Leading ladies at the blackjack table

Blackjack is one of the most popular casino games online and it’s a game that attracts great players of both sexes. Here are just three of the most famous women players who’ve been a part of blackjack history.

The one who started it all

Eleanore Dumont was a French woman who moved to Nevada City, California in 1854. On her arrival, she set up a blackjack casino that was called ‘Vingt-Et-Un’. She brought a touch of good manners to the west and insisted that even the roughest miners playing in her casino stuck to the rules of not using foul language or fighting in her establishment.

She was the dealer at her casino, and had a great success record. All the blackjack players were treated to free drinks and legend has it that the Nevada City miners used to say it was better to lose to Madame Dumont than win blackjack playing anyone else.

Madame Dumont moved from Nevada City and took her casino to other locations including Virginia City, Califonia; Salmon, Idaho and Brodie, California. She died in 1879 and in 2006 was nominated, but not elected to, the Blackjack Hall of Fame.

Card counter extraordinaire

Cathy Hulbert, nicknamed Cat, was a gambler from New York. She funded her college education by playing cards and at the age of 24 moved to Las Vegas in 1976. Her plan was to be a pro poker player, but when she took a job as a blackjack dealer, she followed a different path.           

Dealing at the table one night, she noticed how successful a man called Peter was. He won when the bets he placed were high and lost on his low bets. Asking him his secret, he told her about card counting and taught her how to do it. Cat joined Peter’s team of card counters – the Czechs – and toured around Europe playing blackjack in the European casinos. On returning to the States, Cat joined the Ken Uston blackjack team. However, the team’s success led to hostility from the casino bosses, and over her playing career, Cat was arrested more than 50 times and banned from over 150 casinos.

Cat didn’t stay with blackjack in the end; she returned to playing poker and writing books on the subject. She’s played a lot of high stakes tournaments and now runs her own poker website. She was the only female included in Card Player magazine’s ranking of the world’s top seven-card stud poker players.

Double crown winner

Alice Walker won the 2006 National 3-Card Poker Champs. The following year she entered the 2007 World Series of Blackjack playing in a field of 40 of the best blackjack players in the world. Walker, from Houston, Texas, was the person who walked away with the $500,000 first place prize. She’s the only player to have ever had this back to back achievement and it cemented her reputation as one of the best card players in the world.