Roger Baldwin was an Army private in 1953 playing blackjack in the barracks at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland when another serviceman said something that piqued his curiosity: that dealers at casinos in Nevada were required to draw a card when their hands totaled 16 or less, but that they could stick with their hands at 17.
The rule was more than a morsel of knowledge for Mr. Baldwin to pack away for a future trip to Las Vegas. For him, who had earned a master’s in statistics from Columbia University that year, it was the spark to devise a new strategy to win at blackjack.
“After learning that the dealers had a fixed strategy, I thought maybe we could beat this game,” Mr. Baldwin later recalled.
