Twenty-one first appeared in France in the mid-eighteenth century as Vingt-et-Un, which is French for twenty and one. The Emperor Napoleon loved this game above all others and played it all the time. King Louis XV and his mistress Madame Du Barry held card parties where twenty-one was the entertainment of the evening. The game came to the United States via New Orleans then traveled up the Mississippi River on steamboats. By the late 1800s it had spread to the saloons and gambling halls of the old west. Twenty-one was the most popular card game of the Allied soldiers in Europe during the First World War. By the 1950's it was the main card game in the Las Vegas casinos, passing the old card game Faro. Today one can play blackjack in over 106 different countries and on over 134 cruise ships around the world.

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