The game of black jack was introduced to the United States in the 19th century but it wasn’t until the middle of the twentieth century that a system was developed to defeat the casino in chemin de fer. This material is going to take a quick look at the development of that system, Card Counting.
When gambling was legalized in Nevada in 1934, twenty-one screamed into universal appeal and was most commonly played with 1 or two decks. Roger Baldwin published a paper in ‘56 which described how to reduce the house advantage built on probability and stats which was really difficult to understand for those who weren’t math experts.
In ‘62, Dr. Edward O. Thorp utilized an IBM 704 computer to better the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s dissertation and also created the first strategies for card counting. Dr. Ed Thorp wrote a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which detailed card counting techniques and the tactics for lowering the house edge.
This spawned a massive increase in chemin de fer players at the US casinos who were trying to put into practice Dr. Thorp’s strategies, much to the alarm of the casinos. The strategy was hard to comprehend and difficult to carry through and thusly expanded the earnings for the casinos as more and more folks took to betting on twenty-one.
However this large growth in profits wasn’t to continue as the gamblers became more refined and more accomplished and the system was further improved. In the 1980’s a group of students from MIT made counting cards a part of the everyday vernacular. Since then the casinos have introduced countless methods to thwart players who count cards including, more than one deck, shoes, shuffle machines, and speculation has it, sophisticated computer software to analyze body language and identify "cheaters". While not prohibited being discovered counting cards will get you banned from many casinos in vegas.