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MIT Talents Turn to Blackjack
MIT students are known for their sharp intellect and superb mathematical ability. So it's no real surprise that some of these kids have been able to use higher math to achieve unparalleled financial success. But what may come as a shock to many is that some MIT intellectuals have turned their talents to gambling. One of the most infamous Blackjack card counting teams to hit Vegas casinos came from MIT - and walked away with millions of skillfully earned dollars over the course of several years.
The First MIT Blackjack Team
It all started with a class - not an accredited class, but a class that was just for fun. "How to Gamble if You Must" taught Blackjack card counting to students with an interest in applying math to gambling. A few of the attendees began to take the idea of card counting in real casinos seriously. They grouped together to form the first official MIT Blackjack Team in 1980.
The First MIT Blackjack Team
The team based their playing methods on the ideas in Ken Uston's recently published Blackjack strategy book. The book introduced the technique of team card counting - dividing the card counting responsibilities amongst several members of a team to distract casino management from the players' true objective. Uston reasoned that if team members didn't act the scripted part of Blackjack card counter, casinos wouldn't catch on, even if together they managed to walk away with big money.
The MIT team implemented Uston's ideas and won - after a few short weeks of playing as a team, they turned $5,000 in $20,000. But at that point, their success came to an end. For some months in 1980, the team experienced a lot of ups and downs, and they were forced to reevaluate their techniques.
The MIT Team Adopts Real Teamplay
It was at that point that one of the team's key players, J.P. Massar, met successful Blackjack team coach, Bill Kaplan. Kaplan had just returned from Vegas, where he had put together a winning card counting team that operated for several years. When the team decided to go international, Kaplan decided to go his own way.
When Massar met Kaplan in a Cambridge restaurant, he invited the Harvard graduate to evaluate the MIT blackjack team and help figure out their mistakes. It didn't take long for Kaplan to figure out what was wrong. The team was playing without a uniform strategy, making many card counting mistakes, and fighting about technique a large part of the time. Kaplan agreed to join with Massar in coaching the team, as long as the members would agree to follow a new set of standards.
The MIT Blackjack Team Has a Turnaround
The new rules? The team leaders would put each member through a rigorous period of practice and testing. Once a player made it past the trial phase, they had to undergo supervision while in the casino. And everyone had to adopt the same card-counting method and stick to their assigned role on the team.
That's when things changed for the MIT Blackjack Team. Kaplan and Massar put together a seed investment of almost $90,000 and the team got to work making the money multiply.
Over the years, there were many different players on the MIT Team. The group was in operation from the early 80's through the most of the 90's. At one point, the group reorganized into an official business called Strategic Investments. During this phase of the SI, hundreds of thousands of dollars made its way through Vegas and into the hands of MIT students.
Casinos Catch on to the MIT Blackjack Team
What enabled the team to enjoy such incredible success was that casino dealers and supervisors had no idea what was going on. They were trained to look for card-counters as individuals, not as groups. On the MIT team, there were players who sat at the tables all day, placing low bets, just to count the cards. These players, called Spotters, would then signal the Big Players when the count was favorable. Using these methods, the club managed to fool the casinos for many years.
Finally, the Vegas casinos employed a special investigating service who figured out the MIT Team Strategy. They began to scan in MIT yearbooks, and keep records of successful players with Boston addresses. Soon, they were regularly escorting all MIT players from the premises. At that point, the university students could no longer find a place to play, and the team dissolved.
MIT Blackjack Team Players Move On
For most players, the end of the MIT Blackjack Team didn't spell the end of success. Many went on to start big-name companies or become professional gamblers and coaches. And years later, one author decided to write a book about the exploits of the MIT Team, called Bringing Down the House, which focused on the experience of player Jeff Ma in the early nineties. That book was probably what put the MIT team on the road to fame - now, there's a new film about the MIT Blackjack Team called 21, starring Kevin Spacey in theaters this year.
While this unexpected fame put an end to any chances of Blackjack card-counting success for most players, you can still find some ex-members of the team at obscure casinos around the world, using logic to beat the house.
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