For hundreds of years, if you wanted to play blackjack your options included a pick-up neighborhood game with friends or a trip to the local casino. Since most people didn’t have a casino nearby, there were few opportunities to enjoy this fun-filled betting game.
Now you can play online blackjack for money or for free at your fav online casino, Grande Vegas. To play blackjack, simply sign into your casino account and select blackjack as your game preference.
Choose whether you want to play blackjack for free in the Free Mode or blackjack real money online in the Real Mode.
You can play any of the casino’s blackjack real money variations on your PC or mobile device whenever and from wherever you wish. The casino offers Blackjack 21, European blackjack, Face Up Blackjack, Match Play 21, Suit ‘Em Up 21 and much more. Choose your preferred blackjack variant or give them all a shot!
Blackjack History
Today's blackjack is a game that appeals to the masses but years ago, blackjack was a game of kings. Its early history is shrouded in secrecy but by the 1700s it was already a popular betting game in Europe’s early casinos.
Cervantes wrote about “The Game of 21” in his well-known “Don Quixote” and it was a favorite of Europe’s royalty and high society in the casinos of the French Riviera, where it was known as “Vingt-et-Un” – Twenty-One.
French settlers brought the game with them when they migrated to the Americas and blackjack soon became a favored form of recreation throughout the Western United States.
When the casinos began to open in Las Vegas in the 1940s, blackjack was one of the first games to be featured. It became so popular that advertising for the new casino industry often displayed blackjack tables, dealers and hands as a way to entice visitors to visit.
Blackjack is also famous because there were several successful scams that took place at the blackjack tables over the years. Some of the most famous include:
- The Tran Scam – The Tran Scam involved an insider dealer who would pretend to shuffle the deck but in reality, the deck was left in the order in which they had been collected after the previous play.
The gang members would play at “their” dealer’s table and track the order of the cards using hidden microphones with a tracker, which would tell them how they should bet. A spotter would send signals into gang members’ earpieces to tell them how to bet at each step.
The gang moved from one casino to the next. In addition to blackjack, the gang also played crooked baccarat. When the ringleader, Phuong Truong, started to shortchange the dealers, the dealers became FBI informants. The FBI estimated that the group stole $7 million during their years of operation. - Richard Marcus – Richard Marcus was a dealer at a Las Vegas casino. In his free time he played blackjack at competing casinos and using a sleight of hand, would bet with two red $5 chips on top of one $500 chip.
If he won, he would point out that the bet was for $510 and collect accordingly. If he lost, he would deftly replace the $500 chip with a third $5 chip. Marcus’s method was copied by Mark Abromowitz with one major change – instead of a $500 chip he would use a $5000 chip. Abromovitz retired without ever getting caught. - South Africa – a gang in South Africa used crooked dealers to place subtle markings on high cards. The scam went on for years until an alert patron noticed the markings and blew the gang’s cover.
- MIT Blackjack Team – The MIT Blackjack Team was not, technically, involved in any illegal scams but their card-counting efforts were on the casinos’ list of banned activities and the casinos worked hard to identify and exclude the players.
The Blackjack team was formed at MIT and operated for decades with a revolving door of different players who were able to reduce the casinos’ odds by counting cards to better predict the outcome of each hand.
And then Blackjack Went Online
Playing blackjack online offers multiple advantages that aren’t available at land-based casinos.
The main advantage is the betting options that are available to players – instead of being obligated to wager a specific amount in order to play at the brick-and-mortar blackjack table, online blackjack gamers can play at their own preferred betting level.
The online games include budget bets, VIP wagers and everything in-between. It’s also possible to play for free in order to practice the game without any deposit requirements.
When you play online blackjack you have your choice of any of multiple blackjack variations. There are options to play with one deck of cards of multiple decks, with cards removed, requirements to hit or stand in certain situations, etc.
If you’re playing real money blackjack you can select any of the casino’s ebanking transaction methods to make your wagers and withdraw your winnings. Grande Vegas offers multiple ebanking methods including wire transfers, cryptocurrency, ewallets and credit and debit card fund transfers.
Regardless of the ebanking method that you choose, you should make sure that you have a unique password for both your ebank account and your casino account and that you do not share that account information with anyone.
