The British needed a navy to support their vast Empire at this time, as they were at war with the Spanish in the New World and still needed to maintain their colonies in the East. They did this by nefarious means, and with the aid of the blackjack.

‘Press-ganging’ was the answer to this recruitment problem: The King would send his troops into the streets late at night, each armed with a handful of shillings and a ‘kosh.’

The kosh was a black leather sock, around an inch wide and eight inches long, which was filled with large musket shot; lead balls that were also around an inch in diameter. It became known as the blackjack.

Once they had located an unfortunate individual, usually in a tavern, and preying on the inebriated, they would drop a shilling in their tankard unnoticed. Once they had mistakenly taken a sip, they had accepted ‘the King’s shilling’, and were obliged to join the Navy, right there on the spot.

If you complained, as nearly everyone did at the prospect of not seeing their family for the next five years, the blackjack would rain down hard between the neck and shoulder blade of the unfortunate, and he would be dragged off to the brig and a new life at sea.

It was therefore on the deck of a ship, not a casino, that blackjack was invented. It was given the macabre name lest anyone forget how they came to be there.