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Peter Griffin's Blackjack Theories Live On
If you study the history of blackjack, you will notice that many of the game's experts were math geniuses who applied their knowledge and brilliance to figuring out how to beat the casinos and win at the tables. Peter Griffin was just such a mathematician and his classic book, "The Theory of Blackjack" is one of the greatest books written about the connection between math and blackjack. The book in particular and Griffin's contribution to blackjack in general earned his posthumous election to the Blackjack Hall of Fame as one of the seven original members in 2003.
Peter Griffin was born in 1937, graduated with a bachelor's degree from Portland State University, and earned his master's degree from the University of California. He started teaching math in 1965, and became a full professor in 1977. He continued in that position, teaching courses in algebra, statistics, and calculus until his death in 1998. Gambling always fascinated Griffin, though he was no card shark himself. He taught a course about the mathematics of gambling, but when he went to Vegas to practice what he preached, he lost big time. This just made him more determined than ever to analyze and break down the game - mathematically. A few years after Edward O. Thorp's book "Beat the Dealer" taught the world how to count cards, Peter Griffin published "The Theory of Blackjack," which shed even more light on statistics and math as it relates to the game of blackjack.
Griffin was a Blackjack-Loving Academic
Griffin's book is an academic work, which compares card counting methods. Most of the book is too complex for the average blackjack player but it was considered a landmark publication for the serious researchers of the game. Even today, any card-counting system can be related to Griffin's theories, proving that his ideas were as far-reaching as they were groundbreaking. In his introduction to "The Theory of Blackjack," Griffin admitted that he himself had never succeeded in becoming a consistent winner at the blackjack tables and, in fact, had lost more than he had won.
After "The Theory of Blackjack," Griffin also wrote "Extra Stuff: Gambling Ramblings," as well as numerous technical reports about math, gambling and the connection between them. Although brilliant, Griffin's works and lectures were also known for their humor and wit. He will long be remembered as the college professor who loved blackjack.
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