The MIT Blackjack Team was a group of students and ex-students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and other leading colleges who used card counting techniques and more sophisticated strategies to beat casinos at blackjack worldwide. The team and its successors operated successfully from 1979 through the beginning of the 21st century. Many other blackjack teams have been formed around the world with the goal of beating the casinos.
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Blackjack and card counting[edit]
Every time a card is layed down on the table, you add its value to maintain what is called a running count. You always want to start counting at the beginning of a shoe, starting with 0. The 4 is a low card. The 8 is worth 0, so the count stays at plus 1. The 5 is worth 1, so the count goes to plus 2. Another low card 3 brings us to plus 3. So each card pair simply doubles the initial combination 8,6,A. You will see the same rule later in runs counting. Counting pairs in hand It's quite simple, just not to forget to count a pair in your hand after difficult 15s scoring. Remember, that all cards above 10 (J,Q,K) have the same value 10 in cribbage and result a pair in any combination.
Blackjack can be legally beaten by a skilled player. Beyond the basic strategy of when to hit and when to stand, individual players can use card counting, shuffle tracking, or hole carding to improve their odds. Since the early 1960s, a large number of card counting schemes have been published, and casinos have adjusted the rules of play in an attempt to counter the most popular methods. The idea behind all card counting is that, because a low card is usually bad and a high card usually good, and as cards already seen since the last shuffle cannot be at the top of the deck and thus drawn, the counter can determine the high and low cards that have already been played. They thus know the probability of getting a high card (10,J,Q,K,A) as compared to a low card (2,3,4,5,6).
Provided you're sticking to card counting, hole carding, and other legitimate – and legally protected – advantage play methods, there's no reason to consider counting taboo. But as the movie 21 made clear, counting as a lone wolf is far less effective than playing as part of a team. There are no federal or state laws which consider counting cards to be a criminal act. Providing you're doing it in your head and not using a card counting device or mobile app, there is nothing. Instead, there are a number of card counting systems that use whole numbers that remain constant throughout the counting process to provide an estimation of the advantage. The accuracy of their estimation often comes at the cost of increased complexity, hence difficulty to learn and implement. Here are some of the more popular card counting.
In 1979, six MIT students and residents of the Burton-Conner House at MIT taught themselves card-counting. They traveled to Atlantic City during the spring break to win their fortune. The group went their separate ways when most of them graduated in May of that year. Most never gambled again, but some of them maintained an avid interest in card counting and remained in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Two of them, J.P. Massar and Jonathan, offered a course on blackjack for MIT's January, 1980 Independent Activities Period (IAP), during which classes may be offered on almost any subject.
First MIT blackjack 'bank'[edit]
In late November 1979, Dave, a professional blackjack player contacted one of the card-counting students, J.P. Massar, after seeing a notice for the blackjack course. He proposed forming a new group to go to Atlantic City to take advantage of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission's recent ruling that made it illegal for the Atlantic City casinos to ban card counters. Casinos instead have to take other countermeasures like shuffling the cards earlier than normal, using more decks of cards, or offering games with worse rules to destroy the advantage gained by counting—even though these all negatively impact the non-counter as well.[1]
The group of four players, a professional gambler, and an investor who put up most of their capital ($5,000), went to Atlantic City in late December. They recruited more MIT students as players at the January blackjack class. They played intermittently through May 1980 and increased their capital four-fold, but were nonetheless more like a loose group sharing capital than a team with consistent strategies and quality control.
'Mr. M' meets Bill Kaplan[edit]
In May 1980, J. P. Massar, known as 'Mr. M' in the History Channel documentary, overheard a conversation about professional blackjack at a Chinese restaurant in Cambridge. He introduced himself to the speaker, Bill Kaplan, a 1980 Harvard MBA graduate who had run a successful blackjack team in Las Vegas three years earlier. Kaplan had earned his BA at Harvard in 1977 and delayed his admission to Harvard Business School for a year, when he moved to Las Vegas and formed a team of blackjack players using his own research and statistical analysis of the game. Using funds he received on graduation as Harvard's outstanding scholar-athlete, Kaplan generated more than a 35 fold rate of return in fewer than nine months of play.[2]
Kaplan continued to run his Las Vegas blackjack team as a sideline while attending Harvard Business School but, by the time of his graduation in May 1980, the players were so 'burnt out' in Nevada they were forced to hit the international circuit. Not feeling he could continue to manage the team successfully while they traveled throughout Europe and elsewhere, encountering different rules, playing conditions, and casino practices, Kaplan parted ways with his teammates, who then splintered into multiple small playing teams in pursuit of more favorable conditions throughout the world.
