The History of Twenty-One

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The card game of twenty-one was brought to the U.S. in the 19th century but it was not until the middle of the twentieth century that a strategy was created to defeat the casino in black jack. This material is going to take a rapid look at the birth of that technique, Card Counting.

When gambling was approved in the state of Nevada in 1934, twenty-one sky-rocketed into recognition and was usually bet on with 1 or 2 decks. Roger Baldwin wrote a paper in 1956 which described how to lower the casino advantage based on probability and statistics which was quite complicated for players who were not math experts.

In ‘62, Dr. Thorp used an IBM 704 computer to better the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s paper and also developed the first card counting tactics. Dr. Thorp authored a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which illustrated card counting techniques and the tactics for reducing the house advantage.

This created a massive increase in black jack players at the US betting houses who were trying to put into practice Dr. Ed Thorp’s techniques, much to the awe of the casinos. The system was difficult to understand and complicated to put into practice and thusly elevated the earnings for the casinos as more and more folks took to wagering on twenty-one.

However this huge growth in earnings wasn’t to last as the gamblers became more refined and more accomplished and the system was further improved. In the 1980’s a group of students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology made counting cards a part of the regular vocabulary. Since then the casinos have brought in numerous methods to counteract card counters including but not limited to, more than one deck, shoes, shuffle machines, and rumour has itnow complex computer programs to read actions and detect "cheaters". While not illegal being discovered counting cards will get you banned from the majority of brick and mortar casinos in Las Vegas.