Blackjack Tips

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The casino game of Blackjack was introduced to the U.S. in the 1800’s but it wasn’t until the middle of the twentieth century that a technique was created to beat the casino in black jack. This article is going to grab a quick peak at the development of that technique, Card Counting.

When wagering was made legal in Nevada in 1934, twenty-one sky-rocketed into recognition and was most commonly bet on with one or two decks. Roger Baldwin wrote a paper in ‘56 which explained how to reduce the house advantage based on odds and performance history which was very difficult to understand for people who weren’t math experts.

In ‘62, Dr. Ed Thorp utilized an IBM 704 computer to better the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s dissertation and also developed the first card counting techniques. Dr. Thorp wrote a book called "Beat the Dealer" which detailed card counting strategies and the practices for lowering the casino edge.

This spawned a huge growth in chemin de fer competitors at the US betting houses who were attempting to implement Dr. Thorp’s strategies, much to the amazement of the casinos. The strategy was challenging to comprehend and complicated to implement and therefore improved the earnings for the betting houses as more and more people took to wagering on black jack.

However this large growth in profits was not to continue as the gamblers became more highly developed and more insightful and the system was further perfected. In the 1980’s a group of students from MIT made counting cards a part of the day-to-day vocabulary. Since then the casinos have developed numerous methods to counteract card counters including but not limited to, multiple decks, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and speculation has itnow sophisticated computer programs to analyze body language and identify "cheaters". While not prohibited being caught counting cards will get you blocked from many betting houses in vegas.