The card game of chemin de fer was brought to the US in the 19th century but it wasn’t until the mid 20th century that a technique was created to defeat the casino in black jack. This material is going to take a swift look at the birth of that system, Card Counting.
When casino gambling was legitimized in the state of Nevada in ‘34, chemin de fer screamed into recognition and was commonly bet on with 1 or 2 decks of cards. Roger Baldwin wrote a dissertation in 1956 which explained how to lower the casino advantage founded on probability and stats which was really bewildering for players who weren’t mathematicians.
In ‘62, Dr. Thorp used an IBM 704 computer to enhance the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s dissertation and also created the 1st card counting strategies. Dr. Ed Thorp wrote a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which summarized card counting strategies and the strategies for reducing the house advantage.
This spawned a huge increase in black jack players at the US casinos who were trying to implement Dr. Ed Thorp’s tactics, much to the bewilderment of the casinos. The strategy was difficult to understand and complicated to put into practice and therefore elevated the profits for the casinos as more and more people took to wagering on Blackjack.
However this large growth in profits was not to continue as the players became more sophisticated and more educated and the system was further refined. In the 1980’s a bunch of students from MIT made counting cards a part of the regular vernacular. Since then the casinos have brought in countless measures to thwart players who count cards including but not limited to, multiple decks, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and speculation has itnow complex computer programs to read actions and identify "cheaters". While not prohibited being discovered counting cards will get you blocked from most if not all betting houses in vegas.
