The Origin of Black Jack
The card game of chemin de fer was brought to the U.S. in the 1800’s but it wasn’t until the mid 20th century that a technique was developed to defeat the house in twenty-one. This material is going to take a swift look at the birth of that system, Card Counting.
When wagering was made legal in Nevada in 1934, Blackjack sky-rocketed into popularity and was most commonly bet on with one or 2 decks of cards. Roger Baldwin wrote a dissertation in ‘56 which explained how to reduce the casino advantage built on probability and performance history which was really complicated for those who weren’t math experts.
In ‘62, Dr. Thorp used an IBM 704 computer to better the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s dissertation and also created the 1st card counting tactics. Dr. Ed Thorp wrote a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which outlined card counting strategies and the practices for lowering the casino advantage.
This spawned a large increase in chemin de fer players at the US casinos who were attempting to put into practice Dr. Thorp’s techniques, much to the amazement of the casinos. The technique was hard to comprehend and difficult to put into practice and therefore expanded the profits for the casinos as more and more folks took to playing black jack.
However this huge increase in profits wasn’t to last as the players became more sophisticated and more educated and the system was further perfected. In the 80’s a bunch of students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology made counting cards a part of the regular vernacular. Since then the casinos have brought in countless measures to counteract card counters including but not limited to, multiple decks, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and gossip has itnow complex computer programs to read body language and detect "cheaters". While not illegal being caught counting cards will get you blocked from all betting houses in sin city.
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