Kaplan observes Massar and friends in action[edit]
After meeting Kaplan and hearing about his blackjack successes, Massar asked Kaplan if he was interested in going with a few of Massar's blackjack-playing friends to Atlantic City to observe their play. Given the fortuitous timing (Kaplan's parting with his Las Vegas team), he agreed to go in the hopes of putting together a new local team that he could train and manage.
Kaplan observed Massar and his teammates playing for a weekend in Atlantic City. He noted that each of the players used a different, and overcomplicated, card counting strategy. This resulted in error rates that undermined the benefits of the more complicated strategies. Upon returning to Cambridge, Kaplan detailed the problems he observed to Massar.
Kaplan capitalizes a new team[edit]
Kaplan said he would back a team but it had to be run as a business with formal management procedures, a required counting and betting system, strict training and player approval processes, and careful tracking of all casino play. A couple of the players were initially averse to the idea. They had no interest in having to learn a new playing system, being put through 'trial by fire' checkout procedures before being approved to play, being supervised in the casinos, or having to fill out detailed player sheets (such as casino, cash in and cash out totals, time period, betting strategy and limits, and the rest) for every playing session. However, their keen interest in the game coupled with Kaplan's successful track record won out.
The newly capitalised 'bank' of the MIT Blackjack Team started on 1 August 1980. The investment stake was $89,000, with both outside investors and players putting up the capital. Ten players, including Kaplan, Massar, Jonathan, Goose, and 'Big Dave' (aka 'coach', to distinguish from the Dave in the first round) played on this bank. Ten weeks later they more than doubled the original stake. Profits per hour played at the tables were $162.50, statistically equivalent to the projected rate of $170/hour detailed in the investor offering prospectus. Per the terms of the investment offering, players and investors split the profits with players paid in proportion to their playing hours and computer simulated win rates. Over the ten-week period of this first bank, players, mostly undergraduates, earned an average of over $80/hour while investors achieved an annualized return in excess of 250%.
Strategy and techniques[edit]
The team often recruited students through flyers and the players' friends from college campuses across the country. The team tested potential members to find out if they were suitable candidates and, if they were, the team thoroughly trained the new members for free. Fully trained players had to pass an intense 'trial by fire,' consisting of playing through 8 six-deck shoes with almost perfect play, and then undergo further training, supervision, and similar check-outs in actual casino play until they could become full stakes players.
The group combined individual play with a team approach of counters and big players to maximize opportunities and disguise the betting patterns that card counting produces. In a 2002 interview in Blackjack Forum magazine,[3] John Chang, an MIT undergrad who joined the team in late 1980 (and became MIT team co-manager in the mid-1980s and 1990s), reported that, in addition to classic card counting and blackjack team techniques, at various times the group used advanced shuffle and ace tracking techniques. While the MIT team's card counting techniques can give players an overall edge of about 2 percent, some of the MIT team's methods have been established as gaining players an overall edge of about 4 percent.[citation needed] In his interview, Chang reported that the MIT team had difficulty attaining such edges in actual play, and their overall results had been best with straight card counting.
The MIT Team's approach was originally developed by Al Francesco, elected by professional gamblers as one of the original seven inductees into the Blackjack Hall of Fame. Blackjack team play was first written about by Ken Uston, an early member of Al Francesco's teams. Uston's book on blackjack team play, Million Dollar Blackjack, was published shortly before the founding of the first MIT team. Kaplan enhanced Francesco's team methods and used them for the MIT team. The team concept enabled players and investors to leverage both their time and money, reducing their 'risk of ruin' while also making it more difficult for casinos to detect card counting at their tables.
Team history 1980–1990[edit]
The MIT Blackjack Team continued to play throughout the 1980s, growing to as many as 35 players in 1984 with a capitalization of as much as $350,000. Having played and run successful teams since 1977, Kaplan reached a point in late 1984 where he could not show his face in any casino without being followed by the casino personnel in search of his team members. As a consequence he decided to fall back on his growing real estate investment and development company, his 'day job' since 1980, and stopped managing the team. He continued for another year or so as an occasional player and investor in the team, now being run by Massar, Chang and Bill Rubin, a player who joined the team in 1984.
