The Origin of Black Jack
Posted in Blackjack on 01/30/2010 01:21 am by Dominique
The casino game of chemin de fer was introduced to the United States in the 1800’s but it wasn’t until the mid twentieth century that a system was created to defeat the casino in chemin de fer. This material is going to take a swift peak at the development of that system, Counting Cards.
When betting was authorized in the state of Nevada in 1934, black jack sky-rocketed into recognition and was usually gambled on with one or two decks. Roger Baldwin wrote a paper in ‘56 which explained how to lower the house advantage based on odds and stats which was very bewildering for players who weren’t mathematicians.
In ‘62, Dr. Thorp used an IBM 704 computer to advance the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s dissertation and also created the 1st tactics for card counting. Dr. Thorp authored a book called "Beat the Dealer" which summarized card counting strategies and the strategies for reducing the house edge.
This created a huge growth in black jack gamblers at the US betting houses who were attempting to put into practice Dr. Thorp’s techniques, much to the anxiety of the casinos. The system was not easy to understand and complicated to carry through and therefore improved the profits for the casinos as more and more folks took to gambling on chemin de fer.
However this massive growth in earnings was not to continue as the gamblers became more refined and more insightful 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 vernacular. Since then the casinos have introduced numerous measures to thwart players who count cards including, more than one deck, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and speculation has it, complex computer programs to read body language and detect "cheaters". While not illegal being caught counting cards will get you blocked from most betting houses in sin city.