MIT Blackjack Team
Encyclopedia
The MIT Blackjack Team was a group of students and ex-students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
, Harvard Business School
, Harvard University
, and other leading colleges who used card-counting
techniques and more sophisticated strategies to beat casino
s 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.
is one of the few casino table games that 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 track
ing 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.
with each other, attended this course and learned about blackjack and card counting methods.
Determined to put their newly discovered knowledge to work, the group resolved to travel to Atlantic City in the spring of 1979 to win their fortunes. The group went their separate ways when most of them graduated in May, but two members, J.P. Massar and Jonathan, maintained an avid interest in card counting and remained in Cambridge, MA, home to MIT.
In late November 1979, a professional blackjack player contacted J.P. Massar after seeing a notice in the IAP Guide for a blackjack course to be taught in January at MIT, and proposed forming a new group to travel 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.
Consisting of four players (Roger, J.P., Jonathan, and the professional blackjack player, Dave) and an investor who put up most of its capital ($5,000), this group went to Atlantic City in late December to play. The players then held the January IAP course and recruited a number of additional MIT students as players. The group played intermittently through May 1980, but lost key players to lack of success at the tables, graduation, and other causes.
overheard a conversation about professional blackjack at a Cambridge Chinese restaurant. J.P. introduced himself to the speaker, Bill Kaplan, a 1980 Harvard MBA graduate who had run a successful blackjack team based in Las Vegas
for three years previously. Kaplan earned his BA at Harvard in 1977 and deferred his admission to Harvard Business School for a year, during which time he moved to Las Vegas and formed a team of blackjack players based on his research and own statistical analysis of the game. Staked by funds he received upon graduation as Harvard's outstanding scholar-athlete, Kaplan generated a 35+ fold rate of return
in less than nine months of play during this "year off."
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 observed Massar and his teammate playing for a weekend in Atlantic City. The trip was a disaster. Each of the players used a different card counting strategy, each equally complicated. Their inconsistent counting, playing, and betting errors resulted in their approaching and playing the game far less than optimally, and possibly with a negative expectation. Moreover, the players spent the majority of the weekend arguing over unimportant mathematical formulas and consequently put in very few playing hours at the tables. Upon returning to Cambridge, Kaplan detailed the problems he observed to Massar, which accounted for the losses the MIT players had been sustaining.
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, John Chang, an MIT undergrad who joined the team in 1982 (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. 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.
The team played on and off the next few years but interest waned as casino conditions, player exhaustion, and weakened management focus caused the group to lose players and finally stop playing.
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.
, 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. Coincident 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 located 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 12/31/1993.
and the Reptiles who were 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, however, 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 article of "Cigar Aficionado" magazine. According to the article, the winner earned the unofficial title "Most Feared Man in the Casino Business".
careers as well as businesses teaching others how to count cards. For example:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
, Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...
, Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, and other leading colleges who used card-counting
Card counting
Card counting is a casino card game strategy used primarily in the blackjack family of casino games to determine whether the next hand is likely to give a probable advantage to the player or to the dealer. Card counters, also known as advantage players, attempt to decrease the inherent casino house...
techniques and more sophisticated strategies to beat casino
Casino
In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...
s at blackjack
Blackjack
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...
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.
Blackjack and card counting
BlackjackBlackjack
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...
is one of the few casino table games that 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
Card counting
Card counting is a casino card game strategy used primarily in the blackjack family of casino games to determine whether the next hand is likely to give a probable advantage to the player or to the dealer. Card counters, also known as advantage players, attempt to decrease the inherent casino house...
, shuffle track
Shuffle track
Shuffle tracking is an advantage gambling technique where a player tracks certain cards or sequences of cards through a series of shuffles. Shuffle tracking is typically done in blackjack games, although it can be done in other card games. Games with simple shuffles are generally easier to shuffle...
ing or hole carding
Hole carding
Hole carding refers to obtaining knowledge of cards that are supposed to be hidden from view in card games. The term is usually applied to blackjack but can apply to other games with hidden hole cards, like three card poker and Caribbean stud poker...
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.
