The game of black jack was introduced to the US in the 1800’s but it was not until the middle of the twentieth century that a technique was created to beat the casino in chemin de fer. This article is going to grab a swift look at the creation of that strategy, Card Counting.

When casino gambling was legitimized in the state of Nevada in ‘34, twenty-one screamed into recognition and was most commonly wagered on with one or 2 decks. Roger Baldwin wrote a paper in 1956 which explained how to reduce the house advantage founded on odds and performance history which was really confusing for those who weren’t math experts.

In 1962, Dr. Thorp utilized an IBM 704 computer to better the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s dissertation and also developed the 1st card counting tactics. Dr. Thorp authored a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which illustrated card counting techniques and the strategies for lowering the house advantage.

This spawned a large increase in twenty-one gamblers at the US casinos who were trying to put into practice Dr. Thorp’s tactics, much to the bewilderment of the casinos. The system was hard to comprehend and difficult to carry through and therefore heightened the earnings for the betting houses as more and more people took to playing Blackjack.

However this large growth in earnings was not to last as the players became more sophisticated and more educated 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 day-to-day vocabulary. Since then the casinos have developed countless measures to counteract players who count cards including (but not limited to), more than one deck, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and rumour has itnow complex computer programs to analyze body language and detect "cheaters". While not prohibited being discovered counting cards will get you banned from most if not all betting houses in sin city.