History of Blackjack - Blackjack online

Ken Uston "The Master Of Blackjack".

Travelling through casinos in Nevada
and Atlantic City, Ken Uston and a group
of fellow programmers developed
unique Blackjack strategies by using
miniature computers hidden in their
shoes for card counting and statistical
analysis Ken then wrote a book called
"Million Dollar Blackjack" The book
describes simple and effective means
of playing with the Basic Stragey and
manipulating bets to achieve awesome
results.

After winning hundreds of thousands of
dollars in Las Vegas, Uston's team was
blacklisted and barred from playing
there. Uston moved to Atlantic City when
gambling was legalized in 1976, but,
after winning millions there, he was
also barred from playing at that location
as well as at most other casinos in the
world.

On September 19, 1987, Ken Uston,
then 52, was found dead in his rented
appartment in Paris, apparently from a
heart attack. French police did no
investigation as no foul play was
suspected. His body was cremated and
no autopsy was ever performed.

History of Blackjack

BlackJack originated in French casinos around 1700 where it was called "vingt-et-un"
("twenty-and-one") and has been played in the U.S. since the 1800's.

The game was christened 'Blackjack' because if a player held a Jack of Spades and an Ace of
Spades as the first two cards, the player was paid out extra. So with Spades being black and Jack
being a vital card - Blackjack was born!

by 1919 special green-felted Blackjack tables were being made and by 1931 Blackjack was the third
most popular Nevada casino game after Roulette and Craps. By 1948 it was second only to Craps.

The first recognized effort to apply mathematics to Blackjack was recorded in 1956, when Roger
Baldwin published a paper in the Journal of the American Statistical Association entitled "The
Optimum Strategy in Blackjack".

In 1962 Professor Edward O. Thorp refined basic strategy and developed the first card counting
techniques. He published his results in a book called "Beat the Dealer"which became so popular
that for a week in 1963 it was on the New York Times best-seller list. Because of this book a number
of casinos changed their Blackjack rules, giving themselves an even greater advantage than they had
previously enjoyed. But this didn't last for long, because people protested by refusing to play the
game with the unfavorable rules, and casinos quickly responded by going back to the original rules.

In the 1970's computers which could perform a million-hand BlackJack simulations allowed players
to produce sophisticated game strategies and many scientists, mathematicians, university
professors, and other intellectuals began writing books on the game. Soon it became evident that
Casinos were afraid that scientific, computer-devised systems would have harmful effect on their
potential profits, and many changed their games from single deck to multiple-deck games in the
1970's to counteract the computer strategies.

Today, Blackjack is played eveywhere around the globe. It is considered a classic in Canadian,
European, Russian and American casinos all alike.

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