The famous MIT BlackJack Story

The MIT blackjack team was a group of students and ex-students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard which was formed to beat the casinos out of money card counting playing Blackjack. Many teams have been formed around the world as a result of their story which was immortalised in the “21” movie starring Jim Sturgess & Kevin Spacey. Their period of activity was between 1979 and 1993 but teams still exist based on their card counting strategies to beat the casinos by playing Blackjack although it is argued that the MIT team were the best and most organised team ever to hit the blackjack curcuit.

In November 1979 a gambler called Dave contacted a recent graduate of MIT called J.P. Massar and suggested that they form a team with the view of going to Vegas and beating the casino’s using card counting techniques. With $5,000 from an investor they ventured to Atlantic City, but found their fortunes varied. J.P. Massar knew that there were teams beating blackjack and was determined to find out how to win like they did. H met with Bill Kaplan in 1980 who had previously ran a successful blackjack team three years previously. Massar asked Kaplan to observe their team in action and help them improve. After agreeing to observe Massar’s team, Kaplan noted many mistakes and offered to help them create a more organised team.

The interesting thing about the MIT blackjack team was that there was a business-like approach to it. The team had to fill in detailed sheets, sign contracts and go through very specific and arduous training before graduating to the tables. Armed with $89,000 and better organisation, they more than doubled this stake on their first visit to the casinos in August 1980 with Kaplans help. They were up and running.

The team used straight card counting, along with ace and shuffle tracking techniques. They calculated their edge when using these techniques to between 2% and 4%.

In around 1984 the team peaked with around 30 players and grew their bank to around $350,000 playing their specific brand of technical blackjack. They recruited players through flyers on campus but put players through intensive training before bringing them into the team. In fighting, player exhaustion and tighter casino security meant that they found it more difficult to play and gradually the team began to diminish until around 1989 where the team stopped playing in their orginal form.

In 1992 Foxwoods Casino opened in Connecticut, and J.P. Massar, John Chang and Bill Kaplan formed a new partnership and raised $1 million dollars after forming a legitimate company. They began a new training drive to find players. The team grew to around 80 players and played in many casino’s simultaneously. As members were barred, new members were trained, it was a slick operation. The casinos began to notice many of these players all had addresses in or around the MIT area and they began to turn the heat up on the players. As opportunities in real estate started to prevail over blackjack on December 31, 1993 investors and players were paid out and the partnership dissolved.

During the film “21” former player Jeff Ha appears as a dealer in the casino and Bill Kaplan is in the background of a scene where the main character goes to an underground Chinese gambling haunt for an initiation test. The MIT story has been the feature of many documentaries and books with predictions on what they earned ranging from $3 million to $10 million. Many of the players began careers in public speaking and some of the players offer blackjack training courses. The team does not function in any way collectively anymore, but during a TV documentary one former MIT member, a Russian player, said he runs a professional blackjack team and remains involved in card counting to this day.

By Malcolm Clarke