Page "Blackjack" Paragraph 5

Blackjack's precursor was twenty-one, a game of unknown origin.

The first written reference is found in a book by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, who is most famous for writing Don Quixote.

Cervantes was a gambler, and the main characters of his tale Rinconete y Cortadillo, from Novelas Ejemplares, are a couple of cheats working in Seville.

They are proficient at cheating at ventiuna ( Spanish for twenty-one ), and state that the object of the game is to reach 21 points without going over and that the ace values 1 or 11.

The game is played with the Spanish baraja deck, which lacks eights, nines and tens.

This short story was written between 1601 and 1602, implying that ventiuna was played in Castilla since the beginning of the 17th Century or earlier.

Later references to this game are found in France and Spain.