Alternative spellings

• black jack

Noun

blackjack (plural: blackjacks)

1. (card games): The most common gambling card game in casinos.
2. The flag (i.e., a jack) traditionally flown by pirate ships; popularly thought to be a white skull and crossed bones on a black field (the Jolly Roger). In older literature sometimes spelled "black jack".
3. a small truncheon, commonly made of a leather senneted tube, the slender handle being slightly flexible and the upper more bulbous end being loaded with lead or other heavy material.
4. a type of weed, Bidens pilosa, in the family Compositae.

Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one, Vingt-et-un (French for Twenty-one), or Pontoon, is the most widely played casino banking game in the world. The basic rules of the game involve adding the value of an initial two card hand in hopes of being dealt a value of twenty-one. If a value of less than twenty-one is dealt, the player may choose to be dealt single cards until they either: reach a value of twenty one, reach a value they feel comfortable to play, or reach a value that exceeds twenty-one. The winner is whoever has a hand with a value of or nearest to twenty-one without exceeding it. The game is played in many variations at casinos with different table rules. Much of blackjack's popularity is due to the mix of chance, skill, and the publicity that surrounds card counting (calculating the probability of advantages based on the ratio of high cards to low cards). The casino version of the game should not be confused with the British card game Black Jack (a variant of Crazy Eights).