The game of black jack was introduced to the United States of America in the 1800’s but it was not until the mid 20th century that a technique was developed to beat the house in Blackjack. This article is going to take a rapid peak at the birth of that technique, Counting Cards.
When casino gambling was legalized in Nevada in ‘34, twenty-one screamed into recognition and was usually gambled on with one or 2 decks. Roger Baldwin wrote a dissertation in ‘56 which explained how to reduce the house edge built on odds and performance history which was very bewildering for players who weren’t mathematicians.
In ‘62, Dr. Ed Thorp used an IBM 704 computer to enhance the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s dissertation and also created the first card counting strategies. Dr. Ed Thorp wrote a book called "Beat the Dealer" which outlined card counting strategies and the strategies for lowering the house edge.
This spawned a massive increase in chemin de fer gamblers at the US casinos who were attempting to put into practice Dr. Ed Thorp’s strategies, much to the bewilderment of the casinos. The technique was hard to understand and complicated to carry through and therefore heightened the earnings for the casinos as more and more folks took to gambling on black jack.
However this massive growth in profits was not to last as the gamblers became more highly developed and more educated and the system was further refined. In the 1980’s a group of students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology made card counting a part of the day-to-day vernacular. Since then the casinos have introduced countless methods to thwart players who count cards including, more than one deck, shoes, shuffle machines, and speculation has it, sophisticated computer software to scrutinize body language and identify "cheaters". While not illegal being discovered counting cards will get you blocked from most brick and mortar casinos in Las Vegas.
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