The Real MIT Blackjack Mastermind

Wade Roush writes "21, the top movie at the box office last weekend, has everyone talking about the real identities of the MIT blackjack team members fictionalized in the movie and in the 2002 book, Bringing Down the House, on which the film is based. Last week a number of stories pointed to former MIT student and Las Vegas resident John Chang as the model for the Micky Rosa character, the club mastermind played in the movie by Kevin Spacey. But Boston-area Internet entrepreneur and real estate developer Bill Kaplan is saying that if anyone is the basis for Micky Rosa, it's him. Turns out Kaplan now battles the "e-mail churn" problem as CEO of Newton, MA, startup FreshAddress, which helps companies correct the outdated e-mail addresses in their customer databases."

What kind of job is that?

Turns out Kaplan now battles the "e-mail churn" problem as CEO of Newton, MA, startup FreshAddress, which helps companies correct the outdated e-mail addresses in their customer databases."

Translation: Kaplan now helps marketers/spammers share your address so that when you associate your new address with your same other information, they can continue to market to/spam you.

Yeah, right, that's a job that's gonna get you a lot of respect here on /.

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From one scan to another... At least he is consistent.

Re:What kind of job is that?

I think you meant scam.

And counting cards is in no way scamming.

It's just playing the game the way a scientist should, not the typical "mystical" way that most people do.

Maybe in a hundred years "luck" will be an outmoded concept and gambling will been seen properly as "entertainment" but until then, most every idiot who goes to a casino is a mystical moron who thinks he's going to get lucky and win.

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Ironic because "system" == "game"? In which case your descriptor is "Gaming the game", which is not only redundant, but also retarded as that's what you're supposed to do.

Re:What kind of job is that?

Ironic because "system" == "game"?

The game in this case is the system, but more broadly it would be the Casino and it's practice of looking out for, and of banning card counters. These pros know it's a game (not just the Game of Blackjack), but a game of out-witting the house detectives. I don't see any redundancy here.

I will in fact "spell" it out to you. The irony lies in the term itself, and as it is applied here to card counters. The irony is also apparent in the fact that the casino's have already "gamed" the system against it's customers (from a profit perspective), especially considering that they can and will legally ban anybody whom they feel wins too much money.

The concept of "Gaming the system" is itself ironic (I hope I don't have to explain why):

Gaming the System means, simply, using the rules, policies and procedures of a system against itself for purposes outside what these rules were intended for.

- http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Gaming_the_system [wikitruth.info]

but also retarded as that's what you're supposed to do.

Not according to the Casino's, because if they find you doing this they will ask you to leave. So that's why most people in Casino's don't do this, because they have already been banned or don't want to go through the effort.

And BTW, Blackjack is fun for most people; nothing really too mystical here for me when I play it (on rare occasions). Granted their are fools who may think otherwise and lose their lifesavings in turn.

There's a right way and a wrong way to play BlackJ

And BTW, Blackjack is fun for most people; nothing really too mystical here for me when I play it (on rare occasions). Granted their are fools who may think otherwise and lose their lifesavings in turn.

The right way is to use a printed table with Perfect Strategy (minimize losses), in Vegas (free drinks!) at the Wynn (fairly small house advantage), outside (fresh air) at the European-sunbathing (boobies!) pool, where there are only 12 tables (see cocktail waitress often = more free drinks!) that are right next to the bar (cocktail waitress travel distance is short = more free drinks!).

The wrong way would be to play "what feels lucky" (maximize losses) in Council Bluffs, IA (no free drinks) on a 6/5 blackjack table (big house advantage) on the floor (stale air, no boobies, senior citizens galor, annoying slot machine sounds, and infrequent cocktail waitress appearances.)

The one downside to the Wynn is you can't get to the pool unless you're a guest, and the rooms there are rather steep (but very very nice). You can mitigate that by losing a bunch of money when you play and then the rooms are not so steep anymore.

Re:There's a right way and a wrong way to play Bla

You don't have to lose, you just have to lay it down.

Go to a blackjack table and throw down $80,000. When they've finished giving you your chips, play 2 hands of $5 then go to the cash out window. Watch as they give you a free room for being a "high roller".

Re:What kind of job is that?

Exactly right. It's pretty difficult these days to win with card counting, especially with six deck shoes, infinite shuffles, or two deck games that only deal out 2 hands before reshuffling.

The casinos are not going to kick you out for dumb luck, and they aren't going to kick you out if you seem to be card counting but aren't doing it very well. On the other hand, they will kick you out if they see perfect play (and remember, everything you do at the table is seen by the eye in the sky. It's not just the pit bosses who are reviewing your play).

Of course, it might have changed since I used to play a lot. Back in '00-'01 I'd go to Las Vegas at least twice a month, and I'd count cards. I wasn't perfect (I'd lose the count every so often), but I still generally won more than I lost. No big amount; it was just for fun.

