49 Fun Facts About Blackjack

What values can an ace take in blackjack?

1 or 11. An ace counts as 11 unless that would bust the hand, so a player holding an ace and a five can take another card with no risk of going over 21.

In blackjack, a king counts the same as which other card?

The ten. Jacks and queens count ten too, so 16 of the 52 cards in a deck are worth the same, which is why card counters track how many of them are still to come.

In blackjack, what is a two-card 21 also called?

A natural. It beats every hand but another natural, even a three-card 21, and a player who splits aces and then draws a ten usually has only an ordinary 21.

What does a standard casino table pay on a player's blackjack?

3 to 2, so a $10 bet wins $15. The bonus matters more than it looks: paying less for a blackjack is the most damaging common rule change a player can meet.

What is the blackjack dealer's face-down card called?

The hole card. In American casinos the dealer peeks at it for a blackjack before anyone plays on, while most European casinos do not deal it until every player has finished.

Blackjack's English forerunner was played under which French name?

Vingt-un, French for twenty-one. Its rules first reached print in a London edition of Hoyle in 1800, and American gamblers kept the French name until 'blackjack' replaced it around 1900.

Which Spanish writer's tale of two card cheats holds the earliest known reference to twenty-one, blackjack's ancestor?

Miguel de Cervantes. In 'Rinconete y Cortadillo' a young cheat boasts of living off veintiuna at every inn on the road from Madrid, with a dirty pack that he says never cuts without leaving an ace at the bottom.

Which actor won an Oscar as Raymond, the savant who counts cards at blackjack in Rain Man?

Dustin Hoffman. Raymond's memory lets his brother Charlie win enough to clear his debts, though the casino catches the scheme on videotape and asks the pair to leave.

Where does most of the casino's edge in blackjack come from?

Players must act first. A player who busts loses the bet on the spot, even when the dealer then goes over 21 as well.

What is each group of blackjack tables in a casino, run by its own boss, called?

A pit. The pit boss in charge of it is the one called over when a serious dispute breaks out over a hand, or when a player's betting draws suspicion.

Card historian Thierry Depaulis traced the name 'blackjack' to prospectors in which gold rush?

Klondike. Depaulis found gold-seekers in the Yukon of 1896–99 already using the name, and suggested they borrowed it from 'black-jack', the miners' word for a dark zinc ore found near silver and gold.

In the legend behind blackjack's name, a black jack earned a ten-to-one bonus when paired with which card?

The ace of spades. The tale is repeated everywhere, yet nobody has produced a record of any gambling house paying such a bonus, and the name was already in use by 1900.

Blackjack's four basic-strategy pioneers of 1956 share which nickname?

The Four Horsemen. Baldwin, Cantey, Maisel and McDermott, four US Army men, worked the strategy out on desk calculators, and when a computer later checked their answers it found almost nothing to correct.

Who wrote the 1960s book Beat the Dealer?

Edward Thorp. The MIT maths professor tested his card-counting system on an IBM 704 computer, and its success is why casinos now reshuffle well before the last cards are dealt.

What is the seat at the dealer's far left of a blackjack table called?

First base. Every round starts with that seat, so its player has to decide before seeing how anyone else's hand turns out, while 'third base' at the far end acts last.

Which moves stay open after a blackjack player's third card?

Hit or stand. Doubling down, splitting and surrender are first-decision plays, offered only on the opening two cards, so a player who draws first has lost the chance to raise the stakes or bail out.

In blackjack, what does a player do when doubling down?

Add a matching bet, take one card. Because no further card is allowed, players save the move for strong starts such as a two-card 11, when one more card is likely to be enough.

What does a blackjack player give up by choosing to surrender?

Half the bet. Giving up is right only with the very worst hands, because even a one-in-four chance of winning the full stake is worth as much as a certain loss of half.

Which hand signal means 'hit' in a face-up blackjack game?

Tap the table. Casinos require signals instead of spoken words so that the surveillance cameras have a record of every decision and nobody can dispute what the player asked for.

In blackjack, pointing with two fingers spread in a V signals which decision?

Split. Setting a second bet beside the first is not enough, because another move starts the same way, so the fingers tell the dealer which is meant: two fingers for two hands.

What nickname do casinos give the cameras that record every blackjack hand?

The eye in the sky. Its recordings settle disputed hands and catch dealers' mistakes, and they are also how a casino can study a winning player afterwards and spot a card counter.

What must a blackjack dealer always do with a total of 16?

Draw another card. Dealers have no choices and must keep drawing until they reach 17 or more, which is why a player can sit on a poor total and hope the dealer is forced over 21.

A blackjack dealer's ace and six make which kind of 17, which some tables require the dealer to hit?

Soft 17. Such a hand cannot bust on the next card, which is why many casinos make their dealers hit it, a rule that adds about 0.2 percentage points to the house edge.

In blackjack, what is a tie between player and dealer called?

A push. The bet is simply handed back, and that matters more than it sounds: in the rare games where the dealer wins ties instead, the house edge jumps by several points.

At a standard blackjack table, what brings the offer of insurance?

The dealer shows an ace. Insurance is a side bet that the dealer's hidden card is worth ten, and because fewer than one card in three is, basic strategy says never to take it.

In blackjack, what does a winning insurance bet pay?

