The Beginnings of Blackjack
The card game of chemin de fer was introduced to the United States in the 1800’s but it was not until the middle of the twentieth century that a system was created to defeat the casino in twenty-one. This article is going to take a quick look at the birth of that strategy, Counting Cards.
When betting was authorized in the state of Nevada in 1934, chemin de fer sky-rocketed into popularity and was usually gambled on with 1 or 2 decks. Roger Baldwin published a paper in 1956 which detailed how to reduce the house advantage founded on probability and statistics which was very complicated for people who were not math experts.
In 1962, Dr. Edward O. Thorp utilized an IBM 704 computer to enhance the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s paper and also developed the 1st strategies for card counting. Dr. Thorp authored a book called "Beat the Dealer" which illustrated card counting techniques and the tactics for reducing the casino edge.
This spawned a large growth in Blackjack competitors at the US betting houses who were attempting to implement Dr. Ed Thorp’s techniques, much to the bewilderment of the casinos. The strategy was hard to understand and complicated to carry through and therefore increased the earnings for the casinos as more and more people took to betting on black jack.
However this massive increase in profits was not to last as the players became more highly developed and more educated and the system was further improved. In the 1980’s a bunch of students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology made card counting a part of the regular vocabulary. Since then the casinos have brought in numerous measures to counteract card counters including but not limited to, more than one deck, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and rumor has it, sophisticated computer software to read actions and identify "cheaters". While not illegal being caught counting cards will get you barred from many casinos in sin city.
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