The game of black jack was introduced to the United States in the 1800’s but it wasn’t until the mid twentieth century that a technique was developed to beat the house in chemin de fer. This material is going to take a quick look at the creation of that strategy, Card Counting.
When casino gambling was legitimized in the state of Nevada in ‘34, black jack screamed into universal appeal and was commonly gambled on with one or two decks. Roger Baldwin published a paper in 1956 which described how to reduce the casino edge built on probability and performance history which was really complicated for individuals who were not math experts.
In 1962, Dr. Ed Thorp utilized an IBM 704 computer to better the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s paper and also created the first card counting techniques. Dr. Thorp authored a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which illustrated card counting strategies and the strategies for lowering the house edge.
This spawned a massive growth in Blackjack competitors at the US betting houses who were attempting to put into practice Dr. Ed Thorp’s tactics, much to the alarm of the casinos. The strategy was not easy to understand and complicated to implement and therefore heightened the earnings for the betting houses as more and more folks took to gambling on Blackjack.
However this huge increase in profits was not to last as the gamblers became more refined and more insightful and the system was further refined. In the 80’s a bunch of students from MIT made counting cards a part of the everyday vocabulary. Since then the casinos have introduced countless measures to counteract players who count cards including (but not limited to), more than one deck, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and rumor has itnow complex computer programs to read actions and detect "cheaters". While not prohibited being discovered counting cards will get you blocked from many brick and mortar casinos in sin city.
