You’d think this question would’ve come up sooner, but today we realized we had no idea why blackjack is called, you know, blackjack.

Pay up, baby!

So, here’s the low-down. When the game of “21″ was introduced to the U.S., gambling establishments offered bonus payouts to promote the game. One of those bonuses involved a special, 10-to-1 bonus if the player’s hand ended up being an ace of spades in addition to a “black jack,” or a jack of spades or clubs.

While the bonus went away, the name given to this particular combination of cards stuck and eventually became the name for the most popular casino card game in the world, “blackjack.”

Now you know!