The card game of Blackjack was brought to the U.S. in the 1800’s but it wasn’t until the middle of the 20th century that a strategy was created to defeat the casino in Blackjack. This material is going to grab a quick peak at the creation of that system, Card Counting.
When casino gambling was approved in Nevada in 1934, chemin de fer sky-rocketed into popularity and was commonly wagered on with 1 or two decks of cards. Roger Baldwin published a paper in ‘56 which described how to lower the casino advantage founded on probability and performance history which was quite difficult to understand for those who weren’t mathematicians.
In 1962, Dr. Edward O. Thorp used an IBM 704 computer to refine the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s paper and also created the first card counting tactics. Dr. Thorp wrote a book called "Beat the Dealer" which detailed card counting strategies and the tactics for lowering the casino edge.
This spawned a huge growth in Blackjack gamblers at the US casinos who were attempting to implement Dr. Thorp’s tactics, much to the consternation of the casinos. The technique was difficult to understand and hard to implement and therefore expanded the profits for the casinos as more and more folks took to playing twenty-one.
However this massive growth in profits was not to last as the players became more highly developed and more cultivated and the system was further improved. In the 80’s a group of students from MIT made card counting a part of the everyday vernacular. Since then the casinos have brought in countless measures to counteract card counters including but not limited to, more than one deck, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and speculation has it, sophisticated computer software to scrutinize body language and identify "cheaters". While not prohibited being caught counting cards will get you blocked from the majority of brick and mortar casinos in sin city.
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