The casino game of chemin de fer was introduced to the United States of America in the 19th century but it was not until the mid 20th century that a system was developed to beat the casino in Blackjack. This material is going to grab a quick look at the development of that system, Card Counting.
When wagering was legalized in the state of Nevada in ‘34, Blackjack sky-rocketed into recognition and was most commonly bet on with one or two decks of cards. Roger Baldwin wrote a dissertation in 1956 which explained how to reduce the house edge based on probability and stats which was quite bewildering for players who were not mathematicians.
In ‘62, Dr. Edward O. Thorp utilized an IBM 704 computer to better the mathematical strategy in Baldwin’s dissertation and also created the first tactics for card counting. Dr. Ed Thorp authored a tome called "Beat the Dealer" which outlined card counting strategies and the tactics for reducing the casino edge.
This created a huge increase in twenty-one competitors at the US betting houses who were trying to put into practice Dr. Thorp’s tactics, much to the consternation of the casinos. The strategy was challenging to comprehend and hard to put into practice and thusly heightened the profits for the betting houses as more and more people took to betting on black jack.
However this large growth in earnings wasn’t to last as the gamblers became more refined and more educated and the system was further perfected. In the 1980’s a group of students from MIT made card counting a part of the day-to-day vocabulary. Since then the casinos have introduced numerous measures to thwart card counters including (but not limited to), more than one deck, shoes, shuffle machines, and rumor has it, complex computer programs to analyze actions and detect "cheaters". While not illegal being caught counting cards will get you blocked from most if not all betting houses in vegas.