Edward O. Thorp is one of those polymath types who leave the rest of us scratching our heads at how achieving so much is possible. The 93-year-old was an MIT professor, a hedge fund manager, a pioneer in probability theory, and is even credited as a collaborator in creating the world’s first wearable computer. Yet Thorp is probably most known for a book, Beat the Dealer, which revolutionized many previously held concepts about the game of blackjack.
Beat the Dealer was first published in 1962 and became an instant hit. Today, first editions sell for thousands of dollars. It was successful for two main reasons: First, it was one of the first books to essentially prove that the house edge in blackjack could be overturned with basic strategies like card counting. Secondly, and importantly, the book is written with simple instructions, despite Thorp’s proficiency in math, making it accessible to just about anyone.
Blackjack has changed in the intervening years
The book is still in print today and has fortified its reputation as a classic of the genre, yet it is also the case that it is over 60 years old. Many different books on blackjack strategy have been published since, many of which evolve Thorp’s original ideas, and others that take blackjack strategy in whole new directions. The game, of course, has evolved in different ways. Today, for instance, people can play blackjack at an online live dealer casino whenever they please. It’s a world away from the period when the book was written.
But can we say that Beat the Dealer holds up? There are some arguments for and against. One of the most important things to recognize is that Beat the Dealer introduced ideas that forced casinos to change the rules of the game, which have become standardized today. For example, many casinos used a single deck of cards at the time of publication, which, in many cases, was only shuffled once all cards were dealt. Nowadays, it is more commonplace to see multi-deck blackjack and for automatic shuffling to occur with regularity.
Some of the underlying logic still applies
You don’t need to be a math genius like Thorp to appreciate that strategies like counting cards are impacted by the changes, making strategies like card counting more difficult. Card counting is not illegal and never has been, despite the myths propagated by movies like Rain Man. It is also not altogether very difficult. It is simply a method of keeping track of the cards drawn from the deck. If a lot of high cards have been drawn, for example, you know that the probability of getting a low-value card is higher, and vice versa. Having multiple decks and regular shuffling might make it more difficult, but the logic still applies.
Many of the contemporary book reviews of Beat the Dealer make it clear that a lot of value lies in its historical relevance. As mentioned, many of the ideas introduced at the time were revolutionary, but there is still a wonderful lucidity when reading a mathematician explaining them for the first time. In a sense, it’s like all great works of science: Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time is still worth reading almost four decades after its publication, despite many of its arguments and theories evolving since. In the same sense, this book about a man figuring out how to beat the casinos, changing the industry as a result, is somewhat timeless.