The Origin of Black Jack
Posted in Blackjack on 01/31/2010 05:21 am by Susan
The game of twenty-one was introduced to the US in the 19th century but it was not until the mid 20th century that a system was created to beat the casino in black jack. This article is going to grab a rapid peak at the creation of that strategy, Counting Cards.
When gambling was legalized in Nevada in 1934, black jack sky-rocketed into popularity and was commonly bet on with 1 or 2 decks of cards. Roger Baldwin wrote a paper in ‘56 which explained how to lower the house edge founded on probability and stats which was really complicated for those who were not mathematicians.
In ‘62, Dr. Edward O. Thorp used an IBM 704 computer to advance the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s dissertation and also created the first card counting strategies. Dr. Ed Thorp authored a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which detailed card counting techniques and the practices for lowering the house edge.
This created a huge growth in chemin de fer competitors at the US casinos who were attempting to implement Dr. Ed Thorp’s techniques, much to the anxiety of the casinos. The strategy was challenging to understand and complicated to implement and therefore increased the earnings for the casinos as more and more people took to gambling on Blackjack.
However this large increase in earnings wasn’t to continue as the players became more highly developed and more cultivated and the system was further refined. In the 1980’s a bunch of students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology made card counting a part of the day-to-day vernacular. Since then the casinos have developed numerous measures to thwart players who count cards including but not limited to, multiple decks, shoes, shuffle machines, and gossip has it, sophisticated computer software to read body language and detect "cheaters". While not against the law being caught counting cards will get you banned from many betting houses in Las Vegas.