The card game of twenty-one was introduced to the United States of America in the 1800’s but it was not until the mid 20th century that a strategy was created to defeat the casino in Blackjack. This material is going to take a rapid peak at the birth of that strategy, Card Counting.
When gambling was legalized in Nevada in ‘34, twenty-one screamed into universal appeal and was most commonly gambled on with one or two decks. Roger Baldwin published a paper in ‘56 which detailed how to lower the house advantage founded on probability and stats which was quite bewildering for individuals who were not math experts.
In ‘62, Dr. Edward O. Thorp utilized an IBM 704 computer to better the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s paper and also created the first techniques for card counting. Dr. Ed Thorp wrote a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which summarized card counting techniques and the strategies for lowering the house edge.
This created a large growth in chemin de fer gamblers at the US betting houses who were trying to put into practice Dr. Ed Thorp’s strategies, much to the confusion of the casinos. The strategy was difficult to comprehend and complicated to put into practice and therefore elevated the profits for the casinos as more and more people took to wagering on black jack.
However this massive growth in profits wasn’t to continue as the players became more sophisticated and more insightful and the system was further perfected. In the 80’s a bunch of students from MIT made counting cards a part of the day-to-day vernacular. Since then the casinos have brought in countless methods to thwart players who count cards including but not limited to, more than one deck, shoes, shuffle machines, and speculation has itnow sophisticated computer programs to scrutinize actions and detect "cheaters". While not prohibited being caught counting cards will get you banned from most if not all casinos in sin city.