The MIT Blackjack Team
November 12th, 2009 -- Posted in Main | Comments Off”
In the early 90s, the MIT blackjack team proved it was possible to make money by counting cards. In fact, they became famous for amassing a small fortune in the Las Vegas casinos. This group was made up of gifted students from the famous MIT in Cambridge, the well known science faculty of America. In this article, we are going to have a look at the technique they used in order to beat the bank.
A profitable greyhounds betting game
bingo online is a casino games which offers the lowest edge of the bank. In addition, to qualify for a higher player repayment rate, it is possible to use: the Basic holdem poker, Shuffle tracking or card counting. The latter devised by Edward O Thorp in his book Beat the Dealer is fairly complex but several texts published after the 60s have simplified it.
The teams strategy
The maths students came up with the idea of wining significant amounts by card counting. Their strategy was to combine edges of the individual player with a team approach of card counters to maximize their revenues and disguise their behaviour. In addition they used card shuffling methods and consecutive aces. The card counting earned the players a 2% edge but the combined techniques used by the MIT Blackjack team earned the players a 4 % edge.
The division of labour
The team used a simple strategy: division of labour. This made them not to be easily detected by the casino. In fact it is fairly simple to notice the actions of a lone card counter by the way he increases and decreases his bets regardless if the shoe is to his advantage or not. On the other hand, a team where each person has a specific role, working together and without looking suspicious is really hard to unmask. The team regularly hired new members to avoid being discovered by the gambling institutions.
The role of each person
The team had three main roles: spotters, gorillas and big players. The former were not supposed to win. They would sit at a table and count cards. They always played the minimum bet allowed. When the odds were looking particularly good they’d signal actively playing team members, called “gorillas” and “big players.” The big players were similar to the gorillas, they could also count cards. Their part in the play was to bet big when the spotter told them to and lay low when they got that signal, as well. They did so discreetly in order to avoid being detected by the dealers or the casino archive security and seeing that, they arrived at the table only at the right time, they could not be mistaken for counters who increased or decreased their bets according to the advantage conferred upon them by the remaining cards in the deck.
Disbanding of the team
The team became increasingly rich and its members started to bet a lot of money. The casino owners started suspecting something because they found it odd that ordinary students could afford to play so much at a single hand of blackjack. They increased their surveillance which made it difficult for the team to carry out its task. After losing a couple of games the team decided to disband. Other teams took over but the gambling establishments became wary of students and bought year books of the most prestigious universities to weed them out.
A member of the MIT roulette team, Ben Mezrich has published a book, Bringing Down The House, which recounts the saga of his group who became legendary. A film based on the book has recently been released. Kevin Spacey produces and stars in it, it is called Las Vegas 21.
You can ask the former MIT team pro player some questions on this blackjack forum.
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