Benny Binion at the 1979 World Series of Poker
Born
November 20, 1904
Pilot Grove, Texas, U.S.
DiedDecember 5, 1989 (aged 85)
NationalityAmerican
Years active1924–1989
Known forOrganized Crime and Gambling
Spouse(s)Teddy Jane
Children5, including Jack Binion and Ted Binion

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Lester Ben Binion (November 20, 1904 – December 5, 1989) was an American gambling icon, career criminal, and convicted murderer who established illegal gambling operations in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area. He would later relocate to Nevada, where gambling was legal, and open the successful Binion's Horseshoe casino in downtown Las Vegas.

Early history[edit]

Binion was born and raised in Pilot Grove, Texas in Grayson County, north of Dallas. His parents initially kept him out of school due to poor health. His father, a horse trader, let him accompany him on trips. While the outdoor life restored his health, Binion never had any formal education.[1] As he traveled with his father, the young man learned to gamble, a favorite pastime when horse traders met up with farmers and merchants during county fair trade days.[2]

Criminal history[edit]

Binion's FBI file reveals a criminal history dating back to 1924, listing offenses such as theft, carrying concealed weapons, and two murder convictions.[3]

Binion moved to El Paso when he was 18, where he began moonshining during the Prohibition Era.[4] A year later, Binion moved to Dallas where he again set up moonshining operations, for which he was twice convicted.[5] In addition to his moonshining, in 1928, Binion opened up an even more lucrative numbers game.[6]

In 1931, Binion was convicted of shooting and killing an African Americanrum-runner, Frank Bolding, 'cowboy style.'[7] This was the origin of Binion's 'Cowboy' nickname.[8] Binion received a two-year suspended sentence.[8]

In 1936, Binion established a network of private dice games at several Dallas hotels, including the Southland Hotel in downtown Dallas. This came to be known as the Southland Syndicate.[9] By the end of 1936, Binion had gained control of most gambling operations in Dallas, with protection from a powerful local politician.[10]

In 1936, Binion and a henchman killed a numbers operator and competitor, Ben Frieden, emptying their pistols into him. Binion then allegedly shot himself in the shoulder and turned himself in to police, claiming that Frieden had shot him first. Binion was indicted, but the indictment was later dismissed on the grounds that Binion had acted in self-defense.[11] In 1938, Binion and another henchmen allegedly killed Sam Murray, another of Binion's competitors in the gambling rackets. Binion was never indicted for this murder, and charges were dropped against his henchmen.[10]

By the early 1940s, Binion had become the reigning mob boss of Dallas. He then sought to take over the gambling rackets in Fort Worth. The local mob boss of that city, Lewis Tindell, was murdered shortly afterwards.[12]

The Chicago Outfit made a successful move into Dallas after World War II. With the 1946 election of a Dallas County Sheriff Steve Gutherie, Binion lost his fix with the local government and fled to Las Vegas.[13]

While in Dallas, Binion had begun a long-running feud with Herbert Noble, a small-time Dallas gambler, which continued after Binion moved to Las Vegas. Binion demanded that Noble increase his payoff to Binion from 25 to 40 percent, which Noble refused to do.[14] Binion posted a reward on Noble's scalp that eventually reached $25,000 and control of a Dallas crap game.[7] Noble survived numerous attempts on his life, sometimes narrowly escaping with gunshot wounds. In November 1949, Noble's wife was killed in a car bombing intended for him.[7] In retaliation, Noble planned to fly his private plane to Las Vegas to bomb Binion's house, but was restrained by local law enforcement before he could execute his plan.[7] In August 1951, as Herbert Noble drove up to his mailbox, a bomb exploded nearby, killing him instantly.[15]

Binion lost his gambling license in 1951, and was sentenced to a five-year term in 1953 at Leavenworth federal penitentiary for tax evasion.[16]

Casino years[edit]

Benny Binion with his youngest daughter Becky (eventual owner of Binion's Horseshoe) in front of the famous $1 million display (c. 1969).

In Las Vegas, Binion became a partner of the Las Vegas Club casino, but left after a year due to licensing problems.[17] In 1949, Benny opened the Westerner Gambling House and Saloon, but he soon sold out after conflicts with his casino partners.[18]

In 1951, he purchased the Eldorado Club and the Apache Hotel, opening them as Binion's Horseshoe casino, which immediately became popular because of the high limits on bets. He initially set a crapstable limit of $500, ten times higher than the limit at his competitors of the time.[19] As a result of outdoing the competition, Binion received death threats, although eventually casinos raised their limits to keep up with him. Additionally, the Horseshoe would allow a bet of any size from a player as long as the bet was no larger than the player's initial bet.[20]

Binion was in the vanguard of Las Vegas casino innovation. He was the first in the downtown Glitter Gulch to replace sawdust-covered floors with carpeting, the first to dispatch limousines to transport customers to and from the casino, and the first to offer free drinks to players.[19] Although comps were standard for high rollers, Binion gave them to all players.[21] He also shied away from the gaudy performing acts typical of other Las Vegas casinos.[19]

Binion said he followed a simple philosophy when serving his customers: 'Good food, good whiskey cheap, and a good gamble.'[19][22]

Binion was known to be generous to patrons. For many years the Horseshoe had a late night $2 steak special, with most of the meat for the steaks coming from cattle on Binion's ranches in Montana. The Horseshoe is also believed to be the first major casino to offer 100-times-odds at craps (a patron with a bet on the pass or don't-pass lines could take or lay up to 100 times their bet in odds).[citation needed] The Horseshoe was one of the more profitable casinos in town.[20]

One of the tourist attractions in Binion's was a large horseshoe with $1 million in $10,000 bills, embedded in plastic.

