Attaining a near legendary status due to their unrelenting ingenuity and blatant audacity, the MIT Blackjack Team was born out of an Independent Activities Period class entitled 'How to Gamble if You Must,' provided at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the late 1970s. The mini-course taught students the concepts behind card counting.
Bill Kaplan is the author of The Book of the Lion (4.00 avg rating, 7 ratings, 0 reviews, published 2013) and Gen¹³ (3.70 avg rating, 267 ratings, 20 rev.Bill Kaplan is the author of The Book of.
Dr. Edward O. Thorp Creates Team Blackjack Strategy
The group of former MIT students was able to win millions using card counting and team play for the game of blackjack. Read how they did that. Quentin Keough (previous incarnation's maternal ancestor); Lenore Keough (previous incarnation's maternal ancestor);Henry Pym (previous incarnation's 'paternal great-grandfather');Django Maximoff. Learn more about most successful gamblers, legendary and record-holding risk-takers who have left their mark in the history of successful gambling.
An initial formula for card counting was developed and tested by Dr. Edward O. Thorp, and is rooted in the advantage gained by the fact that the dealer does not shuffle the cards between hands. The method allows players to keep track of the average contents of the remaining deck as the game progresses, and know when the odds are in the player's favor. His 1962 book, Beat the Dealer, outlined in detail the strategy that he used to turn a profit at the Blackjack table.
MIT Blackjack Begins as After School Blackjack Club
Bill Kaplan Blackjack
The MIT Blackjack Team started out as an after-school club, where the students would get together for fun and test their skills and ideas playing card games. But in true MIT fashion, their ingenuity soon led to the development of underground casino models where the team set about the arduous task of refining their skills. Card counting alone wasn't enough; the casinos were well aware of card counters by now, and had developed their own methods to throw the odds back in their favor; teaching the dealers to count cards, as well as shuffling the cards when a player placed an unexpected high bet.
Meeting with several difficulties, successes, and failures in their endeavor to score big in Atlantic City, many members left the group discouraged, or simply uninterested. Original MIT Blackjack Team member, J. P. Massar met MIT graduate Bill Kaplan in 1980. Kaplan had been involved with a separate blackjack team that had been quite successful in Las Vegas – so successful in fact that the team had split up to seek their own gambling fortunes abroad. Massar and Kaplan agreed to work together, and Kaplan studied the remaining MIT Blackjack Team members in action to give his analysis and offer advice.
Kaplan's first impression was not encouraging; the team was not unified in their approach to beating the game, and spent more time arguing about their theories than playing Blackjack. But Kaplan did see great potential, and agreed to offer his support on the condition that the operation be run under the standards and guidelines of a professional business; implementing time sheets, as well as documentation of strategy used, and total earnings. A prevailing card counting system was chosen, and formal training and testing was required before members could achieve ‘professional' status on the team.
In the mid 1980s the MIT Blackjack Team began playing the casinos with Kaplan's financial backing of around ninety thousand dollars, and was pulling in an average of about $170 per hour in winnings. The team continued to grow and win, but soon the casinos caught on. When they saw Bill Kaplan, they would immediately begin the search for his team, so Kaplan stepped aside and turned management of the team over to Massar.
Over the next few years the team began falling apart; due mostly to waning interest, exhaustion, and the casino environment. By 1989 the MIT Blackjack Team had completely dissolved until 1992, when the establishment of Native American run Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut breathed new life into the operation.
Bill Kaplan, J.P. Massar and co-manager – and team member since 1982 – John Chang formed a Massachusetts Limited Partnership called Strategic Investments to bankroll a new team of players. The MIT Blackjack Team quickly grew to nearly 80 players. Playing casinos in Atlantic City, Las Vegas, Canada, and Native American casinos across the nation, the team had reached an unprecedented height. It didn't take long for the Casinos to obtain photographs from MIT yearbooks to identify and ban the MIT Blackjack Team. The team once more disbanded in 1993, bringing about the official end of the MIT Blackjack Team.
'21' Blackjack Movies Based on the MIT Blackjack Team
The 2008 movie, 21, was inspired by the best-selling book Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich; a novel loosely based on actual events surrounding the MIT Blackjack Team. Though Bringing Down the House has been published as non-fiction, Mezrich has unapologetically taken artistic license for the sake of drama; a trend that has been carried over even more so to the motion picture. The movie's writers were, reportedly, surprised when MGM Studios agreed to finance production of 21, however MGM casinos are owned by MGM Mirage, which is no longer affiliated with MGM Studios. Realistically though, the film only offers a very simplistic introduction to the idea of card counting, withholding vital details that make all of the difference. A recently released DVD exposed how the casinos viewed the film as a great way to encourage novice blackjack players to attempt counting cards without a full understanding of the true complexity of the system.
Bill Kaplan was an important member of the MIT Blackjack Team. Although he wasn't a founding member of the team, he was the one who turned around the team to make it into a profit making enterprise which lasted for more than ten years.
Bill Kaplan Mit Blackjack Team
Who is He?
Bill Kaplan had graduated from Harvard in 1977 and hadn't always been an avid card player. While he was in college his interest had been sparked by a book on card counting. He soon began researching to find out the right technique for winning at blackjack.
Instead of going back to school, he took a one year break and moved to Las Vegas. He put together his own team and used his graduation money as investment. In less than nine months his team had made immense profits on the investment. After three years of success, Kaplan broke away from his first team.
Career at MIT Team
It was then that Bill Kaplan met J.P. Massar from the original MIT Blackjack team which had been struggling to make profits. Kaplan agreed to travel to Atlantic City with the MIT Team to figure out why they were unsuccessful. Kaplan then took over the team and along with Massar and decided to turn things around.
They recruited new members, coached them to use a uniform card counting technique and run the team like a business with strict supervision. In 1980, the new MIT Team went ahead to play under Kaplan's guidance with an investment of $89,000. In only ten weeks the team had doubled their investments.
Bill Kaplan Blackjack Book
For the next ten years, the MIT Team enjoyed immense success under his guidance. In 1992 he started another team with MIT player John Chang with an initial investment of a million dollars and was able to make large profits but the casino managements were soon catching up with them. The team had to be soon dissolved.
With the increase in the awareness of card counters in the casinos and because of their constant successes at the tables, it became difficult for the players to keep up with the pressure of the game as well as trying to avoid the casinos' prying eyes. The morale of the team had been an all time low and many players had left the team.
It was then that Bill Kaplan retired as a manager of the Blackjack team. Since then Bill Kaplan founded several other businesses, most of which have been successful over the years. He is the CEO of FreshAddress which creates emailing solutions for businesses. Kaplan still enjoys casino games occasionally and hasn't lost his winning abilities over the years.
MIT Books
Bringing Down the House
by Ben Mezrich
Price on Amazon: $11.21
Busting Vegas
by Ben Mezrich
Price on Amazon: $11.21
Million Dollar Blackjack
by Ken Uston
Price on Amazon: $11.21
