Month: July 2019

Spanish 21, or Spanish blackjack, is a variant of the classic game of blackjack. As the name suggests, Spanish 21 is traditionally played with the Spanish 48-card deck, although the standard 52-deck, minus the four tens, is equally suitable. Obviously, removing four, or 25%, of the 10-point cards increases the house edge, but only to 0.40%, if the dealer stands on 17, compared with 0.28% for blackjack played under liberal Las Vegas Strip rules. Indeed, in common with liberal Las Vegas Strip rules, Spanish 21 players may double after splitting, resplit aces and late surrender of the first two cards is allowed.

Spanish 21 is akin to blackjack in many ways, although the main difference is that a player 21, including blackjack, always beats a dealer 21. Any five-card, mixed suit 21 pays 3/2, any six-card, mixed suit 21 pays 2/1 and any seven-card, or higher, mixed suit 21 pays 3/1. Similarly, a mixed suit 6,7,8 pays 3/2, a suited 6,7,8 pays 2/1 and a suited 6,7,8 in spades pays 3/1; the same odds apply to 7,7,7 in all three cases although, in the event of a suited 7,7,7, if the dealer is also showing a seven, the player receives a bonus of $1,000, or $2,500 – known as a ‘Super Bonus’ – depending on the size of his or her initial stake. Note that none of these bonuses apply after doubling or splitting.

Not to be confused with ‘Little Joe’ Cartwright, the character made famous by the late Michael Landon in the television series ‘Bonanza’ from the late Fifties onwards, ‘Little Joe’ is a traditional – in fact, almost obsolete – term used in casino craps games. The term ‘Little Joe’ was first recorded in the late nineteenth century and is often used, loosely, and erroneously, according to some sources, to describe any roll of four – that is, 1-3, 3-1, or 2-2 – or a point of four in a craps. The term ‘Little Joe from Kokomo’, on the other hand, was a later development and refers specifically to a ‘hard’ four or, in other words, 2-2 alone. For the record, the probability of rolling any four is 3/36, or 1/12, or 8.33%, while the probability of rolling a hard four is 1/36, or 2.77%.

In the case of the latter term, the ‘Little Joe’ in question is believed to be ‘Little Joe’ Fohn, who was one of the top tournament bowlers in Kokomo, Indiana in the Twenties. Interestingly, the first Japanese American jockey in the United States, Yoshio Kobuki – who, his father once joked, was small enough to fit in his jacket pocket – was also nicknamed ‘Kokomo Joe’. However, Kobuki Jnr. was not born until 1918 and did not rise to prominence until the early Forties, by which time the ‘Little Joe from Kokomo’ term was probably already in common usage. It is also interesting to note that U.S. Route 31 and U.S. Route 22 pass through Kokomo, Indiana north-south and west-east, respectively.