In the early days of Las Vegas, blackjack was played using a single deck of cards.
But when Dr. Edward O. Thorp wrote the book "Beat the Dealer," in 1962, that all changed. The book shows how blackjack can be won by a system of card counting that was devised on Dr. Thorps computer. The success of his method greatly alarmed casino owners.

The Casinos owners were forced to devise a response and came up with increasing the number of decks in the plastic "shoe" that holds the cards. By having so many cards they thought the card counters would be stumped and not be able to keep track of the cards. Thus the battle between the casinos and card counters began.

Recently, in the popular book "Bringing Down the House," author Ben Mezrich has written about a student who joined the blackjack team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The team members taught the new student, Kevin Lewis how to count cards even when six decks were used and how to keep track of one particular card. The team eventually began to play as a unit, using some members as spotters until the deck turned favorable and then the top player would move in for the kill.

Card counting is not illegal although it is highly unliked by the casino operators who want to permanently disbar the MIT students from their properties. Some confrontations have even turned violent.

- 2007-10-27