2 to 1. The side bet is capped at half the stake, so a win exactly covers the main bet lost to the dealer's blackjack, which is how a poor wager came to be sold as protection.

What is taking insurance with a blackjack of your own called?

Even money. The dealer pays the hand 1 to 1 on the spot, so the player gives up the usual bonus for a win that a dealer blackjack can no longer turn into a tie, a trade that loses over time.

With basic strategy, how does blackjack's house edge rank among casino table games?

Among the lowest. A basic-strategy player loses under 1% of each bet on average, against 5.26% on every spin of an American roulette wheel.

Many casinos have cut a player's blackjack payout to which odds?

6 to 5. A $10 bet then wins $12, and the short pay adds about 1.4 percentage points to the house edge, more than any other common rule change except paying 1 to 1.

What do casinos call the box that holds several decks of cards for a blackjack dealer to deal from?

A shoe. It lets a casino deal from six or eight decks at once, and the extra decks were brought in partly to speed the game up and partly to blunt card counting.

In blackjack, what does dealing from fewer decks do to the house edge, all else equal?

Decreases it. With fewer decks a blackjack turns up slightly more often and doubling down works better, so casinos take the edge back by tightening other rules on single-deck tables.

A player is dealt a blackjack about once in every how many hands?

21. By coincidence the hand that shares the game's target number turns up in about 4.8% of deals, so a full table of seven players sees one roughly every three rounds.

At best, about how big an edge can card counting give a blackjack player?

2%. Counting turns a house edge of about half a percent into a player edge of only a percent or two at best, so counters make it pay by betting big only when the remaining cards favour them.

In the Hi-Lo card-counting system, which cards add one to the running count?

2 through 6. Every low card that leaves the deck makes what remains richer in tens and aces, which favour the player, so the count rises; each ten or ace dealt pulls it back down by one.

Card counting is legal in Nevada, but what turns it into a crime there?

Using a device to help. A counter who relies on memory breaks no law, so the casino can only ask them to leave, but a hidden computer or any other gadget that does the tracking is a criminal offence.

Casinos in which resort town are forbidden from banning card counters?

Atlantic City. A barred counter sued, and in 1982 New Jersey's top court ruled that only the state's casino regulator could exclude skilled players, so casinos there fall back on early shuffles and betting limits.

Which blackjack technique follows 'slugs' of cards through the dealer's mixing to predict when they will be dealt?

Shuffle tracking. Because the tracker's bets follow clumps of cards, not the count, the play is far harder for a casino to spot, but it takes rare eyesight and judgement to do well.

Which blackjack variant removes all the tens from the deck?

Spanish 21. Only the four tens go while the face cards stay, and because the thinner deck favours the dealer, players are paid back with rules such as a player's 21 always winning and bonuses for 7-7-7.

Double Exposure blackjack shows players both dealer cards, but which rule do they pay for it with?

Players lose all ties. Only a tied blackjack is spared, and with a player's blackjack also cut to 1 to 1, the house takes back what showing both of its cards gives away.

In Blackjack Switch, what does a dealer 22 do?

Ties surviving hands. Instead of busting, a dealer 22 hands every remaining bet back, a blackjack excepted, which is the price the game charges for letting players swap cards between their two hands.

What is blackjack's informal British cousin, played at home, called?

Pontoon. The name dates from about the First World War and is thought to be soldiers' mangling of the game's French name, and it travels badly: in Australian casinos 'pontoon' is a different game altogether.

Under the 'Charlie' rule found in some blackjack games, which hand wins automatically?

Any unbusted five cards. Home games of twenty-one have long paid extra for this 'five-card trick', but few casinos allow it, because it is one of the most valuable rules a player can be given.

Which Hall of Famer popularised the concept of blackjack team play?

Ken Uston. He learned the method on Al Francesco's teams, where counters at several tables quietly signalled a 'big player' to stroll over and bet heavily, then put the whole system into print.

Who co-developed the first wearable computer with the author of Beat the Dealer?

Claude Shannon. The founder of information theory and his partner timed the wheel with a hidden toe switch, because the gadget, tested in Shannon's basement in 1961, was built to beat roulette, not blackjack.

Which Ben Mezrich book about the MIT Blackjack Team inspired the film 21?

Bringing Down the House. Sold as non-fiction, it turned out to be built on composite characters, and its hero 'Kevin Lewis' was really Jeff Ma, who appears in the film 21 as a casino dealer.

Who plays the professor Micky Rosa in the 2008 film 21?

Kevin Spacey. His scheming professor is a composite: the real MIT teams were never led by a professor, and Rosa was loosely drawn from three of their leaders.

At which Las Vegas casino do the brothers count cards in Rain Man?

Caesars Palace. Raymond's counting wins enough there to clear Charlie's debts, and the casino bosses, with only videotape to go on, do nothing worse than ask the brothers to leave.

On a blackjack team, what is the member who counts quietly at one table and signals when the cards turn good called?

The spotter. Betting the minimum hand after hand, the spotter draws no attention, so the team's high roller can arrive on a signal and bet big only once the count already favours the players.

Blackjack player Don Johnson won some $15 million from three casinos after talking them into which concession?

A rebate on his losses. With 20% of any big losing run handed back, on top of a few friendlier rules, the odds tipped slightly his way, and within months three casinos were about $15 million poorer.