Blackjack’s Rise and Fall Shows What Drives Customers Away
Playing blackjack requires some knowledge of mathematics. The player must be good at grasping mathematics concepts if they must beat the house. Unfortunately, not everyone can grasp the math required to help them emerge victoriously. This is the reason why Blackjack started losing members fast. But for players who could master some math, Blackjack became the best game of poker for them. In this article, we delve into what led to the rise and fall of poker.
Blackjack was invented in the 18th century. By then, it was played to pass time. The game took more than 200 years to move from the benchwarmer class. Even then, to play the game, one needed to employ a lot of strategies. The introduction of games that were crowd-pleasing in the 1950s pushed blackjack to the sideline.
The rise of the game
As one of the poker games, blackjack has been around for many years. Initially, it only required an understanding of simple math to play it. Besides, it required a collection of simple statistics to help one win against the house. Mathematicians were able to analyze the game to help work out strategies that guided them when playing. It was all about combining cards in certain ways to give one the best chance of winning.
The initial wheel had one zero. It meant that the players’ chance of winning was high. It gave them an edge over the house. Also, players honed up their counting skills to increase their chances of winning. Regular wins made blackjack become popular with punters but most casinos detested it. So the number of players outweighed the casinos that featured blackjack. To remain afloat, the casinos started making the blackjack game more complicated. They started by adding the number of decks. Besides, they changed the rules to reduce the wagering options. Also, they changed the odds which greatly reduced the player’s odds. Originally, the odds were 3:2 but they changed to 6:5.
Introduction of online casino
The introduction of online casinos has made things better. The casinos have kept the odds at 3:2 and allow the players to choose between variations. They no longer need to play with the splitting rules and the deck’s rules. They can now choose 2, 4, 6 or 8 decks depending on what they want. This has given blackjack a new lease of life and its popularity is on the rise once again.
The Decline Of Blackjack
The popularity of blackjack started declining as more rules that reduced the chances of winning were introduced. Here are other events that made the popularity of the game to decline further.
The rise of baccarat
When the chances of beating the dealer reduced, the game’s popularity started going down. The introduction of the Asian baccarat did not make things better for blackjack. More players switched to baccarat making the popularity of blackjack to dwindle even further.
Ed Thorp’s book
In the 1960s, Ed Thorp’s book explained how one could use the knowledge of counting cards to beat the dealer. According to him, keeping track of the high valued cards that the player remained with was enough to make them beat the house. It made blackjack to become the most popular game. Casino managers panicked but it was short-lived. It required that the players remain disciplined and smart to continue having an edge over the house as required in Thorp’s book. This was never the case. So, they started losing and the popularity of the game declined.
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