The idea that, blackjack could be beaten, made the game a huge success. The casinos have retaliated by baring big winners, changing the rules, shuffling more often, not dealing deep into the deck and playing with more than one deck. One visit to a mega- casino should tell you who is winning the war. There are numerous books and systems on the market, most of them are variations and refinements of Thorp's work and base their premise on a random shuffle. The program manipulates the cards the same as dealer would handle the cards in the casino.
Most casinos use a two step process to shuffle the cards.
The first step is called stripping the deck. The dealer takes small groups of cards from the top of the deck and puts them in second pile. Stripping is a counter-measure for shuffle tracking. Shuffle tracking is when a player can predict where the good cards are located in the deck after the deck has been shuffled by noting where the good cards were in the previous round and where the deck was cut. Next, the deck is divided into two sections and the cards are riffled together.