going over 21 in blackjack.
Blackjack for the Elite social circle.
Many levels of society enjoyed the thrills and spills of this game. It has been written even in the time of Duke of Wellington (early 1800's) played a version of this game, but instead of trying to achieve the prize total of 21 there objective was to attain 15. To conceal their emotions during the game from the scrutinizing eyes of the dealer and other table guests they sometimes wore masks of elaborate designs. Now a days we have discontinued with this practice and utilize wearing sun glasses of various designs or we use a technique called "wearing our Poker face" where exhibit a facial expression which shows nothing but blandness. We hope you have enjoyed this section at Ace and a ten.