The card game of twenty-one was brought to the United States of America in the 19th century but it was not until the middle of the 20th century that a system was created to beat the house in twenty-one. This material is going to grab a rapid peak at the development of that strategy, Card Counting.
When casino gambling was legitimized in the state of Nevada in ‘34, Blackjack sky-rocketed into recognition and was most commonly gambled on with 1 or 2 decks. Roger Baldwin wrote a paper in ‘56 which described how to lower the casino advantage based on odds and stats which was really bewildering for individuals who weren’t mathematicians.
In 1962, Dr. Ed Thorp utilized an IBM 704 computer to better the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s paper and also developed the first card counting strategies. Dr. Thorp wrote a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which summarized card counting techniques and the practices for lowering the house advantage.
This spawned a massive increase in Blackjack players at the US casinos who were attempting to implement Dr. Thorp’s strategies, much to the bewilderment of the casinos. The strategy was hard to understand and difficult to put into practice and thusly increased the profits for the betting houses as more and more folks took to gambling on twenty-one.
However this large growth in profits wasn’t to continue as the players became more sophisticated and more educated and the system was further improved. In the 80’s a group of students from MIT made counting cards a part of the regular vernacular. Since then the casinos have developed countless measures to counteract card counters including (but not limited to), multiple decks, shoes, constant shuffle machines, and rumor has it, complex computer programs to read body language and identify "cheaters". While not against the law being discovered counting cards will get you banned from many brick and mortar casinos in vegas.