Only once did they say anything, and that was a night at the Tropicana where I turned $80 into $1,300 (playing flawlessly, and getting a good chunk of luck to boot) Around 4am, the casino was mostly empty, and the pit boss seemed very interested in my table. I could see him looking at me and talking on the phone to . . . someone.

Eventually he came up to me and suggested that I go back to my room and get some sleep. That was all they said. I don't know if that really meant anything or not, but I was smart enough to get the hint. I said "You're right. I'm very tired", blacked out and left.

But at the level I've played at, I've never seen any real repercussions from the house. I've played a number of times at the Tropicana since then, and nobody has said anything to me.

Re:What kind of job is that?

Exactly how is card counting a "scam"? They're using mathematics to beat the game, legitimately. One would think that Slashdot readers would appreciate that.

(Also, read "The Eudaemonic Pie", about a shoe device to predict roulette. That one is at least illegal.. though someone on wikipedia claimed that the publication of the book is what got the law passed.)

Re:What kind of job is that?

Card counting isn't a scam, but some of the tricks they used to keep the house from twigging to what they were doing comes pretty close -- disguises, aliases, having lookouts stationed at different tables waiting for a hot deck, at which point they'd signal a team-mate to come over and law down the big bucks.

No, it's really no more of a scam or criminal act than, say, encrypting your email. There's nothing wrong with obscuring what you're doing.

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No, it's really no more of a scam or criminal act than, say, encrypting your email. There's nothing wrong with obscuring what you're doing.

Except that according to Bringing Down the House, they had been told not to come back to some of the casinos, and w

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"And both of them have epic class A freakouts when someone smart enough to see through them tries to outsmart them."

Or tries to start online businesses that challenge their dominance. I was making bank in online poker tourneys for a while there... oh well

Re:What kind of job is that?

I see a remarkable parallel between them and the *AAs, actually. Both are large monolithic companies who make a rather large amount of money with archaic business practices and are reliant on their customers being ignorant.

I agree. Casinos and the *AAs would work much better if they were made up of distinct processes that communicated via message passing rather than function calls.

Re:But at least the first one

/. should allow for a special "Holier Than Thou Anonymous Coward" by-line to make folks like the parent AC feel more welcome...

Blackjack professionals

More info on blackjack professionals can be found over at blackjack.org [blackjack.org]. They cover some info on the MIT team as well.

Isn't it obvious?

The real mastermind is Keyser Soze.

Card counting is overrated

Card counting is waaayyyyy overhyped in terms of effectiveness and profitibility. You (or your teammate if you are sneaky) have to sit there for a long time losing money waiting for a 'hot' shoe. A hot shoe really isnt all that hot either, think 51% in favor of the player. Then you have to bet huge in order to make up for all the time you sat there losing money. Do the math here for just one second, a 1% player advantage is about 10 dollars a hand winnings on average with a thousand dollar bet. In addition to all that hot shoes wont last for very long either, so dont go thinking "hey 10 bucks a hand for a few hours sounds pretty good to me". You will be doing good just to make up for all the hands your teammates spent losing money while you waited for a hot shoe.

Even these famous teams that everyone talks about werent really all that profitable. Sure, millions of dollars may sound like a lot but thats divided up among dozens of team members over the course of several years. It wasnt 5 guys over a few weekends like in the movie 21. Do the division a few times and it quickly becomes apparant that it really isnt worth it even if you discount the fact that you are risking a large sum of money in the endeavor. If you are going to get a lot of dedicated people together and put lots of money at risk you can do a hell of a lot better than playing blackjack.

It may make for good books, movies, etc. but if card counting was really all that effective vegas would be losing money to a brand new team every week. There is a reason everyone isnt doing it and its not because adding one for a face card and subtracting one for a low card requires 1337 math skills.

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Also, a reason everyone isn't doing it - is because it's so easy to get detected and blackballed from every casino in town.

After sitting at a table placing small bets for hours, you're going to attract a lot of attention if you start betting big money (bec

Re:Card counting is overrated

You should read Breaking Vegas also by Ben Mezrich. It describes some techniques, that used to work, which exploits the fact that when the dealer shuffles the deck they often inadvertently show the first base player the bottom card - then they ask another player at the table to cut the deck which, with practice, can be done precisely. This places a known card at a specific position in the deck (typically 52 cards in) and by carefully playing the table the team can arrange for the known card to fall on the most opportune hand. For example, if the known card is an ace, the team can arrange for it to land on the hand showing a picture card to make a blackjack.. if the known card is a picture card, the team can arrange for it to land as the dealer's 3rd card, typically busting them.

This doesn't give you a 1% or 2% house edge, like card counting, it gives you a 30% to 60% house edge.

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I agree that if done correctly that is possible, but:

1) Peeking at cards can get you thrown in jail, unlike card counting. (there is some legalese I dont totally understand about "actively" versus "passively" attempting to view the card, but with what you

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Outside Vegas, most casinos use continuous automatic card shufflers. As a result, the game is pretty much dead.

