The casino game of Blackjack was brought to the US in the 1800’s but it wasn’t until the mid 20th century that a technique was developed to beat the house in Blackjack. This material is going to take a swift look at the development of that strategy, Card Counting.
When casino gambling was legitimized in Nevada in 1934, black jack sky-rocketed into popularity and was commonly wagered on with one or 2 decks of cards. Roger Baldwin published a paper in 1956 which detailed how to reduce the house advantage founded on odds and performance history which was really complicated for people who weren’t math experts.
In 1962, Dr. Edward O. Thorp used an IBM 704 computer to refine the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s paper and also created the 1st card counting techniques. Dr. Thorp authored a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which detailed card counting techniques and the strategies for lowering the casino advantage.
This spawned a large growth in Blackjack gamblers at the US betting houses who were attempting to implement Dr. Thorp’s tactics, much to the anxiety of the casinos. The strategy was not easy to understand and difficult to execute and therefore expanded the earnings for the casinos as more and more folks took to betting on twenty-one.
However this massive increase in earnings was not to continue as the gamblers became more refined and more cultivated and the system was further perfected. In the 80’s a group of students from MIT made counting cards a part of the regular vernacular. Since then the casinos have developed numerous measures to counteract players who count cards including, more than one deck, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and speculation has itnow complex computer software to read actions and identify "cheaters". While not prohibited being discovered counting cards will get you banned from most if not all brick and mortar casinos in sin city.