The card game of chemin de fer was brought to the US in the 19th century but it was not until the middle of the twentieth century that a technique was developed to defeat the house in Blackjack. This material is going to take a rapid peak at the creation of that system, Card Counting.
When betting was made legal in Nevada in ‘34, twenty-one sky-rocketed into universal appeal and was usually bet on with 1 or 2 decks. Roger Baldwin published a dissertation in ‘56 which detailed how to reduce the casino edge based on odds and statistics which was really bewildering for players who were not mathematicians.
In ‘62, Dr. Thorp used an IBM 704 computer to refine the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s paper and also created the 1st card counting techniques. Dr. Ed Thorp wrote a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which illustrated card counting techniques and the strategies for lowering the casino advantage.
This spawned a massive increase in black jack players at the US casinos who were trying to put into practice Dr. Thorp’s techniques, much to the anxiety of the casinos. The technique was not easy to understand and complicated to carry through and therefore improved the earnings for the betting houses as more and more people took to gambling on chemin de fer.
However this massive growth in profits wasn’t to last as the gamblers became more sophisticated and more aware and the system was further refined. In the 1980’s a bunch of students from MIT made card counting a part of the everyday vernacular. Since then the casinos have brought in countless measures to counteract card counters including but not limited to, more than one deck, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and rumour has itnow complex computer programs to read actions and detect "cheaters". While not against the law being discovered counting cards will get you barred from the majority of casinos in sin city.
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