[ English ]

The card game of twenty-one was brought to the U.S. in the 19th century but it was not until the mid twentieth century that a technique was developed to beat the house in chemin de fer. This article is going to grab a swift peak at the development of that strategy, Card Counting.

When gambling was legitimized in Nevada in 1934, black jack sky-rocketed into popularity and was commonly wagered on with 1 or two decks of cards. Roger Baldwin wrote a paper in 1956 which described how to reduce the casino advantage founded on probability and statistics which was quite complicated for players who were not mathematicians.

In 1962, Dr. Edward O. Thorp utilized an IBM 704 computer to refine the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s paper and also developed the first tactics for card counting. Dr. Thorp wrote a book called "Beat the Dealer" which outlined card counting strategies and the practices for lowering the house advantage.

This created a massive growth in Blackjack competitors at the US betting houses who were attempting to implement Dr. Ed Thorp’s strategies, much to the confusion of the casinos. The strategy was difficult to understand and complicated to implement and therefore heightened the earnings for the casinos as more and more people took to gambling on twenty-one.

However this large increase in profits wasn’t to last as the gamblers became more highly developed and more insightful and the system was further perfected. In the 80’s a bunch of students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology made counting cards a part of the everyday vocabulary. Since then the casinos have brought in numerous measures to counteract card counters including but not limited to, multiple decks, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and gossip has itnow complex computer programs to observe actions and identify "cheaters". While not prohibited being discovered counting cards will get you barred from many casinos in Las Vegas.