Popular Variants of Blackjack

Blackjack – also called pontoon and twenty-one in Britain - is a very popular casino card game played in casinos and clubs all over the world. If to analyze the game closely, it is an eclectic mix of the player’s skill and decision making, coupled with the element of indecision involved in the whole procedure, that makes the game unpredictable at times and hence exciting for the common man. The early version of blackjack was founded in France in the 1700s, and it was called vingt-et-un ("twenty-one") then. It was introduced in America in the early 1900s, and at that time, in order to attract more crowds, casinos used to offer various bonus payouts to the players. One of those bonuses was 10-to-1 payout, for which a player becomes eligible if his/her hand consisted of the ace of spades and a black Jack (either the Jack of spades or Jack of clubs). Such a hand came to be called a Blackjack, the name with which the game is popular nowadays.

During the British colonalization, the game of twenty-one got popularized in almost all parts of the globe, and with some variations that happened over the period of time, these are still played in the clubs and casinos of those countries. Some of the popular variants of blackjack are the Spanish 21, Double Exposure Blackjack, Double Attack Blackjack and Chinese Blackjack.

Spanish 21, as compared to conventional blackjack, offers several liberal rules such as payout bonuses for five or more card 21's, 6-7-8 21's, 7-7-7 21's, late surrender, doubling down any number of cards with the option to ‘rescue’ or surrender only one wager to the house, and player blackjacks and player 21's always winning, at the cost of having no 10 cards in the deck (though there are kings, queens and jacks). If one has a fool proof basic strategy in place, Spanish 21 guarantees a definite lower house edge than a normal blackjack game.

In Double Exposure Blackjack, both the cards of the dealer are revealed to the player at the start of the hand itself. This is in fact significant piece of information, and without change in rules, it is advantageous to any player irrespective of his/her skill levels. Therefore, the casino wins back some house edge by two main rule changes, paying even-money on blackjack (opposed to 3:2 at normal tables) and ties losing (compared to pushing in standard blackjack). Other rules detrimental to the players are also introduced over the years, such as restricting doubling down and splitting, and not allowing any doubles after splits. This game is thought to be invented by Bob Stupak, former owner of Stratosphere and Vegas World casinos.

Double Attack Blackjack is even liberal and it gives the option to increase one’s wager after discovering the dealer’s face-up cards. It is dealt from a Spanish shoe and blackjacks only pay even money.

Chinese Blackjack is more popular in Southeast Asia, and in regional tongue, the game is called 21-point, ban-nag (Cantonese) or ban-luck (Hokkien). The game uses one or two 52-card decks and any number of players can join the game, only thing is that one of them has to be a dealer. Also, the game does not allow splitting of cards and there are some house rules, which may differ a lot from conventional blackjack and within Chinese blackjack itself.