Twenty-One Random Facts about Blackjack
16.11.20071. Blackjack is based on the French game, vingt-et-un ("twenty-one"), which did not offer 3:2 odds on a blackjack. The name blackjack came from a promotion in which players could win 10:1 if they got the ace of spades and a black jack.
2. The insurance bet has a very high house edge, much higher than blackjack as a whole.
3. Blackjack is played as a tournament game called Elimination Blackjack.
4. There is a Blackjack Hall of Fame in the Barona Casino in San Diego, California, which was started in 2002. Seven players were inducted into the hall of fame in 2002, and an additional player has been inducted each year.
5. Card-counting in casinos is legal, but casinos may take measures against card counters. In Atlantic City, the law prevents casinos from throwing card-counters out, but the dealer is allowed to require a flat bet from a suspected card counter.
6. Dr. Edward O. Thorp, author of the book “Beat the Dealer,” is considered the father of card counting, but there are records of card counting players much earlier than the book’s release in 1962.
7. “Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions” is a book about a group of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who developed a card-counting system that they used in Las Vegas until the casinos banned them. The movie form, called “21,” began filming in 2007.
8. “Busting Vegas” is a sequel to “Bringing Down the House,” and details the adventures of another group of MIT students who employed a different counting method to beat the Vegas casinos.
9. “The Last Casino” is a Canadian film about a professor who has racked up debts, but has been banned from all the local casinos. He teaches three students to count cards and win at Blackjack so that they can save him from a threatening bookie.
10. One player’s move does not affect the chances of other players as much as the randomness of the cards does.
11. A player’s position at the table makes no difference to their odds unless they are counting cards. If they are counting cards, the more cards they see before they make their move, the better.
12. The pile of cards which consists of several decks in a land-based casino is called a shoe, but it’s not a good idea to put it on your feet.
13. If you pick your cards up and move them out of the sight of the dealer, you are considered a cheater in a land-based casino.
14. At most casinos, if you’re stuck for a move, the dealer will tell you the basic strategy move that is the best move unless you’re counting cards.
15. In Las Vegas, there is a book of gamblers who cheat or count cards, and most casinos will not allow these players to place bets at their casinos.
16. Doubling Down refers to doubling the bet, not the cards. When you double down, you get only one extra card.
17. Some novices confuse splitting for doubling down, because splitting leaves you with double the number of hands and double the bet.
18. There was an option called “surrender” which meant that you would forfeit half of your wager and get half back if the dealer had an upcard of ace. This has the same odds as taking insurance, and is a bad bet. It’s not offered in most casinos anymore.
19. Blackjack is so popular that high school students wrote a program to play Blackjack on their calculators even though there was no betting involved.
20. The dealer’s advantage is such that if you had 18 for every hand, you would lose in the long run.
21. European casinos count an ace as a one if you double down with an ace as a hole card.