Actually.....

Most Vegas games have house advantages in the 0.5% range. So you lose $0.50 of every $100 bet when using perfect strategy. (They make most of their money on people not using perfect strategy.)

You can do better than a 1% advantage, depending on the rules of the game, and if your buddy spent several hours losing at a 0.5% advantage betting the minimum, you can make up for that pretty fast even at a 1% advantage if you're betting the table limit.

But, it's a lot more complicated than just counting +1 / -1 and then betting more when the count is good, at least if you want to be GOOD at card counting. On top of just betting more, when you have good information about what cards are left, that also changes the 'right' actions in certain situations. For example, some hands that you always hit if you don't know what's in the chute may become hands you double-down instead. Some surrenders become stands. Some stands become hits. And looking at the table of 'perfect' blackjack strategy, the counts at which the 'right' move changes are different for each box. At a trivial level, instead of memorizing that you hit a 12 against a dealer's 3, you'd instead have to know that you hit a 12 against a dealers 3 when the count is less than (Whatever).

The REALLY big problems with making money counting cards are three-fold:

1) Counting cards is hard. So there is a big up-front investment in learning how to do it.

2) You have to bet big. When you bet big, you can still go on runs where you lose a LOT of money. Blackjack isn't a game where you bet $1,000 a hand and win $20 a hand. It's a game where you lose $1,000 a hand, sometimes win $1,000 a hand, occasionally win $2,000 a hand, semi-occasionally lose $2,000 a hand, and rarely win $2,500 a hand. But most hands you lose.

Two consequences of that:

- To make enough money to make it worth your time, especially if you're smart enough to count cards and could presumably put those talents towards a real job, you have to bet big. That means you have to have $1,000 a hand to bet.

- To bet big, you have to have enough of a bankroll that you can play over the long haul. At $1,000 a hand, you probably need $50,000 to have a chance, $100,000 to be reasonably sure, and you could STILL have a bad run and lose all of it, even with a 2-3% advantage.

I sometimes play blackjack on vacation, using perfect strategy, where the house has 0.55% advantage. Even betting $20/hand, my bankroll can swing $1,000 in the short term (over a period of hours). That works out to swings of $50,000 betting $1,000 a hand. Losing $50k is a pretty high risk for the money you're going to win counting cards.

3) If you are betting $1k a hand, and have $100,000, you get a lot of attention, and are not going to be around casinos very long if you keep winning. So you have a big initial investment (learning to count cards well) and a limited time to leverage that investment (until the casino figures out who you are)

Most people would be better off putting their money in a nice mutual fund.

But, soon those new machines that reshuffle the cards every hand will replace chutes and it'll be a moot point.

Bullshit

I was close friends with John Chang's friend and partner in the "MIT blackjack team" during the 1990s. I met Chang in Cambridge, and almost joined the team (I was too busy with programming work I preferred, that also made me pretty rich). This was all before anyone (other than some security firms, and a lot of hookers) had ever heard of the team. I was there for some wild times with some of these actual characters, and was there when they returned from some extreme gambling junkets - some very lucrative, some losers, lots of them extremely exciting.

I heard _Bringing Down the House_ was being written while its author was interviewing my friend and his teammates. I read it, and was very disappointed in both the shabby writing style, and its omission of some of my favorite stories from those days. Maybe the team kept some of it quiet in self-defense, but those were much better stories than made it into the book. I asked my friend what he thought of the movie now that it's out, but he confirmed what I expected: even lamer than the book.

There was only one other blackjack team in the world at the time that was as consistently in the money, and it wasn't at MIT - or even from the US, as far as I knew - according to the team that I knew, which was as inside as anyone could get. Maybe this other Boston guy was a player. But MIT isn't that big a place, and there wasn't some other team. Certainly not one that so closely resembled the one that showed up in the book, and now the movie.

This guy is bluffing.

It's not him.

As one of the players profiled in BDTH, I can say with authority that Bill Kaplan is definitively NOT the basis for the Mickey Rosa character in the book nor the character that Mr. Spacey plays on screen.

While I will not comment on any of the rest of Mr. Kaplan's claims, I will say that, following the release of the book, and especially given the success of the movie, there have been several people who may or may not have been active card players at that time that have come out to falsely claim that the book is about them.

Lest you suspect I may be one of them, I will point out that I was the one who submitted the original WIRED story [slashdot.org] to slashdot several years ago.

Long before this,

MIT professors Ed Thorpe [wikipedia.org] (later of UCI) and Claude Shannon [wikipedia.org] were developing blackjack strategies. Talk about shoulders of giants... Shannon of course is the famed father of information theory. Besides blackjack, these guys figured out how to gain an edge in roulette using some tricky electronics. Thorpe later made a fortune by founding one of the original hedge funds (this book [amazon.com] is a fascinating account).