The casino game of chemin de fer was brought to the United States in the 1800’s but it was not until the middle of the twentieth century that a technique was created to defeat the casino in black jack. This material is going to grab a rapid peak at the birth of that strategy, Counting Cards.
When gambling was legitimized in Nevada in 1934, twenty-one sky-rocketed into recognition and was usually wagered on with 1 or two decks of cards. Roger Baldwin wrote a dissertation in 1956 which described how to reduce the casino edge based on odds and performance history which was quite difficult to understand for players who weren’t math experts.
In 1962, Dr. Edward O. Thorp utilized an IBM 704 computer to enhance the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s dissertation and also created the 1st tactics for counting cards. Dr. Thorp authored a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which summarized card counting techniques and the strategies for lowering the house edge.
This spawned a huge increase in twenty-one players at the US betting houses who were attempting to implement Dr. Ed Thorp’s tactics, much to the amazement of the casinos. The strategy was hard to comprehend and difficult to implement and thusly heightened the earnings for the betting houses as more and more folks took to betting on chemin de fer.
However this large increase in earnings wasn’t to last as the players became more highly developed and more aware and the system was further refined. In the 80’s a group of students from MIT made card counting a part of the everyday vernacular. Since then the casinos have developed countless measures to counteract players who count cards including, multiple decks, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and gossip has itnow sophisticated computer programs to observe body language and detect "cheaters". While not illegal being caught counting cards will get you banned from the majority of casinos in vegas.