People have been going to casinos with "winning" Blackjack sys-tems for years. The casino management never worried about any of these "systems" because they were convinced all of the casinos' games were unbeatable. As a result, once the Las Vegas casinos realized that the method outlined in Thorp's Beat the Dealer was a legitimate winning system, they panicked. For the first time in years, they changed some of the basic rules of Blackjack. Dou-bling was restricted to two-card totals of 11 only, and a pair of Aces could no longer be split, which added to the house advan-tage by about 1 per cent.
The results were dramatic and immediate. Play at the Black-jack tables fell off drastically as the gamblers recognized an infe-rior game when they saw one. But worse, play at all tables fell off as the flow of tourists to Las Vegas decreased. In only two or three weeks, the casino management realized that it was winning the battle against card tracking at the expense of the entire ca-sino. It quickly removed the new restrictions and play resumed at prescare levels. It was better for the casinos to live with card tracking than to close down without it.
The rules twist that has become most popular in the seventies is the multiple-deck game. Most of the world's casinos now use four decks exclusively. Single-deck games are still available in some Nevada casinos, but even they are intermixed with games having two or more decks at the higher-stakes tables. Using multiple decks seemed more acceptable to the gambling public than fiddling with the rules. So the casinos thought their problems with systems players were over. "No one would ever be able to keep track of four decks of cards," was their reasoning.
In fact, the addition of three more decks did help the casino, but not for the expected reason nor as much as the modified rules helped during the "panic" in 1964. Four decks didn't stop the systems players; it merely slowed them down. The additional decks add to the house advantage by about .5 per cent, and pro-duce fewer favorable betting situations for the player. But the ad-ditional decks in no way eliminate the ability of a dedicated player to beat the game.
This is where
we stand today. The profits from the Blackjack tables
have been increasing in a most satisfying manner
for the casinos under the current rules. Most current
players are still suckers. Fortunately, the game
can be beaten with consistency by a knowledgeable
player. Rules changes proved to be too costly for
the casino, so the only option left is to discourage
the systems player in other ways. These casino "countermeasures,"
which don't alienate the other players, are the
subject of the next sec-tions
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