Blackjack

Blackjack is a classic card game with a simple goal: get as close to 21 as possible without going over, and beat the dealer. This version follows the standard rules. You can hit (take a card), stand (keep your hand), double down (double your bet and take exactly one more card), or split pairs into two separate hands.

The dealer stands on soft 17, a natural 21 pays 3:2, and insurance is offered when the dealer shows an Ace. Virtual chips let you practice strategy over many hands with no real money. The game tracks your chip count and session stats — great for building your skills.

Blackjack's closest ancestor is Vingt-et-Un — "Twenty-One" — played in French casinos in the early 1700s. It likely came from Spanish Veintiuna in the 1600s. Cervantes mentions a card game like it in a 1601 short story, making it one of the oldest gambling games still played in casinos.

The American name "Blackjack" came from a 19th-century U.S. casino deal that paid 10:1 for a hand with the Ace of Spades and either black Jack. Casinos dropped the bonus, but the name stuck. In 1956, Roger Baldwin published the first mathematically solid strategy in the Journal of the American Statistical Association. That paper is the basis for every basic strategy card sold in casino gift shops today.