Blackjack is a casino banking game. It is the most widely played casino banking game in the world. It uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as "twenty-one". This family of card games also includes the European games vingt-et-un and pontoon, and the Russian game Ochko. The game is a comparing card game where players compete against the dealer, rather than each other.
Gambling is the wagering of something of value on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three elements to be present: consideration, risk (chance), and a prize. The outcome of the wager is often immediate, such as a single roll of dice, a spin of a roulette wheel, or a horse crossing the finish line, but longer time frames are also common, allowing wagers on the outcome of a future sports contest or even an entire sports season.
Mahjong is a tile-based game that was developed in the 19th century in China and has spread throughout the world since the early 20th century. It is played by four players. The game and its regional variants are widely played throughout East and Southeast Asia and have also become popular in Western countries. The game has also been adapted into a widespread online entertainment. Similar to the Western card game rummy, mahjong is a game of skill, strategy, and luck. To distinguish it from mahjong solitaire, it is sometimes referred to as mahjong rummy.
A slot machine, fruit machine, poker machine or pokies is a gambling machine that creates a game of chance for its customers.
Baccarat or baccara is a card game played at casinos. It is a comparing card game played between two hands, the "player" and the "banker". Each baccarat coup has three possible outcomes: "player", "banker", and "tie".
Video poker is a casino game based on five-card draw poker. It is played on a computerized console similar in size to a slot machine.
Casino chips are small discs used as currency in casinos. Larger, rectangular gaming plaques may be used for high-stakes games. Poker chips are also widely used as play money in casual or tournament games, are of numismatic value to casino chip collectors, or may be kept as souvenirs.
The shell game is often portrayed as a gambling game, but in reality, when a wager for money is made, it is almost always a confidence trick used to perpetrate fraud. In confidence trick slang, this swindle is referred to as a short-con because it is quick and easy to pull off. The shell game is related to the cups and balls conjuring trick, which is performed purely for entertainment purposes without any purported gambling element.
Cheating generally describes various actions designed to subvert rules in order to obtain unfair advantages. This includes acts of bribery, cronyism and nepotism in any situation where individuals are given preference using inappropriate criteria. The rules infringed may be explicit, or they may be from an unwritten code of conduct based on morality, ethics or custom, making the identification of cheating conduct a potentially subjective process. Cheating can refer specifically to infidelity. Someone who is known for cheating is referred to as a cheat in British English, and a cheater in American English.
Spoof is a strategy game, typically played as a gambling game, often in bars and pubs where the loser buys the other participants a round of drinks. The exact origin of the game is unknown, but one scholarly paper addressed it, and more general n-coin games, in 1959. It is an example of a zero-sum game. The version with three coins is sometimes known under the name Three Coin.
Three Card Poker is a casino table game based on poker. It was designed in 1994 by Derek Webb.
Fan-Tan, or fantan is a gambling game long played in China. It is a game of pure chance.
Handgame, also known as stickgame, is a Native American guessing game, in which marked "bones" are concealed in the hands of one team while another team guesses their location.
Stick gambling is a traditional hand game played by many indigenous people, with the rules varying among each group. It would typically be played when diverse groups met on the trail. Games could last for several days during which prized matches, shot, gunpowder, or tobacco would be staked. Traditionally, only men would take part. However in modern games, both genders are able to play. The Yukon Territory First Nations in Canada holds many annual hand games, or stick gambling tournaments, in which both genders play.
The Coast Salish are a group of ethnically and linguistically related Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, living in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. They speak one of the Coast Salish languages. The Nuxalk nation are usually included in the group, although their language is more closely related to Interior Salish languages.
Blackjack Switch is a casino gambling game invented by Geoff Hall and patented in 2009. It is based on blackjack, but differs in that two hands, rather than one, are dealt to each playing position, and the player is initially allowed to exchange ("switch") the top two cards between hands. Natural blackjacks are paid 1:1 instead of the standard 3:2, and a dealer hard 22 pushes all player hands except a natural.
Squamish culture is the customs, arts, music, lifestyle, food, painting and sculpture, moral systems and social institutions of the Squamish indigenous people, located in the southwestern part of British Columbia, Canada. They refer to themselves as Sḵwx̱wú7mesh. They are a part of the Coast Salish cultural group. Their culture and social life is based on the abundant natural resource of the Pacific Northwest coast, rich in cedar trees, salmon, and other resources. They have complex kinship ties that connect their social life and cultural events to different families and neighboring nations.
Up Jenkins, also known by the shortened name Jenkins, is a party game in which players conceal a coin in their palm as they slap it on a table with their bare hands. The goal of the game is for the players on the team without the coin to correctly identify which hand the coin is under. The game typically consists of two- to four-player teams, one on each side of a table. There are no official rules, so rules may vary widely. The game is often played with alcoholic beverages with which to drink as a forfeit.
Early Native American recreational activities consisted of diverse sporting events, card games, and other innovative forms of entertainment. Most of these games and sporting events were recorded by observations from the early 1700s. Common athletic contests held by early American tribes included games of stickball, chunkey, archery, darts, foot races, and canoeing. Card and dice games were commonly used as forms of entertainment among tribes such as the Iroquois and Lakota. Several contests and games invented by American indigenous groups contributed to modern-day sports and casino play. Several indigenous games were tribe-specific; one of the most common games played specifically by the Iroquoian was the Bowl Game, played using colored balls and sticks.
Al Francesco is an American blackjack player and gambling strategist. Considered to be “The Godfather of Blackjack”, Francesco is recognized as the creator of the team play concept, the “big player” strategy, and the drop card method. Beginning in 1971, Francesco personally recruited and trained disciplined card counters to work together in teams to beat the casinos. Franceso's teams of blackjack players would station themselves at various blackjack tables to count the decks, and when the mathematical odds turned in their favor, the counters would signal a “Big Player” to come to the table and place large wagers until the edge was lost and once again favored the dealer. While most card counters would eventually be discovered by casinos through their betting patterns and banned from further play, Francesco's unique team concept helped his players evade detection and continue winning.