Origins of blackjack play at MIT
The origin of blackjack play at MIT was a mini-course called "How to Gamble if You Must", taught in January 1979 at MIT over what is known as Independent Activities Period (IAP). (Roger Demaree, J.P. Massar, Don Priori, and Bruce Cottman are listed as teachers in the MIT Independent Activities Period Guide, but this is in dispute, and may apply only to the 1980 course (see below), not the 1979 one.). A number of MIT students from a living group in the Burton-Conner House dorm known as Conner 3, who often played penny-ante pokerPoker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
with each other, attended this course and learned about blackjack and card counting methods.
Determined to put their newly discovered knowledge to work, the group resolved to travel to Atlantic City in the spring of 1979 to win their fortunes. The group went their separate ways when most of them graduated in May, but two members, J.P. Massar and Jonathan, maintained an avid interest in card counting and remained in Cambridge, MA, home to MIT.
In late November 1979, a professional blackjack player contacted J.P. Massar after seeing a notice in the IAP Guide for a blackjack course to be taught in January at MIT, and proposed forming a new group to travel to Atlantic City to take advantage of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission
New Jersey Casino Control Commission
The Casino Control Commission is a New Jersey state governmental agency that was founded in 1977 as the state's gaming control board, responsible for administering the Casino Control Act and its regulations to assure public trust and confidence in the credibility and integrity of the casino...
's recent ruling that made it illegal for the Atlantic City casinos to ban card counters.
Consisting of four players (Roger, J.P., Jonathan, and the professional blackjack player, Dave) and an investor who put up most of its capital ($5,000), this group went to Atlantic City in late December to play. The players then held the January IAP course and recruited a number of additional MIT students as players. The group played intermittently through May 1980, but lost key players to lack of success at the tables, graduation, and other causes.
"Mr. M" Meets Bill Kaplan
In May 1980 J.P. Massar, known as "Mr. M" in the History Channel documentaryBreaking Vegas
Breaking Vegas is a television series that premiered on The History Channel in the United States in the spring of 2004. The series covers the great lengths people have gone to make money, sometimes illegally, from casinos. It premiered in Pakistan on January 19, 2006 and was renamed Decoding...
overheard a conversation about professional blackjack at a Cambridge Chinese restaurant. J.P. introduced himself to the speaker, Bill Kaplan, a 1980 Harvard MBA graduate who had run a successful blackjack team based in Las Vegas
Las Vegas Strip
The Las Vegas Strip is an approximately stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard in Clark County, Nevada; adjacent to, but outside the city limits of Las Vegas proper. The Strip lies within the unincorporated townships of Paradise and Winchester...
for three years previously. Kaplan earned his BA at Harvard in 1977 and deferred his admission to Harvard Business School for a year, during which time he moved to Las Vegas and formed a team of blackjack players based on his research and own statistical analysis of the game. Staked by funds he received upon graduation as Harvard's outstanding scholar-athlete, Kaplan generated a 35+ fold rate of return
Rate of return
In finance, rate of return , also known as return on investment , rate of profit or sometimes just return, is the ratio of money gained or lost on an investment relative to the amount of money invested. The amount of money gained or lost may be referred to as interest, profit/loss, gain/loss, or...
in less than nine months of play during this "year off."
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
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, in the hopes of figuring out what they were doing wrong. 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 teammate playing for a weekend in Atlantic City. The trip was a disaster. Each of the players used a different card counting strategy, each equally complicated. Their inconsistent counting, playing, and betting errors resulted in their approaching and playing the game far less than optimally, and possibly with a negative expectation. Moreover, the players spent the majority of the weekend arguing over unimportant mathematical formulas and consequently put in very few playing hours at the tables. Upon returning to Cambridge, Kaplan detailed the problems he observed to Massar, which accounted for the losses the MIT players had been sustaining.
