The History of Twenty-One
The card game of chemin de fer was brought to the United States of America in the 1800’s but it wasn’t until the mid 20th century that a technique was developed to beat the house in twenty-one. This material is going to take a quick peak at the development of that system, Counting Cards.
When casino gambling was authorized in Nevada in 1934, black jack sky-rocketed into universal appeal and was commonly played with 1 or two decks of cards. Roger Baldwin wrote a dissertation in 1956 which explained how to lower the house advantage based on probability and stats which was quite confusing for players who weren’t mathematicians.
In 1962, Dr. Ed Thorp used an IBM 704 computer to refine the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s dissertation and also created the first techniques for card counting. Dr. Thorp authored a book called "Beat the Dealer" which outlined card counting strategies and the practices for reducing the house advantage.
This created a large growth in Blackjack gamblers at the US casinos who were attempting to implement Dr. Thorp’s techniques, much to the anxiety of the casinos. The system was not easy to comprehend and difficult to implement and therefore improved the earnings for the casinos as more and more folks took to wagering on twenty-one.
However this huge growth in profits wasn’t to last as the gamblers became more highly developed and more accomplished and the system was further improved. In the 80’s a group of students from MIT made card counting a part of the day-to-day vocabulary. Since then the casinos have brought in numerous measures to counteract players who count cards including but not limited to, multiple decks, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and rumor has itnow sophisticated computer programs to analyze actions and detect "cheaters". While not illegal being discovered counting cards will get you blocked from many casinos in vegas.
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