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Professor Thorp's "ten count" method, though alluring, was difficult to put into practice successfully, and thus the casinos earned a fair amount based on blackjack's increased popularity combined with players whose ten count technique was, let's say, a 2 on a scale of 0 to 10.
In the 1970's an IBM computer man, Julian Braun worked on electronic models for increasing one's odds at blackjack through card counting; his conclusions were incorporated into the second edition of "Beat The Dealer," as well as into Lawrence Revere's 1977 book "Playing Blackjack as a Business."
1977 was a milestone year for blackjack; Ken Uston, a Yale honors grad who quit his job as Senior Vice President of the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange to devote himself to blackjack placed five computers into the shoes of his blackjack team members. The team quickly won $100,000, but a team shoe computer was seized by casino operators and sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which concluded that the computer had been using publicly available information on blackjack and so could not be deemed a cheating device. Uston had such tremendous success with his methods that he was banned from many major Las Vegas casinos and sued them for violating his civil rights. In 1981, Uston was featured on "Sixty Minutes," and subsequently had success leading a legal challenge to prevent Atlantic City casinos from barring card counters.
Blackjack evolved from European games and now in its Americanized form is hugely popular in Europe and indeed everywhere in the world where casino gambling is enjoyed. In Russia, where it is called "Ochko" ("The Hole") it is extremely popular, and played in private homes and even in the streets. Other relatively recent developments attest to the continuing and increasing popularity of blackjack. Casinos' use of continuous shuffle machines became futile as the methods by which they can be beaten have been explained. The cyberization of blackjack has made it possible for millions to enjoy the game from the comfort of their homes, while electronic permutations of blackjack, such as a Blackjack Solitaire Palm OS game bear witness to an evolving culture. In the summer of 2004 alone, there were two widely-watched blackjack television shows, "Celebrity Blackjack" and "World Blackjack Tour."
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