Sermons on the Count

Michael Hiltzik’s history of scientific blackjack (“Counters Culture,” March 12) neglects several founding fathers of the field. In 1956, four engineers at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds--Mssrs. Baldwin, Cantry, Maisel and McDermott--had their research article “The Optimum Strategy in Blackjack” published in the Journal of the American Statistical Assn., Volume 5, and triggered a wave of interest in the subject among aerospace engineers.

“The Theory of Gambling and Statistical Logic,” by Richard A. Epstein (Academic Press, 1967), detailed the mathematics of blackjack, casino games and games of pure skill and is still considered by some the definitive work on scientific gambling.

Casino managers lose little sleep over card counters. For every player who can really understand and execute winning strategies, there are thousands who only think they can.

John Pougachev

Venice

*

Hiltzik neglected to mention the internationally known John Scarne, whose expertise was acknowledged when a Senate subcommittee on gambling solicited his testimony in 1961. Earlier, in 1947, Scarne became the first honest gambler to be barred from playing at the Flamingo, the El Rancho Vegas, the Last Frontier and the Golden Nugget. At each of those casinos, he bragged to the management that he could win $1,000 in less than an hour, and he promptly did so.

In Scarne’s “Complete Guide to Casino Gambling” (Simon & Schuster, 1961), he used five pages to challenge Edward O. Thorp’s system, putting a different spin on the $11,000 win described by Hiltzik. Scarne’s book also mentions a Thorp-system player who lost more than $500,000 in one week. Scarne was so confident in his judgment that he twice issued $100,000 challenges that Thorp never accepted.

Brendan Powers

Orange

*

The blackjack article estimates that only a few hundred individuals are actually capable of making a living by playing blackjack full-time in Las Vegas. That grim news implies that one’s chances of getting rich by playing blackjack are about the same as one’s chances of winning the California lottery.

Matthew Okada

Pasadena