Kaplan capitalizes a new team
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.First MIT Blackjack "bank"
Thus, the first highly capitalized "bank" of the MIT Blackjack Team started on August 1, 1980. The investment stake was $89,000, with both outside investors and players putting up the capital. Ten players, including Kaplan and Massar, 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 percent.Strategy and techniques
The team often recruited students through flyers and across the players' friends throughout 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
Blackjack Forum
Blackjack Forum was a trade journal for professional blackjack players, founded in 1981 and published by noted blackjack author Arnold Snyder. Originally a 100-page quarterly journal, it expanded into an online forum which is frequented by professional gamblers, attorneys, industry people,...
magazine, John Chang, an MIT undergrad who joined the team in 1982 (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. 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
Ken Uston
Ken Uston was a famous blackjack player, strategist, and author, credited with popularizing the concept of team play at blackjack...
, 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
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 on 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 team played on and off the next few years but interest waned as casino conditions, player exhaustion, and weakened management focus caused the group to lose players and finally stop playing.
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
In 1992, Bill Kaplan, J.P. Massar, and John Chang decided to capitalize on the opening of Foxwoods Casino in nearby ConnecticutConnecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, 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. Coincident 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 located 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 12/31/1993.
1994 and Forward
After the dissolution of Strategic Investments, a few of the players took their winnings and split off into two independent groups, the Amphibians who were primarily led by Semyon DukachSemyon Dukach
Semyon Dukach is the CEO of SMTP, Inc., and a former professional blackjack player with the MIT Blackjack Team. He played with Strategic Investments and later was one of the founding members and team leaders on Amphibian Investments whose exploits were chronicled in Ben Mezrich’s Busting Vegas...
and the Reptiles who were led by Mike Aponte
Mike Aponte
Mike Aponte also known as MIT Mike is a professional blackjack player and a former member of the MIT Blackjack Team. Aponte was one of the leaders of a team of MIT students that legally won millions at blackjack tables around the world by counting cards. He is one of the main characters, "Jason...
, Manlio Lopez and Wes Atamian. These teams had various legal structures, and at times million dollar banks and 50+ players. By 2000, however, 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 article of "Cigar Aficionado" magazine. According to the article, the winner earned the unofficial title "Most Feared Man in the Casino Business".
Books
- A variety of stories about a few of the players from the MIT Blackjack Team formed the basis of The New York Times Best Seller, Bringing Down the HouseBringing Down the House (book)Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions is a book by Ben Mezrich about a group of MIT card counters commonly known as the MIT Blackjack Team. While represented as non-fiction by Mezrich and Free Press, the book contains significant fictional elements...
written by Ben MezrichBen MezrichBen Mezrich is an American author from Princeton, New Jersey. He graduated magna-cum-laude with a degree in Social Studies from Harvard University in 1991. Some of his books have been written under the pseudonym Holden Scott. Mezrich attended Princeton Day School, in Princeton, New Jersey...
. While originally marketed as nonfiction, Mezrich later admitted that the characters and stories in the book were mostly fiction and composites of players and stories he heard about third-hand. The private investigation firm referred to as Plymouth in Bringing Down the House was Griffin InvestigationsGriffin InvestigationsGriffin Investigations was once the most prominent group of private investigators specializing in the gaming industry. The company was founded in 1967 by Beverly S. Griffin and Robert R...
.
- Mezrich wrote a follow-on book, Busting Vegas, that took even greater liberty with the actual happenings of the team.
- Jeffrey Ma wrote a book called "The House Advantage Playing the Odds to Win Big in Business" in it he discusses some of the time he spent on the 1994 MIT blackjack team.
Films
- The 2004 film, The Last CasinoThe Last CasinoThe Last Casino is a 2004 Canadian film on the subject of card counting. This movie draws heavily from the ideas espoused in the book Bringing Down the House.-Premise:...
, is loosely based on this premise and features three students and a professor counting cards in Ontario and Quebec. - The 2008 movie, 2121 (2008 film)21 is a 2008 drama film directed by Australian director Robert Luketic and stars Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Bosworth, Liza Lapira, Jacob Pitts, and Aaron Yoo. The film is inspired by the true story of the MIT Blackjack Team as told in Bringing Down the House, the...
