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The
popularity of gaming continues unabated. This year, gamblers
will wager more than $400 billion in casinos and state lotteries
in the United States.' To place this in context, on a yearly
basis, the average American wagers about $1,600!
And in virtually each of the hundreds of casinos spread
throughout the nation, the number-one table game is blackjack.
From the Las Vegas Strip to the Atlantic City Boardwalk
and every gambling jurisdiction in between, blackjack reigns
supreme as the king of casino table games. Nearly $90 billion
a year is wagered at blackjack tables. This corresponds
to an annual wagering level of some $350 per citizen on
this one game alone.
And how do we do against the mighty house? Not so well,
it turns out. Annually, American casinos collectively win
almost $2 billion from blackjack, with a typical blackjack
table realizing some $250,000 in profits.
Given these substantial losses by the wagering public, it
is perhaps all the more amazing to learn that a skillful
blackjack player can beat the casinos at their own game.
With proper play, blackjack can, in almost all situations,
quite legally be beaten. This is accomplished by a technique
called card counting. The idea behind card counting is simple:
a player uses information about cards already played to
determine the favorability of the remaining pack. Not too
hard. To date, however, this concept has been difficult
to implement.
We'll attempt to remedy this in the pages that follow. But
first, let's take a quick look back at some of the key milestones
in the history of blackjack. In particular, we'll focus
on attempts to beat the game over the past half-century
or so.
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