The MIT Blackjack Team ran at least 22 partnerships in the time period from late 1979 through 1989. At least 70 people played on the team in some capacity (either as counters, Big Players, or in various supporting roles) over that time span. Every partnership was profitable during this time period, after paying all expenses as well as the players' and managers' share of the winnings, with returns to investors ranging from 4%/year to over 300%/year.
Strategic Investments 1992–1993[edit]
In 1992, Bill Kaplan, J.P. Massar, and John Chang decided to capitalize on the opening of Foxwoods Casino in nearby Connecticut, where they planned to train new players. Acting as the General Partner, they formed a Massachusetts Limited Partnership in June 1992 called Strategic Investments to bankroll the new team. Structured similar to the numerous real estate development limited partnerships that Kaplan had formed, the limited partnership raised a million dollars, significantly more money than any of their previous teams, with a method based on Edward Thorp's high low system. It involved three players: a big player, a controller, and a spotter. The spotter checked when the deck went positive with card counting, the controller would bet small constantly, wasting money, and verifying the spotter's count. Once the controller found a positive, he would signal to the big player. He would make a massive bet, and win big. Confident with this new funding, the three general partners ramped up their recruitment and training efforts to capitalize on the opportunity.
Over the next two years, the MIT Team grew to nearly 80 players, including groups and players in Cambridge, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, and Washington. Sarah McCord, who joined the team in 1983 as an MIT student and later moved to California, was added as a partner soon after SI was formed and became responsible for training and recruitment of West Coast players.
At various times, there were nearly 30 players playing simultaneously at different casinos around the world, including Native American casinos throughout the country, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Canada, and island locations. Never before had casinos throughout the world seen such an organized and scientific onslaught directed at the game. While the profits rolled in, so did the 'heat' from the casinos, and many MIT Team members were identified and barred. These members were replaced by fresh players from MIT, Harvard, and other colleges and companies, and play continued. Eventually, investigators hired by casinos realized that many of those they had banned had addresses in or near Cambridge, and the connection to MIT and a formalized team became clear. The detectives obtained copies of recent MIT yearbooks and added photographs from it to their image database.
With its leading players banned from most casinos and other more lucrative investment opportunities opening up at the end of the recession, Strategic Investments paid out its substantial earnings to players and investors and dissolved its partnership on December 31, 1993.
1994 and forward[edit]
After the dissolution of Strategic Investments, a few of the players took their winnings and split off into two independent groups. The Amphibians were primarily led by Semyon Dukach, with Dukach as the big player, Katie Lilienkamp (a controller), and Andy Bloch (a spotter). The other team was the Reptiles, led by Mike Aponte, Manlio Lopez and Wes Atamian. These teams had various legal structures, and at times million dollar banks and 50+ players. By 2000 the 15+ year reign of the MIT Blackjack Teams came to an end as players drifted into other pursuits.
In 1999, a member of the Amphibians won at Max Rubin's 3rd Annual Blackjack Ball competition. The event was featured in an October 1999 Cigar Aficionado article, which said the winner earned the unofficial title 'Most Feared Man in the Casino Business'.[4]
In the media[edit]
Books[edit]
- A variety of stories about a few of the players from the MIT Blackjack Team formed the basis of The New York Times best-sellingBringing Down the House, written by Ben Mezrich. While originally marketed as nonfiction, Mezrich later admitted characters and stories in the book were mostly fictive and composites of players and stories he had heard about through hearsay. The private investigation firm referred to as Plymouth in Bringing Down the House was Griffin Investigations.[5]
- Mezrich wrote a follow-up book, Busting Vegas, which took even greater liberty with the actual happenings of the team. Many events in this book were at least partly based on incidents that occurred during the team's Strategic Investments era.[6]
- Jeffrey Ma wrote a book titled The House Advantage: Playing the Odds to Win Big in Business about his time on the 1994 MIT blackjack team.
