Editing Card counting (section)

== History ==
American [[mathematician]] [[Edward O. Thorp]] is the father of card counting.<ref>{{cite web |author=Loudon Ofton |title=The History of Blackjack |url=https://www.blackjackapprenticeship.com/the-history-of-blackjack-and-card-counting/ |access-date=9 March 2013 |publisher=BlackjackApprenticeship.com |archive-date=25 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181025023835/https://www.blackjackapprenticeship.com/the-history-of-blackjack-and-card-counting/ |url-status=live }}</ref> His 1962 book, ''Beat the Dealer'', outlines betting and playing strategies for optimal play. Although mathematically sound, some of the techniques no longer apply, as [[casino]]s took countermeasures (such as no longer dealing with the last card). The counting system in ''Beat the Dealer,'' the 10-count, is harder to use and less profitable than later systems. A history of how counting developed can be seen in David Layton's documentary film ''[[The Hot Shoe]]''.

Before ''Beat the Dealer'', a small number of professional card counters were beating blackjack games in Vegas and elsewhere. One was Jess Marcum, who developed the first full-fledged point-count system. Another pre-Thorp card counter was professional gambler Joe Bernstein. He is described in 1961's ''I Want To Quit Winners'' by Reno casino owner Harold Smith as an ace counter feared throughout Nevada. And in the 1957 book, ''Playing Blackjack to Win'', Roger Baldwin, Wilbert Cantey, Herbert Maisel, and James McDermott (known as "The Four Horsemen") published the first accurate blackjack basic strategy and a rudimentary card counting system, devised solely with the aid of crude [[mechanical calculator]]s – what used to be called "adding machines".<ref>{{cite web |title=History of Blackjack and Card Counting |url=https://www.blackjackreview.com/wp/historical-events/ |access-date=16 June 2017 |publisher=Blackjack Review Network |archive-date=14 November 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171114154632/http://www.blackjackreview.com/wp/historical-events/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

From the early days, some have been succeeded, including Al Francesco, the inventor of blackjack team play and the man who taught [[Ken Uston]] how to count cards, and [[Tommy Hyland]], manager of the longest-running blackjack team in history. Ken Uston, perhaps the most famous card-counter through his ''60 Minutes'' television appearance and his books, tended to overstate his winnings, as documented by players who worked with him, including Al Francesco and team member Darryl Purpose.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}}

In the 1970s and 1980s, as computing power grew, more advanced and harder card counting systems came into favor. Many card counters agree, however, that a simpler and less advantageous system that can be played flawlessly for hours earns an overall higher return than a more complex system prone to user error.{{citation needed|date=June 2021}}

=== Teams ===
{{More footnotes needed|date=May 2012}}
In the 1970s Ken Uston was the first to write about a tactic of card counting he called the Big Player Team. The book was based on his experiences working as a "big player" (BP) on [[Al Francesco]]'s teams. In big-player blackjack teams a number of card counters, called "spotters", are dispatched to tables around a casino, where their responsibility is to keep track of the count and signal to the big player when the count indicates a player advantage. The big player then joins the game at that table, placing maximum bets at a player advantage. When the spotter indicates that the count has dropped, they again signal the BP to leave the table. By jumping from table to table as called in by spotters, BP avoids all play at a disadvantage. In addition, since BP's play appears random and irrational, they avoid detection by the casinos. The spotters, who are doing the actual counting, are not themselves changing their bet size or strategy, so they are relatively inconspicuous.

With this style of play, a number of blackjack teams have cleared millions of dollars through the years. Well-known blackjack teams with documented earnings in the millions include those run by Al Francesco, Ken Uston, Tommy Hyland, various groups from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ([[MIT]]), and, most recently, a team called "The Greeks". Ken Uston wrote about blackjack team play in ''Million Dollar Blackjack'' ({{ISBN|0-89746-068-5}}), although many of the experiences he represents as his own in his books actually happened to other players, especially Bill Erb, a BP Uston worked with on Al Francesco's team. [[Ben Mezrich]] also covers team play in his book ''[[Bringing Down the House (book)|Bringing Down The House]]'' ({{ISBN|0-7432-4999-2}}), which describes how MIT students used it with great success. See also the Canadian movie ''[[The Last Casino]]'' and the American movie ''[[21 (2008 film)|21]]'', which was based on Mezrich's book.

The publication of Ken Uston's books and of his landmark lawsuits against the casinos, both stimulated the growth of blackjack teams (Hyland's team and the first MIT team were formed in Atlantic City shortly after the publication of ''Million Dollar Blackjack'') and increased casino awareness of the methods of blackjack teams, making it more difficult for such teams to operate. Hyland and Francesco soon switched to a form of shuffle tracking called "Ace sequencing". Also referred to as "cutting to the Ace", this technique involves various methods designed to spot the bottom card during a shuffle (ideally an Ace) and expertly cut the deck and play future hands to force the player to receive the Ace. This made it more difficult for casinos to detect when team members were playing with an advantage. In 1994, members of the Hyland team were arrested for ace sequencing and blackjack team play at [[Casino Windsor]] in [[Windsor, Ontario]], Canada. It was documented in court that Nevada casinos with ownership stakes in the Windsor casino were instrumental in the decision to prosecute team members on cheating charges. However, the [[judge]] ruled that the players' conduct was not cheating, but merely the use of intelligent strategy.<ref name="blackjack20062">Snyder (2006)</ref>

=== Shuffling machines ===
{{Main|Shuffling machine}}
Automatic shuffling machines (ASMs or batch shufflers), that [[randomly]] shuffle decks, interfere with the shuffle tracking variation of card counting by hiding the shuffle. Continuous shuffling machines (CSMs), that partially shuffle used cards back into the "shoe" during play, interfere with card counting. CSMs result in very shallow penetration (number of seen cards), greatly reducing the effectiveness of card counting.