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The Origin of Twenty-One
The casino game of twenty-one was brought to the United States of America in the 1800’s but it was not until the middle of the twentieth century that a strategy was created to defeat the casino in Blackjack. This article is going to take a rapid peak at the creation of that system, Card Counting.
When casino gambling was legalized in the state of Nevada in 1934, chemin de fer sky-rocketed into popularity and was most commonly bet on with one or two decks of cards. Roger Baldwin wrote a paper in ‘56 which detailed how to reduce the casino edge based on odds and performance history which was really complicated for gamblers who were not mathematicians.
In ‘62, Dr. Thorp utilized an IBM 704 computer to enhance the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s dissertation and also developed the 1st card counting strategies. Dr. Ed Thorp authored a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which summarized card counting techniques and the practices for reducing the casino advantage.
This spawned a large growth in black jack gamblers at the US casinos who were trying to implement Dr. Thorp’s strategies, much to the confusion of the casinos. The technique was hard to understand and hard to carry through and thusly elevated the earnings for the casinos as more and more folks took to wagering on chemin de fer.
However this huge increase in earnings wasn’t to continue as the players became more sophisticated and more insightful and the system was further improved. In the 80’s a group of students from MIT made counting cards a part of the everyday vernacular. Since then the casinos have introduced numerous measures to counteract card counters including, more than one deck, shoes, shuffle machines, and rumor has it, complex computer software to observe body language and detect "cheaters". While not against the law being discovered counting cards will get you barred from most if not all betting houses in Las Vegas.
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