Have you ever heard of the M.I.T. Blackjack Team?

[FergieTCat]

Has anyone ever heard of the M.I.T. Blackjack Team (subject of the new book "Bringing Down The House"). Apparently, they are a group of kids from M.I.T. who have card counting and signalling down to a science.

The real question is -- am I the last person to hear of them? I just found out about this book and all of the book stores around here are out of the book.

 

[coqui]

I heard about them about a month ago. Apparentlty though they had to go underground though because they were getting caught by the casinos

 

[Steve H.]

I heard about them a couple weeks ago -- that book sounded really interesting!

 

[FergieTCat]

The book is called "Bringing Down The House" by Ben Mezrich. I had to order it from Amazon because none of the bookstores around here have it in stock.

I read an article about the book yesterday, which was very interesting. The link is:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.09/vegas.html

 

[danacara]

We met a couple of members at the National Science Foundation dinners in Washington, and they came down and stayed with us once at P'ton while they were visiting AC. They carry money around the casino in briefcases, they're pretty distinctive. A few professors used to informally bankroll them and let them keep a cut of the winnings. My thesis advisor is actually banned for life from Caesar's because he could count cards like a genius, but he couldn't keep a straight face while he was doing it. He always looked like he was up to something, and he got caught.

 

[danacara]

Oh, FYI - there's also a craps group

 

[UncleKyle]

This months Playboy had an article about them too. (see I read the articles!) I also have looked for that book at bookstores and can't find it. So glad they were getting the casinos, they just better be glad the mob doesn't run the casinos anymore.

 

[coqui]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=sr_8_1/002-2509052-6800064?v=glance&n=507846

Don't know if the link will work but Amazon.com has it.

 

[DocRafiki]

You're not the last. This is the first I've heard of them.

 

[Steve H.]

Originally posted by danacara
Oh, FYI - there's also a craps group

What possible mathematical advantage could be gained in craps?? I mean, there's logical strategic ways to play the game, but there's not a way to "cheat" in craps using the same techniques like card counting.