Tag Archives: scarne
How Twenty-One Became Blackjack
According to Richard Epstein (Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic, Academic Press, 1977), blackjack became popular during World War I, and was called “black-jack” from the practice of paying a bonus to a player who held an ace of spades with a jack of spades or clubs. John Scarne, (New Complete Guide to Gambling, 1961, Simon & Schuster), puts the year when this curious rule first appeared at 1912, when twenty-one tables appeared in horse-betting parlors in Evanston, Illinois. According to Scarne, by 1919a Chicago gambling equipment distributor was selling felt table layouts emblazoned with the announcement: “Blackjack Pays Odds of 3 to 2.” I believe Epsteins information is taken from Scarne, and Scarne states that he discovered the origins of blackjack in America as a result of his private discussions with old-time gamblers, not from any published texts that can be looked up today.
I am skeptical of much of what Scarne has written about blackjack, so Ill quote from Mickey MacDougalls MacDougall on Dice and Cards (Coward-McCann, 1944, NY), which was published prior to any of Scarnes books: “Many professionals dress up the game by giving prizes for certain hands. A favorite stunt is to offer ten times the size of the wager to anyone holding a natural twenty-one with a black jack. This adds interest to the game, but it also tempts a player to increase his stakes.”
In an honestly dealt single-deck game, this gimmick bonus would give the player a substantial edge over the house, assuming the player knew basic strategy (an unlikely assumption). I would also assume that a gambling house that offered this bonus would be using any number of illegitimate methods to assure the house a healthy edge.
That curious bonus payout that gave blackjack its name, however, has long since disappeared. There may be some casino somewhere that pays a small bonus if a player is dealt a natural 21 which includes a jack of spades or clubs, but that is no longer a normal rule of the game. Today, a blackjack is simply any initial two cards that consist of an ace and any ten-valued card.
Thats when Ed Thorp dropped another bombshell. Under the auspices of their Vintage Paperback division, Random House published a revised and expanded edition of Beat the Dealer. And the most important addition was Harvey Dubners Hi-Lo counting system, which Thorp called the Complete Point Count, with a computer-optimized strategy devised by Julian Braun. To the casinos frustration, this was a system that could more easily be applied to multiple-deck games.
Thorp was keeping the casinos on the run.
Still, the casinos fears were mostly unfounded. The Complete Point Count was easier to use than the ten-count, but it was not a lot easier. It required players to keep two separate counts. In addition to the running count of the cards point total, the player had to keep a count of the exact number of cards remaining to be played. And in order to play his hand, he had to memorize a chart of 158 different strategy changes to be made according to the count.
Thorp also included a Simple Point Count in this new edition of his book, but at the time that strategy seemed way too simple to most players to gain much of an edge, or to be taken seriously by players who wanted to beat the game. Later, the power of Thorps simpler method of adjusting the running count, without keeping a separate count of the exact number of cards played, would be shown.
How the Griffin Agency was Born (Page 1 of 2)
Every card counter quickly learns about the dreaded Griffin books. Initially, it was just a single book. Now, in its fifth “volume,” the Griffin books are a virtual library of photos and information about professional casino gamblers. In fact, the mug books of card counters photos that are published by Griffn Investigations in Las Vegas have become so well known among professional blackjack players that they often dont even use the proper name when referring to them. One counter might ask another, “Are you in the book?” And the other will immediately know what hes talking about.
The book.
An annoyance for every advantage player.
To be fair, its not all card counters photos. There are some actual cheaters and thieves, purse-snatchers, and slot machine “sluggers” in the Griffin books. But its more card counters than any other category, and for a good reason. There just arent very many real crooks in the casinos. And casinos arent scared of purse-snatchers. The security guards will take care of them. The casinos fear the players who can blend into the crowd and legally take money from their gaming tables simply by playing with intelligence.
Intelligence is not a trait any casino is looking for in its customers. And the Griffin books are essentially mug books of the intelligent players, the customers the casinos definitely do not want playing their games.
But where did “the books” come from? How did the concept originate? Most counters today have no idea. It seems the Griffin books have been around for as long as card counting itself.
Well, almost. . .
The timing of their arrival was perfect.
It was 1967 when a young Las Vegas private detective, Robert Griffin, first got the idea for the books that have plagued card counters now for almost thirty years. Ed Thorps Beat the Dealer had just gone into its second (1966) edition, and the casinos were frantic to find an answer to the growing problem of getting rid of this new crop of professional players.
They had tried changing the rules of blackjack in 1963, but it didnt work. Their main consultant, John Scarne, was valiantly trying to convince the public that Thorps system was a fake and that card counting didnt work, but the public wasnt buying it. In fact, it was ruining Scarnes reputation as a player advocate, which he clearly no longer was.
So, throughout 1964 and 1965, Scarne began advising the Las Vegas casinos to stop dealing single-deck games and start dealing blackjack from four-deck shoes, which he believed would be far more difficult for card counters to keep track of. At the same time, Scarne was warning players that the single-deck blackjack games were too “dangerous” for players because skilled card mechanics could cheat too easily in a hand-held game.
Many of the Las Vegas casinos did, in fact, switch from single-deck games to four-deck shoes. And it was nearly impossible for any player to use Thorps ten-count in a shoe game. But when Thorps 1966 edition of Beat the Dealer came out, with the new Hi-Lo counting system that could be used to count cards with any number of deck, the casinos knew they were in trouble. Thorp was not letting up-more and morel books and counting systems were being sold, and John Scarne had no solution.