, inspired by Bringing Down the House and produced by and starring Kevin SpaceyKevin SpaceyKevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...
and Jim SturgessJim SturgessJames Anthony "Jim" Sturgess is an English actor and singer-songwriter. His breakthrough role was appearing as Jude in the musical romance drama film Across the Universe .-Early life:...
, was released on March 28, 2008 by Columbia PicturesColumbia PicturesColumbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
. Jeff MaJeff MaJeff Ma or was a member of the MIT Blackjack Team in the mid 1990s. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy. He attended MIT where he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1994. He was the basis for the main character of the book Bringing Down the House and the film 21...
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 movie took significant artistic licenseArtistic licenseArtistic licence is a colloquial term, sometimes euphemism, used to denote the distortion of fact, alteration of the conventions of grammar or language, or rewording of pre-existing text made by an artist to improve a piece of...
with the history of the team with nearly every story being made up for the movie.
Television
- The story of the MIT Blackjack Team, in its incarnation as Strategic Investments, was told in The History ChannelThe History ChannelHistory, formerly known as The History Channel, is an American-based international satellite and cable TV channel that broadcasts a variety of reality shows and documentary programs including those of fictional and non-fictional historical content, together with speculation about the future.-...
documentary, Breaking VegasBreaking VegasBreaking Vegas is a television series that premiered on The History Channel in the United States in the spring of 2004. The series covers the great lengths people have gone to make money, sometimes illegally, from casinos. It premiered in Pakistan on January 19, 2006 and was renamed Decoding...
, directed by Bruce David KleinBruce David KleinBruce David Klein is a producer, director and writer of television, film and digital entertainment. He is the founder of Atlas Media Corp..On the television front, Klein was an early innovator in cable programming, responsible for series such as Dr...
. - The Bringing Down The House period was featured on episodes of the Game Show NetworkGame Show NetworkThe Game Show Network is an American cable television and direct broadcast satellite channel dedicated to game shows and casino game shows. The channel was launched on December 1, 1994. Its current slogan is "The World Needs More Winners"...
documentary series, Anything to Win, and HBO's Real Sports with Bryant GumbelReal Sports with Bryant GumbelReal Sports with Bryant Gumbel is a monthly sports newsmagazine on HBO that debuted on April 2, 1995. The show was "spawned by the fact that sports have changed dramatically, that it's no longer just fun and games, and that what happens off the field, beyond the scores, is worthy of some serious...
(episode 116). - The BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
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.
Other
Several members of the two teams have used their expertise to start public speakingPublic speaking
Public speaking is the process of speaking to a group of people in a structured, deliberate manner intended to inform, influence, or entertain the listeners...
careers as well as businesses teaching others how to count cards. For example:
- Mike AponteMike AponteMike Aponte also known as MIT Mike is a professional blackjack player and a former member of the MIT Blackjack Team. Aponte was one of the leaders of a team of MIT students that legally won millions at blackjack tables around the world by counting cards. He is one of the main characters, "Jason...
of the Reptiles co-founded a company with former MIT Blackjack Team member David Irvine called the Blackjack Institute. - Semyon DukachSemyon DukachSemyon Dukach is the CEO of SMTP, Inc., and a former professional blackjack player with the MIT Blackjack Team. He played with Strategic Investments and later was one of the founding members and team leaders on Amphibian Investments whose exploits were chronicled in Ben Mezrich’s Busting Vegas...
of the Amphibians founded Blackjack Science.
External links
- "Inc. Magazine: Business Lessons from the Blackjack King"
- "Newton Man, Bill Kaplan, Provides Inspiration for Kevin Spacey's Character in 21"
- Citynet Magazine article on the team and card counting
- "Chet Curtis Reprt on NECN: Interview with Bill Kaplan" - video
- Aponte Talks 21" Raw Vegas - video
- "Math Whiz Breaks The Blackjack Bank" Fox News DC - video
- "Interview with MIT Mike" BlackjackInfo.com
- "The MIT Team's $500,000 Weekend" Midwest Gaming and Travel
- Wired Magazine: Hacking Las Vegas
- BBC documentary about card counting and the Team
- USA Today Q&A with Bill Kaplan (with photo)
- MIT Blackjack Team