Blackjack is the world’s most widely played casino banking game. Also known as Twenty-One and closely associated with Pontoon and Vingt-et-Un (and various other iterations), it sees players pitted against the dealer in an effort to get 21 points across two or more cards. It has been a casino staple for decades and looks set to remain so in years to come.
But glitzy casinos aren’t the only places to enjoy a game of blackjack. Various developers have worked on blackjack games over the years, adapting them successfully to numerous gaming platforms.
SEGA games were no exception, so we thought we would round up a few of the best blackjack games to have come out over the years. Some games have, of course been better received than others, though thankfully none of the casino games were quite bad enough to make it onto our list of the worst SEGA games ever!
Nowadays, with the rise of online casinos in recent years, those looking to play blackjack online have a wealth of options available to them. Online blackjack casinos compete for customers by offering large bonuses and a wide selection of games. But that wasn’t always the case.
That’s one reason that SEGA blackjack games held such appeal – they were easily accessible. They also had the advantage of players being able to dip in and out of them whenever they felt like it. And all without wagering any actual money.
Interestingly, in terms of casino spending, Blackjack holds its own against other games pretty well. In Canadian casinos, the average spend per player per visit on blackjack is CA$50. This is the same as the average spend for table games such as craps and roulette, and for slot machines. Only card games such as poker see a slightly higher average spend, at CA$53.
But we digress… In terms of blackjack games, few were as generally pleasing as 2005’s SEGA Casino. The gentle, casino-esque music and encouraging applause for winning hands delivered a surprisingly pleasurable gaming experience, while the playing and betting mechanism was delightfully simple.
Of course, that was far from the first blackjack game that SEGA produced. Way back in 1989, Casino Games for the Master System saw players trying to win enough at the card tables (and slot machines and pinball table) to buy the entire casino. The game mechanism worked nicely, though it obviously seems rather dated in this day and age!
Blackjack fans were treated to another offering in the mid-1990s, with Poker Face Paul’s Blackjack, although the game was not massively well received! In fact, the less said about that particular effort, the better…
Caesar’s Palace (for the Genesis) was a more impressive effort, offering blackjack fans a slick, enjoyable gaming experience.
However, for true blackjack devotees, SEGA’s offering doesn’t get any better than the SEGA BlackJack arcade machine. With a Vegas-esque feel and a choice of four different dealers on the video screen, this is a worthy machine with a realistic-looking table. What more could any true blackjack fan ask?