After his trial and conviction in 1953, to cover back taxes and legal costs, Binion sold a majority share in the Horseshoe to fellow gambler and New Orleans oilman Joe W. Brown.[23] Binion’s family regained controlling interest in the Horseshoe in 1957, but did not regain full control until 1964.[24] Benny was never allowed to hold a gaming license afterwards. Instead, his son Jack became the licensee, with Benny assuming the title of Director of Public Relations.[25]

Binion styled himself a cowboy throughout his life. He almost never wore a necktie, and used gold coins as buttons on his cowboy shirts. Despite being technically barred from owning guns, he carried at least one pistol all his life, and kept a sawed-off shotgun close by. His office was a booth in the downstairs restaurant, and he knew many of his customers by name.

Poker[edit]

Benny Binion didn’t consider himself to be very good at poker, nor did he participate much in competition or private cash games, preferring to organize them. He was, however, inducted posthumously, in 1990, into the Poker Hall of Fame for his contributions to the game.[26]

Family[edit]

Binion and his wife, Teddy Jane, had five children: two sons, Jack and Ted, and three daughters, Barbara, Brenda and Becky.

Jack and Ted took over as president and casino manager, respectively, in 1964. Benny's wife, Teddy Jane, managed the casino cage until her death in 1994. In 1998, Binion's daughter, Becky, took over the presidency after a legal battle, and Jack moved on to other gambling interests. Becky's presidency saw the casino sink into debt. In 2004, federal agents seized $1 million from the Horseshoe's bankroll to satisfy unpaid union benefits, forcing its closure and eventual sale to Harrah's Entertainment.[27] It now operates as Binion's Gambling Hall and Hotel under the ownership of TLC Gaming Group.

Ted was under nearly constant scrutiny from the Nevada Gaming Commission from 1986 onwards for his involvement in drugs and associating with known mob figures. His gaming license was revoked in 1989, and he died in mysterious circumstances about a decade later. Ted's live-in girlfriend (Sandra Murphy) and a man with whom she was having an affair (Rick Tabish) were charged and convicted of his murder, but the verdict was later overturned. They were retried and acquitted.[28]

Legacy[edit]

In January 1949, Binion arranged for Johnny Moss and 'Nick the Greek' Dandalos to play a head-to-head poker tournament which ended up lasting five months, with Nick the Greek ultimately losing a reported two million dollars. The 42-year-old Moss had to take breaks to sleep occasionally, during which the Greek, then 57, went over to the craps table and played. After the final hand, and losing millions of dollars, Nick the Greek uttered one of the most famous poker quotes of all time, 'Mr. Moss, I have to let you go.' (This narrative is disputed as fact and is most likely a myth. Binion didn't operate a casino until 1951 in Las Vegas.)

In 1970, after years of arranging heads-up matches between high-stakes players, Binion invited six players to compete in a tournament.[29] Playing no-limit Texas Hold'em, the players competed for cash at the table, and later took a vote on who was to be named champion. Johnny Moss, then 63, was voted champion by his younger competition and received a small trophy. The following year, a freeze-out format was introduced with a $10,000 buy-in, and the World Series of Poker was born.

Binion's creation of the World Series helped the game of poker spread and become popular. Binion himself greatly underestimated how popular the World Series would become. In 1973, he speculated that eventually the tournament might have 50 or so entrants.[30] However, by 2006, the tournament's main event (not including all of the other events) would have 8,773 entrants.

Benny never forgot his Texas roots and was a key player in getting the National Finals Rodeo to move to Las Vegas. He never forgot the cowboys after they arrived; he always paid the entry fees for all of the cowboys for their championship event. When the casino closed, Boyd Gaming took up the tradition that Binion started by continuing to pay all the entry fees. Every year during the NFR there is a large rodeo stock auction called 'Benny Binion's World Famous Bucking Horse and Bull Sale.'

Benny Binion was also the owner of a horse named 'Nigger' (later referred to as 'Benny Binion's Gelding') who was the 1946, 1947 and 1948 National Cutting Horse Association (NCHA) World Champion.[31] Bred by Binion, ridden and trained by George Glascock, the solid black 15 hand gelding is the only horse to capture the NCHA World Championship three years in a row.[32]

Death[edit]

Binion died of heart failure at the age of 85 on December 5, 1989 in Las Vegas.[33] Poker great 'Amarillo Slim' Preston suggested as an epitaph, 'He was either the gentlest bad guy or the baddest good guy you'd ever seen.'[34] He was posthumously inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1990.

