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The MIT Blackjack Team
The MIT Blackjack Team was a group of very bright students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who liked to gamble. They found ways to beat casinos, mathematically, at blackjack and made thousands of dollars.
How the MIT Blackjack Team Got Started
The origins of the MIT Blackjack Team was a mini-course called "How to Gamble if You Must", taught in January 1979 at MIT. A number of MIT students who often played penny-ante poker together attended the course and learned about the game of blackjack and methods of card counting.
At this time, many casinos created rules preventing players with card counting methods from playing blackjack. However, in New Jersey this was ruled illegal, so the MIT group decided to go to Atlantic City in the spring of 1979 and put their new knowledge of blackjack card counting to the test. They failed utterly and miserably. The group dispersed, but two of them continued to show a great interest in card counting.
In December of 1979, they found an investor and a trainer, called "Dave", and, after months of training, they again went to Atlantic City with $5000 in capital. Over a period of a few weeks, the group of four players doubled and redoubled its capital. And that was the actual beginning of the MIT Blackjack Team.
Frustration
The MIT Team members held another course at MIT and recruited a few more students as players. They went on to play at Atlantic City through May 1980, but consistently lost. This caused great frustration. The group tried all kinds of methods to win as they had in December of 1979.
They threw "Dave" out of the group because of constant arguments over mathematical techniques and were lucky enough to find a new "guru" - a Mr. Kaplan.
With Mr. Kaplan at the helm, they started a new team. However, Kaplan insisted that the team be run as a business rather than as a group of bright students interested in the game. He created regulations, supervision and player sheets. Thus the first MIT Blackjack "bank" was born.
The MIT Blackjack Team Bank
Mr. Kaplan's first "bank" was instigated in August 1980 with an investment of $89,000. Ten players formed the team and played on this bank. Ten weeks later they had more than doubled their original investment. The MIT Blackjack Team went on to be the most successful and famous (if not notorious) team in the history of blackjack.
The MIT Blackjack Team Gets to Hollywood
The story of the MIT Blackjack Team was told in the documentary "Breaking Vegas" and in the book "Bringing Down the House" which became a New York Times bestseller. "Bringing Down the House" is currently being turned into a film by Columbia Pictures and will probably be released in 2008.
The MIT Blackjack Team went from a group of a few students to Hollywood celebrity! That's certainly something to think about the next time you're playing online blackjack.
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