- Nathaniel Tilton, a student of former MIT team captains Mike Aponte and Semyon Dukach, authored The Blackjack Life detailing his experiences playing and being trained by the MIT Blackjack Team players.[7]
Films[edit]
- The 2004 film The Last Casino is loosely based on this premise and features three students and a professor counting cards in Ontario and Quebec.[8]
- The 2008 film 21, inspired by Bringing Down the House and produced by and starring Kevin Spacey and Jim Sturgess, was released on March 28, 2008 by Columbia Pictures. Jeff Ma and Henry Houh, former players on the team, appear in the movie as casino dealers, and Bill Kaplan appears in a cameo in the background of the underground Chinese gambling parlor scene. The script took significant artistic license with events, with most of its plot being invented for the movie, hence it refers to being 'inspired by true events' rather than 'based on true events.' One of the most significant departures from reality was the portrayal of the team being run by a professor (the Kevin Spacey character), when in reality the team was always run by students and alumni. The characters in the movie were also fictionalized amalgams of various players throughout the years of the team's existence - for example, the character Choi is very loosely (and inaccurately) based on Johnny Chang, and the character Ben Campbell, is an amalgam of numerous players, with the opening scene based on Big Dave's interview, and subsequent admission to Harvard Medical School, where much of the interview revolved around his participation on the team.
- The 2010 film Teen Patti is an uncredited remake of 21.
Television[edit]
- The Mysteries at the Museum series on the Travel Channel featured the story of the MIT Blackjack Team in the episode titled 'Siamese Twins, Assassin Umbrella, Capone's Cell'.
- The story of the MIT Blackjack Team, in its incarnation as Strategic Investments, was told in The History Channel documentary, Breaking Vegas, directed by Bruce David Klein.
- The Bringing Down The House period was featured on episodes of the Game Show Network documentary series, Anything to Win, and HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (episode 116).
- The BBC documentary, Making Millions the Easy Way, addressed the Bringing Down the House period as part of the renowned 'Horizon' strand (directed by Johanna Gibbon), told the story of a Strategic Investments breakaway group, and revealed the science behind the winning formula.
- 'Double Down', an episode of Numb3rs concerned a counting group, led by a High School teacher, which launders money through casino winnings.
Other[edit]
Several members of the two teams have used their expertise to start public speaking careers as well as businesses teaching others how to count cards. For example:
- Mike Aponte of the Reptiles co-founded a company with former MIT Blackjack Team member David Irvine called the Blackjack Institute.
- Semyon Dukach of the Amphibians founded Blackjack Science.
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References[edit]
- ^Griffin, Peter A. (1979). The Theory of Blackjack. Huntington Press. ISBN0-915141-02-7.
- ^'How a team of students beat the casinos'. BBC.com. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
- ^Blackjack Forum interview with Johnny Chang
- ^The Twenty One Club: The annual blackjack ball hosts Gambling's Most Furtive (and Quirky) FraternityArchived 2009-04-20 at the Wayback Machine cigaraficionado.com, Sept/Oct 1999
- ^Ian Kaplan (March 2004). 'review of Bringing Down the House'.
- ^ThePOGG (10 November 2012). 'ThePOGG Interviews – Semyon Dukach – MIT Card Counting team captain'.
- ^'ThePOGG Interviews – Nathaniel Tilton author of 'The Blackjack Life''. Retrieved 6 March 2013.
- ^The Last Casino at IMDb.Retrieved 2009-11-03.
External links[edit]
What is card counting?
Card counting is the only way to gain a long term, statistical advantage at blackjack. Card counting works on the concept that high-value cards are good for the player while low-value cards are bad. By taking note of the cards that have been played, a player can determine whether the remaining cards are beneficial to the player, and alter their betting and playing strategy accordingly. You don't need to remember which particular cards have been played. Rather, a point value is assigned to each card and the player simply keeps a count of the aggregate points as the cards are dealt.
How large is your advantage when counting cards?
Overall, it is around 1%, depending upon the specific rules of the game. Counting cards does not give a player an edge on every hand, nor will it give a player a 100% chance of winning any particular hand. You will win, on average, about 44% of all hands played in the long-run. The long run is defined as beginning after about 500 hours of play, or 50,000 hands.
Once you feel confident with your card counting you can put it into practice. Party Casino is a popular choice for blackjack players offering a number of game variations, which you can try first on their demo play. Sex casino game. Once you're ready to play for real you can get a new bonus code from www.Casinobonus-code.com.
Is card counting illegal?
