The MIT Blackjack Team was, as the name suggests, a group of students or ex-students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who attempted to beat major United States casinos at blackjack. The time period of these efforts ran from 1979 through to the start of the 21st century.
Blackjack gives the house a relatively low statistical advantage compared to other casino games. Beyond the basic strategy of when to hit and when to stand, individual players can use a combination of betting strategy, card tracking , and card counting to improve their odds. Accurate card counting is considered a fairly difficult skill, but since the early 1960s a very large number of schemes have been published - and casinos have adjusted the rules of play to counter the most popular methods.
The chance to make large amounts of money and the method to be used appealed to some mathematically minded and more egotistical students at MIT. The university had card playing clubs but some students decided to develop their hobby. The group combined the individual player advantages with a team approach of counters and players to maximise any opportunities and disguise the betting patterns card counting produces. After rigorous practice members of the MIT team claimed that their system gave them a margin over the house of 10-20% or even higher. Edward O. Thorp's methods gave a 2% advantage at best, although Ken Uston , also using a team, did rather better.
The team approach meant that casinos, who were quickly suspicious, could not determine how the MIT players were winning. Eventually several team members were identified and barred. These members were replaced by fresh MIT students, and play continued. Specialist investigators hired by casinos eventually realized that all those who they had banned were domiciled in or near Boston, and the connection with MIT was clear. The detectives obtained copies of recent MIT yearbooks and added the photographs of everyone shown into their image database. This made identifying new MIT players easy.
With most of the original team barred, most members retired, having made a reported $5 million. Some members used reports of their successes to start public-speaking careers or businesses running blackjack seminars. With their methods public, it is likely that others teams continue to use the technique.
The story of the MIT Blackjack Team is documented in the documentary Breaking Vegas and in the book Bringing Down the House .
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