The first female blackjack professional

Until relatively recently, the casino game of blackjack was generally viewed as being a man's game. But today, there are successful blackjack players both male and female all over the world, many of them playing online and in live blackjack tournaments.

It's little known, though, that the first female professional blackjack player was around in the nineteenth century. A French woman named Eleanore Dumont was born and raised in France, but moved to Nevada City, California in 1854. When she had settled in the town, she opened up a blackjack casino called Vingt Et Un. Though most of her clientele were rough gold miners, she expected a certain level of decorum in her establishment, and anyone who used bad language or started fighting was politely shown the door.

More often the not, Eleanore was the blackjack dealer in her casino and she usually won. She treated all players to free champagne and Nevada City gold miners used to say it was better to lose to Madame Dumont than to win blackjack against any other player!

When the gold rush was over in Nevada City, Eleanore packed up and relocated several times. In every new place, she re-opened her casino, through to her death in 1879. Over a hundred years later, in 2025, she was nominated for entry to the Blackjack Hall of Fame, though she wasn't actually elected.

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