The casino game of twenty-one was introduced to the United States of America in the 1800’s but it wasn’t until the middle of the 20th century that a strategy was created to defeat the casino in twenty-one. This material is going to take a quick peak at the development of that technique, Counting Cards.
When wagering was authorized in the state of Nevada in 1934, twenty-one screamed into popularity and was usually gambled on with 1 or 2 decks. Roger Baldwin wrote a dissertation in ‘56 which explained how to reduce the casino edge based on odds and performance history which was really difficult to understand for people who were not math experts.
In ‘62, Dr. Thorp used an IBM 704 computer to enhance the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s paper and also developed the first card counting techniques. Dr. Thorp wrote a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which detailed card counting strategies and the tactics for lowering the casino edge.
This created a massive growth in Blackjack players at the US casinos who were trying to implement Dr. Thorp’s techniques, much to the awe of the casinos. The system was challenging to comprehend and hard to implement and therefore heightened the earnings for the casinos as more and more people took to betting on chemin de fer.
However this large increase in earnings was not to last as the gamblers became more refined and more educated and the system was further perfected. In the 1980’s a bunch of students from MIT made card counting a part of the everyday vernacular. Since then the casinos have developed numerous methods to thwart players who count cards including (but not limited to), multiple decks, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and rumour has itnow sophisticated computer software to analyze body language and detect "cheaters". While not against the law being caught counting cards will get you blocked from most betting houses in vegas.
