The game of Blackjack was brought to the US in the 1800’s but it wasn’t until the middle of the twentieth century that a strategy was developed to defeat the casino in black jack. This article is going to grab a swift peak at the birth of that technique, Counting Cards.
When gambling was approved in the state of Nevada in 1934, black jack screamed into universal appeal and was most commonly wagered on with one or two decks of cards. Roger Baldwin published a paper in 1956 which explained how to lower the casino edge built on probability and statistics which was quite bewildering for players who were not mathematicians.
In 1962, Dr. Thorp utilized an IBM 704 computer to refine the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s dissertation and also developed the first card counting strategies. Dr. Thorp wrote a book called "Beat the Dealer" which detailed card counting techniques and the practices for lowering the house advantage.
This spawned a large increase in chemin de fer gamblers at the US casinos who were trying to implement Dr. Ed Thorp’s strategies, much to the amazement of the casinos. The strategy was hard to comprehend and difficult to carry through and thusly elevated the profits for the betting houses as more and more people took to betting on twenty-one.
However this massive growth in earnings was not to last as the gamblers became more highly developed and more cultivated and the system was further perfected. 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 brought in numerous methods to thwart card counters including (but not limited to), multiple decks, shoes, shuffle machines, and speculation has itnow sophisticated computer programs to scrutinize body language and identify "cheaters". While not against the law being caught counting cards will get you blocked from most casinos in Las Vegas.