Famous Blackjack Players

Undoubtedly, Blackjack is one of the more popular casino games. And through the years, there has been quite a number of famous (or notorious) Blackjack players. Here's a look at some of them:

1960's - Edward O. Thorp

One of the most famous mathematicians who developed a lifelong fascination with the game of Blackjack and the mathematics of risk was Edward Thorp. In 1961 after receiving his PhD., Thorp was hired as a lecturer at MIT. He wrote a paper titled Fortune's Formula which he presented at the American Mathematical Association yearly meeting. This paper described some of Thorp's early Blackjack models, which he ran on an IBM 704.

To test his theories, Thorp joined forces with Emmanuel Kimmel, a New York businessman, to undertake a financial Blackjack adventure. The two took a trip to Reno, Nevada, to play Blackjack using card counting techniques never before heard of. They started with a $10,000 bankroll. By the time Thorp and Kimmel finished their great Blackjack adventure, they had more than doubled their money. This was a pivotal moment in history for the game of Blackjack, and the seeds of card counting were sown.

1970's - Ken Uston

Ken Uston gained his infamy as a Blackjack player who became notorious for using card counting techniques to earn a windfall in the casinos during the early 1970's. A mathematics genius with an IQ of 169, Ken attended Yale University at the age of 16 and later got his MBA from Harvard University. Not long after he became the Vice-President of the Pacific Stock Exchange in San Francisco.

After enjoying several years of success throughout the world's casinos, Ken encountered Keith Taft, an electronics engineer who had developed a computer that played a perfect game of Blackjack and could be worn without detection. This computer became the prototype for a device named George, and Team Play was borne.

Ken's team had won hundreds of thousands of dollars in Las Vegas and millions in Atlantic City before being barred from the casinos. Soon after, a court case assured the right of card counters to play in Atlantic City casinos. Ken was one of the leaders of this challenge and was featured on Sixty Minutes in 1981.

1970's - 1980's - Stanford Wong

Stanford Wong continued where Thorp left off, further expanding on the theories of the Blackjack gurus who came before him. He is oft referred to as the Godfather of Blackjack, and was inducted into the Blackjack Hall of Fame. He is considered an authority on casino blackjack tournament play. The term "wonging", as it relates to card counting, stemmed from Stanford Wong and his many years of Blackjack success.

Wong was one of the first to beat the Continuous Shuffle Machines (CSM's). When the first generation of Continuos Shufflers were introduced at the Mirage, two teams of professional card-counters, one led by Stanford Wong, beat the casinos, making off with tens of thousands of dollars before the casino removed the machines. Needless to say refinements have been made to the Continuous Shuffle Machines since then. Many believe they are still beatable, however, if you learn their shuffle patterns.

1990's - The Infamous MIT students Blackjack Club

In the 1990's, a team of MIT students took on the Las Vegas casinos, and came home with millions of dollars. Engineering students by day, they became high-rolling gamblers on the weekends and proved that it was possible to consistently beat a casino game. The MIT Blackjack Club was borne.

The game was blackjack, and the students were from the world-renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Their audacious winnings marked the climax of an arms race between casino and player that began 40 years earlier with maths professor Edward Thorp. He realized that the one feature of blackjack that made it different from other casino games also made it possible to beat.

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