No - as long as you are only using your brain to count cards (as opposed to a computerized device) then it is legal. Casinos can, however, take actions to protect themselves. In Nevada, for instance, where casinos are ruled to be private places, casinos can ban you from playing blackjack or even being on the property for any reason. If you get banned from a casino and come back then you can be arrested for trespassing. This may, at first, seem like discrimination, but it doesn't meet the legal definition of discrimination because card counters are not members of a classification that is covered by discrimination laws, as defined by the Supreme Court.
In Atlantic City, the laws explicitly state that card counting is legal. But in response to that law, casinos have made blackjack much tougher to beat. They do this by using several methods: using 8 deck shoes, having lower deck penetration, prohibiting mid-shoe entry (taking away the ability of players to sit down only when the count is good).
Can they 'backroom' you?
Best games to win money at casino. 'Backrooming' refers to the casino taking you into their backroom in order to ask for your ID, take your picture, and lecture you. In the old days they might even rough you up. Under most state laws, it is illegal for a business to detain a person, unless the customer has committed a crime and the business is holding the person until the police arrive. So they can detain you if you are cheating (by using a computer, etc.) but not for card counting.
It ain't easy
The casinos are not in the business of donating money to gamblers, so they don't like players who can win with any regularity. This leads to the perpetual battle between card counters and the casinos. There is a misconception among many people that card counting is illegal, and many casino employees in particular do not feel that card counters should have any rights, treating them as if they were cheaters. As a result, the casinos alter their rules and procedures to combat winning blackjack players. Card counters may be forcibly ejected, legally or otherwise. In extreme cases, they see the counter as a cheater, and report you to a detective agency that keeps a book of cheaters. Sometimes the dealers will count cards along with you and shuffle up only when the count goes in your favor - this is called 'preferential shuffling'.
Are the glory days over?
Unfortunately, the game of blackjack has become more difficult to beat and it is no longer a road to riches. It takes a lot more than reading a few books and practicing on a computer simulator to be successful. Furthermore, if you do find a good game the casino will most likely limit the table's bet spread to no more than 4 units and put a maximum cap on bets. The way that Blackjack is now played in major casinos worldwide simply doesn't allow for the easy practice of the theory. Casinos simply got tired of being taken for millions by blackjack teams and well-bankrolled counters, and changed the rules and methods of dealing and playing the game. Additionally, they hired personnel that knew how to count cards better than the players trying to beat the casinos. Furthermore, surveillance technology is now so sophisticated that any person who walks into any casino can be instantly identified.
The real deal
Most people think of card counting as this wild ride you go on while making and losing millions of dollars. They think if you are making $25/hour then you can make $2 million over a 40-year career. But you can't think of it like that. If you are playing $50 and you have a 1% edge then you are only making 50 cents per hand - not very exciting. You are simply acting as a toll booth where the casino sticks 2 quarters in your pocket on every hand. The main metric that professional players look at is their theoretical win rate, because that's what they will make in the long-run. If your theoretical win for the week is $500 but you won $7,000 (very possible) then YOU didn't make $7,000 - YOU made $500 and luck made you $6,500. Card counters make money the slow and steady way - and it gets boring. If you want to see what card counting is really like, then check out my blackjack book review page and buy 'Las Vegas Blackjack Diary'.
Recreation
Card Counting Rules Printable
Sometimes card counting is just a phase the average blackjack player goes through. First, he plays blackjack and realizes how much money he is losing. Then he buys a couple of card counting books and decides to learn about it. Then he starts practicing card counting at home. Then he goes to a casino to play and gets marginal results. At this point most quit.
Most people do not have the time, desire, or energy to do what it takes to become a successful card counter. Card counting is not rocket science, but it does take work. But just because you won't be a professional card counter doesn't mean you shouldn't learn how to count cards. There are plenty of players who simply want to improve their game or enjoy the intellectual challenge of taking on the casinos, while hopefully making a few bucks and earn some comps in the process. Even if you only break even at blackjack, at least you will be able to play all the blackjack you want over a lifetime and not lose money (theoretically speaking).
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00 roulette wheel. kentrontika on November 21, 2014
STLisa on July 20, 2013
jackblack on August 4, 2012
HPG ADMIN on July 19, 2009
I hate modern technology ):
So are there still Card Counting teams today?
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Foxy on July 18, 2009
Counting Rules Calculator
HPG ADMIN on November 29, 2008
God Bless
steven panjabi on November 29, 2008
Card Counting Rules Dice Game
HPG ADMIN on June 15, 2006
