learning card-counting is a huge investment
The way to win big at blackjack is to count cards -- not by yourself, but with a team.
Casinos know this and have made several barriers for card counters. You can't go card-counting by yourself because it's too obvious -- your bids go up when the cards get hot (if you want to make a profit, that is). They can ask you to leave without any obvious provocation. Casino pitbosses are trained to watch out for suspicious activity. If you win big and you're with the same "strangers" (i.e. your team) when you win, they'll either ban you outright or send a private investigator after you -- and ban you when they find you hanging out with your team. Casinos oftentimes share information with each other about card-counters, so if you're caught in one place, don't be surprised if their sister casinos don't want you either. And when they don't always trade, the private investigators might sell the information they get while investigating you to a dozen casinos.
And that above paragraph was assuming that you're good --- you and your team, with whom you've not only practiced for hundreds of hours with in not counting cards and discreet communication, but also in playing your roles on the team, whether you're counting cards, rolling high when the cards get hot, always rolling high, looking out for casino security, etc. And you have to be good at mental mathematics, not to mention CARD-COUNTING.
Casinos are still at a loss when it comes to mathematically heavy analysis of blackjack, even when multiple decks are used. However, most blackjack strategies involving counting teams are homebrewed, and therefore they're not going to initiate random people into their method. For instance, an MIT team used a strategy that allowed them to follow aces and packets of high cards through shuffles and multiple decks. Keep in mind that to delevop such strategies, you need not only a good grasp of statistics, but also be fairly resourceful and practical-minded.
Casinos know about card-counting, yes. But casinos are still at a disadvantage because they cannot achieve randomness. Time is their biggest enemy; there are only so many cuts and shuffles they can do, even when you consider they use multiple decks and play at most two-thirds of the way down. Certain packets of cards still stay together. As long as someone can pick up on any deviation from pure randomness, they can win money.
You need good monetary backing to win big at blackjack. We're talking about a payout that occurs over many hands; you can't be down to your last dollar. Another thing: casinos do some racial profiling when it comes to looking for card-counters. Young white males with a large bankroll stand out, but since I don't know how old you are or whether you're white, and I know you don't have a large bankroll, that shouldn't be a problem.
The classic book on counting cards is Edward Thorp's Beat the Dealer (1962). As for more current statistical analyses of blackjack, I'd suggest going to your library and do electronic searches of mathematics journals.
