The game soon became widespread, and with only a few rule variations, developed into the popular casino game that we enjoy today. As they do now, aces counted as one or eleven, and the major difference was that the Spanish deck played a game lacking any eights or nines. The original object of the game of twenty-one is simply that there would be a player and a dealer, and both would attempt to draw cards to get as close as possible to twenty-one without going over. Blackjack carries the same name in French to this very day. In the original game, or at least as far back as we understand the game, it was termed, ‘Ventiuna’ (twenty-one) in Spanish and vingt-et-un, literally, ‘Twenty-And-One,’ in French. Single-Deck Blackjack is the game that started it all, and was such a strong game of chance from its very inception that the rudimentary aspects of the rules have remained largely the same.
