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The game of twenty-one was introduced to the United States of America in the 1800’s but it was not until the mid 20th century that a system was developed to defeat the casino in Blackjack. This material is going to grab a rapid peak at the creation of that strategy, Counting Cards.

When gambling was authorized in the state of Nevada in ‘34, chemin de fer sky-rocketed into universal appeal and was usually wagered on with one or 2 decks of cards. Roger Baldwin wrote a dissertation in ‘56 which detailed how to lower the house edge built on probability and statistics which was very confusing for people who weren’t math experts.

In 1962, Dr. Edward O. Thorp utilized an IBM 704 computer to advance the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s paper and also created the 1st card counting strategies. Dr. Ed Thorp wrote a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which outlined card counting strategies and the strategies for lowering the casino edge.

This created a massive increase in chemin de fer gamblers at the US casinos who were trying to put into practice Dr. Thorp’s strategies, much to the awe of the casinos. The system was not easy to understand and hard to execute and therefore increased the profits for the betting houses as more and more folks took to betting on black jack.

However this huge growth in profits wasn’t to last as the gamblers became more sophisticated and more accomplished and the system was further perfected. In the 80’s a bunch of students from MIT made card counting a part of the day-to-day vernacular. Since then the casinos have brought in countless measures to counteract players who count cards including (but not limited to), more than one deck, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and gossip has it, complex computer programs to observe body language and identify "cheaters". While not illegal being caught counting cards will get you blocked from most betting houses in Las Vegas.