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blackjack

Gambling card game played between a dealer and one or more players.

Also known as twenty-one, it is the most widely-played casino game in the world.[1]

According to Hoyle: In October[2] 1876, Bret Maverick traveled to Wagon Wheel, Wyoming Territory, to set up an honest casino and put the crooked Joe Riggs and his brace joint, the Golden Bucket Saloon, out of business. One night when the saloon was full of gambling townfolk, Bret asked to play blackjack. Riggs attempted to break out a fresh deck of cards, but Bret insisted on playing with the same deck a number of customers had just been playing with. Recognizing the deck as marked, Bret was able to call out each card before turning it face up, exposing Riggs for a cheat. The customers, realizing they had been cheated all along, smashed the saloon to bits, putting Riggs permanently out of business in Wagon Wheel.[3]

Stampede: In April of 1877,[2] Bret Maverick met Coral Stacey aboard the Dakota Queen, bound up the Missouri River[4] for Fort Pierre.[2] After winning a game of poker with Tony Cadiz, Coral approached Bret on the deck and suggested they team up in Deadwood, as she was a dealer in faro and blackjack. Before Bret could answer, he was knocked out, robbed, and thrown overboard into the river.[4] In May,[2] Bret found Coral dealing blackjack in Cadiz's Golden Nugget Saloon in Deadwood.[4]

Escape to Tampico: Paul Brooks was a blackjack dealer at Steve Corbett's La Cantina Americana in Tampico, Mexico in 1877. In order to get closer to Corbett, Bret Maverick enticed Brooks to visit a lady friend in Corpus Christi, leaving his job as a blackjack dealer open. Corbett gave Bret the job, and Bret parlayed it into a larger position overseeing the cantina's entire gambling operation. One of Bret's first actions was to clean out the brace men working with the other dealers, one of which was a steady customer at Sam Garth's blackjack table.[5]