The game of chemin de fer was brought to the US in the 19th century but it was not until the middle of the 20th century that a technique was developed to defeat the house in black jack. This article is going to grab a quick peak at the creation of that technique, Card Counting.
When gambling was authorized in Nevada in 1934, black jack sky-rocketed into popularity and was commonly bet on with one or 2 decks of cards. Roger Baldwin published a dissertation in 1956 which described how to lower the casino edge founded on probability and statistics which was really complicated for those who weren’t mathematicians.
In 1962, Dr. Thorp used an IBM 704 computer to advance the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s dissertation and also created the 1st techniques for card counting. Dr. Ed Thorp authored a book called "Beat the Dealer" which outlined card counting strategies and the practices for lowering the house advantage.
This spawned a large increase in black jack players at the US betting houses who were attempting to put into practice Dr. Ed Thorp’s strategies, much to the confusion of the casinos. The strategy was not easy to understand and hard to implement and therefore increased the profits for the betting houses as more and more folks took to playing black jack.
However this huge growth in earnings was not to last as the gamblers became more highly developed and more aware and the system was further improved. In the 1980’s a bunch of students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology made counting cards a part of the everyday vernacular. Since then the casinos have brought in numerous measures to thwart players who count cards including (but not limited to), more than one deck, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and rumor has itnow sophisticated computer programs to scrutinize body language and detect "cheaters". While not against the law being discovered counting cards will get you blocked from the majority of casinos in sin city.