The game of black jack was introduced to the United States of America in the 1800’s but it wasn’t until the mid 20th century that a strategy was developed to beat the casino in black jack. This material is going to grab a quick look at the birth of that strategy, Card Counting.
When betting was legitimized in Nevada in 1934, black jack screamed into popularity and was usually gambled on with one or two decks. Roger Baldwin wrote a dissertation in 1956 which described how to lower the casino advantage based on odds and performance history which was really confusing for individuals who were not math experts.
In 1962, Dr. Ed Thorp used an IBM 704 computer to better the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s dissertation and also created the first strategies for counting cards. Dr. Ed Thorp wrote a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which detailed card counting strategies and the strategies for lowering the house edge.
This created a large growth in chemin de fer competitors at the US betting houses who were trying to put into practice Dr. Thorp’s techniques, much to the alarm of the casinos. The strategy was challenging to comprehend and hard to implement and thusly increased the earnings for the casinos as more and more folks took to playing twenty-one.
However this massive growth in earnings was not to last as the gamblers became more refined and more accomplished and the system was further perfected. In the 1980’s a group of students from MIT made counting cards a part of the everyday vocabulary. Since then the casinos have brought in numerous measures to thwart card counters including (but not limited to), more than one deck, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and speculation has itnow sophisticated computer software to analyze body language and identify "cheaters". While not illegal being discovered counting cards will get you blocked from most brick and mortar casinos in sin city.
January 30th, 2010
Rayan
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