Professor Edward Oakley Thorp is regarded to be the inventor of the technique of counting cards to win at blackjack. Thorp made a Master in Physics and a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), then began to teach mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Shortly after he started teaching classes of Quantitative Finance.
On one occasion he accesses a newspaper of statistics to study the causes of the game of blackjack in a systematic way. That’s when he designs a system that explains the variations of the game, and based on this you can reverse the advantage of the casino for the player, increasing the likelihood of winning at blackjack from counting cards.
Then Thorp will easily reach a great success with his books, which allowed him to begin to accumulate a considerable fortune. With “Beat the Dealer”, published in 1962, he gets an incredible impact. The book becomes a classic on the counting of cards and the best techniques for winning at blackjack. In 1966 he published the second edition of this book, with an explanation of the technique much more practiced for readers. Then he ignored the techniques for winning at blackjack and focused his studies toward the stock market. In 1967 he published “Beat the Market”.Known as the “Einstein of blackjack”, this man was one of the first seven men who entered the Salon of Fame of Blackjack. His books were a great success and brought a lot of influence on the players around the world, avid to win blackjack that applied their techniques at every casino that was possible. Even today they continue to apply them even at online casinos.