The game of twenty-one was introduced to the U.S. in the 1800’s but it was not until the middle of the twentieth century that a technique was developed to beat the casino in black jack. This article is going to take a quick look at the birth of that strategy, Counting Cards.
When wagering was legalized in Nevada in ‘34, black jack sky-rocketed into popularity and was usually wagered on with 1 or 2 decks of cards. Roger Baldwin published a paper in ‘56 which described how to lower the casino advantage built on probability and statistics which was very difficult to understand for individuals who were not math experts.
In 1962, Dr. Ed Thorp utilized an IBM 704 computer to advance the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s dissertation and also created the first techniques for card counting. Dr. Thorp wrote a book called "Beat the Dealer" which illustrated card counting strategies and the practices for reducing the casino edge.
This spawned a massive growth in twenty-one gamblers at the US betting houses who were trying to implement Dr. Thorp’s tactics, much to the bewilderment of the casinos. The system was hard to comprehend and difficult to implement and therefore elevated the earnings for the casinos as more and more folks took to playing chemin de fer.
However this huge increase in earnings was not to continue as the gamblers became more sophisticated and more accomplished and the system was further perfected. In the 1980’s a group of students from MIT made card counting a part of the everyday vocabulary. Since then the casinos have introduced numerous methods to thwart players who count cards including, multiple decks, shoes, shuffle machines, and gossip has itnow sophisticated computer programs to observe actions and identify "cheaters". While not against the law being caught counting cards will get you barred from the majority of casinos in vegas.
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