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In 1978, Resorts International opened in Atlantic City, the first legal East Coast casino in the twentieth century. Their four- and six-deck blackjack games offered a new form of surrender, dubbed by card counters as “early surrender,” since the casino allowed players to surrender half a bet even when the dealer showed an ace or 10 up, and before the dealer checked for a blackjack. And, ironically, Resorts International was soon the most profitable casino in history, winning an average of $650,000 per day.

A team of professional blackjack players whose founders were from Czechoslovakia that had been playing in Las Vegas flew all of their members to Atlantic City to take advantage of this new surrender rule. This team, which later became known in the casino industry as simply the Czech Team, found the Resorts’ game to their liking and stayed for months.

Within a year, he had organized about twenty of his college and golfing buddies into a team of blackjack players. Hyland’s team continues to this day as one of the most successful casino gambling operations in history.

Johnny C.j now a legendary player who joined the team in 1981, plays high-stakes blackjack to this day and continues organizing teams of professional players. Many believe these teams owe their existence to the Resorts’ game with its early surrender rule that made the game so easy to beat. College kids found that they could pool their money, play blackjack with a modicum of intelligence, and get rich quick.

In the early 70th, Dr. Keith Taft began developing the first concealed blackjack computer, and soon, he had started using a computer in the Nevada casinos to play “unique” blackjack. He went on to develop dozens of concealable computers and other electronic devices over the next two decades, ever smaller and more powerful. Nevada had no laws at that time prohibiting the use of devices at their tables. Keith’s first computer weighed fifteen pounds.

Here’s how it worked on his blackjack strategies

This computer communicated its decisions to the player with buzzes and taps on the sole of the player’s foot. Using each of these devices wasn’t very easy task. It essentially entailed learning to “type” with your big toes. Even once you had memorized the codes, inputting them via the toe switches was a chore.

In the front side of each shoe there were two “switches”, or buttons - one above each big toe and one beneath - for a total of four switches. The computer itself was about the size of a pack of cigarettes, but thinner. Each switch conveyed a different code to the computer, which was a small epoxy-encased device that was strapped to the calf beneath the trousers. By using a series of toe taps, kind of like Morse code, the player could relay to the computer everything it needed to know in order to make a decision in a game of blackjack: which cards had already been dealt, what cards the player held, and the dealer’s upcard.