The Origin of Twenty-One
The game of twenty-one was brought to the US in the 1800’s but it wasn’t until the middle of the twentieth century that a technique was created to defeat the casino in chemin de fer. This material is going to take a swift peak at the development of that technique, Counting Cards.
When wagering was made legal in Nevada in 1934, twenty-one sky-rocketed into popularity and was most commonly played with one or 2 decks of cards. Roger Baldwin published a paper in 1956 which detailed how to reduce the house advantage based on odds and stats which was really bewildering for people who were not mathematicians.
In 1962, Dr. Ed Thorp used an IBM 704 computer to enhance the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s paper and also developed the 1st card counting strategies. Dr. Ed Thorp wrote a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which detailed card counting strategies and the practices for lowering the casino edge.
This created a large growth in Blackjack players at the US betting houses who were trying to implement Dr. Thorp’s tactics, much to the awe of the casinos. The strategy was difficult to understand and complicated to execute and thusly expanded the profits for the casinos as more and more people took to betting on twenty-one.
However this massive increase in earnings wasn’t to last as the players became more highly developed and more aware and the system was further perfected. In the 80’s a bunch of students from MIT made card counting a part of the regular vernacular. Since then the casinos have brought in numerous methods to thwart players who count cards including, multiple decks, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and gossip has itnow complex computer software to scrutinize actions and detect "cheaters". While not against the law being discovered counting cards will get you blocked from the majority of brick and mortar casinos in vegas.
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