The casino game of Blackjack was introduced to the U.S. in the 19th century but it wasn’t until the middle of the 20th century that a technique was developed to defeat the casino in black jack. This article is going to take a rapid peak at the birth of that system, Card Counting.
When wagering was authorized in the state of Nevada in 1934, twenty-one sky-rocketed into universal appeal and was commonly gambled on with 1 or 2 decks of cards. Roger Baldwin published a paper in ‘56 which explained how to reduce the house edge founded on odds and performance history which was very difficult to understand for people who weren’t math experts.
In 1962, Dr. Ed Thorp utilized an IBM 704 computer to enhance the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s paper and also developed the 1st card counting tactics. Dr. Thorp wrote a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which detailed card counting strategies and the strategies for lowering the casino edge.
This created a large increase in black jack players at the US casinos who were attempting to implement Dr. Thorp’s tactics, much to the alarm of the casinos. The technique was challenging to understand and complicated to implement and therefore expanded the earnings for the casinos as more and more people took to playing twenty-one.
However this massive increase in earnings was not to last as the gamblers became more refined and more insightful and the system was further perfected. In the 1980’s a bunch of students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology made counting cards 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 rumour has it, sophisticated computer programs to analyze body language and identify "cheaters". While not prohibited being discovered counting cards will get you banned from all casinos in vegas.
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