In popular culture[edit]

Relativity Media bought the screen rights to the book Blood Aces: The Wild Ride Of Benny Binion to be written for the screen by Cliff Dorfman, which will be a biopic on Binion's life.[35]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^Doug Swanson. Blood Aces, (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), pp. 7-9. ISBN9780143127581
  2. ^Doug Swanson. Blood Aces, (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), pp. 12-13. ISBN9780143127581
  3. ^Reid, Ed, and Ovid Demaris. 1963. The Green Felt Jungle. Buccaneer Books, p. 154; Jay Robert Nash, World Encyclopedia of Organized Crime (1993). Da Capo Press
  4. ^Doug Swanson. Blood Aces, (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), p. 13-14. ISBN9780143127581
  5. ^Doug Swanson. Blood Aces, (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), p. 23. ISBN9780143127581
  6. ^Doug Swanson. Blood Aces, (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), p. 27. ISBN9780143127581
  7. ^ abcdGary Cartwright, Benny and the Boys, Texas Monthly, October 1991
  8. ^ abDoug Swanson. Blood Aces, (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), p. 25. ISBN9780143127581
  9. ^Doug Swanson. Blood Aces, (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), pp. 52-53. ISBN9780143127581
  10. ^ abReid, Ed, and Ovid Demaris. 1963. The Green Felt Jungle. Buccaneer Books, pp. 156-157.
  11. ^Doug Swanson. Blood Aces, (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), pp. 45-47. ISBN9780143127581
  12. ^Reid, Ed, and Ovid Demaris. 1963. The Green Felt Jungle. Buccaneer Books, p. 158.
  13. ^Reid, Ed, and Ovid Demaris. 1963. The Green Felt Jungle. Buccaneer Books, p. 160.
  14. ^Doug Swanson. Blood Aces, (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), pp. 74-75. ISBN9780143127581
  15. ^Reid, Ed, and Ovid Demaris. 1963. The Green Felt Jungle. Buccaneer Books, pp. 157-176.
  16. ^Reid, Ed, and Ovid Demaris. 1963. The Green Felt Jungle. Buccaneer Books, pp. 176-177.
  17. ^Doug Swanson. Blood Aces, (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), p. 120. ISBN9780143127581
  18. ^Doug Swanson. Blood Aces, (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), p. 121. ISBN9780143127581
  19. ^ abcdLinda Chase. Picturing Las Vegas, (Layton: Gibbs Smith, 2009), p. 17. ISBN9781423604884
  20. ^ abA. D. Hopkins, Benny Binion, Las Vegas Review-Journal, February 7, 1999
  21. ^Jack Sheehan. The Players: The Men Who Made Las Vegas, (University of Nevada Press, 1997), p. 62. ISBN087417306X
  22. ^Oral History, Lester 'Benny' Binion, University of Nevada, Reno, 1976
  23. ^Doug Swanson. Blood Aces, (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), p. 214-15. ISBN9780143127581
  24. ^Retrospective on Horseshoe's history from UNLV Center for Gaming Research
  25. ^Doug Swanson. Blood Aces, (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), p. 246. ISBN9780143127581
  26. ^'Benny Binion's Life: Biggest Profits, Losses and Net Worth'. Somuchpoker. January 24, 2020. Retrieved September 30, 2020.
  27. ^Binion's Horseshoe: Deal with Harrah's finalized. Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2004-01-23
  28. ^'Las Vegas City Life'. Archived from the original on September 4, 2012. Retrieved April 2, 2007.
  29. ^Doug Swanson. Blood Aces, (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), p. 257. ISBN9780143127581
  30. ^Doug Swanson. Blood Aces, (New York: Penguin Books, 2014), p. 309. ISBN9780143127581
  31. ^Michelson, Miles. 'Nigger'. www.allbreedpedigree.com. Retrieved December 11, 2017.
  32. ^Sage, Dean (1961). Training and riding the cutting horse. Western Horseman. p. 12.
  33. ^'Benny Binion Is Dead; Casino Owner Was 85'. The New York Times. December 27, 1989. Archived from the original on September 17, 2014. Retrieved September 17, 2014.
  34. ^''The Baddest Good Guy You'd Ever Seen''. The New York Times. December 24, 2005.
  35. ^Fleming, Mike. 'Relativity Buys 'Blood Aces'; Story Of Benny Binion, The Cowboy-Gangster-Killer Who Hatched World Series Of Poker'. Deadline. Retrieved January 13, 2015.

Further reading[edit]

  • Ann Arnold. 1998. Gamblers & Gangsters: Fort Worth's Jacksboro Highway in the 1940s & 1950s Eakin Press
  • Cathy Scott. 2000. Death in the Desert: The Ted Binion Homicide Case 1st Book Library
  • Jim Gatewood. 2002. Benny Binion: The legend of Benny Binion, Dallas gambler and mob boss Mullaney Corp
  • Jay Robert Nash, 1993. World Encyclopedia of Organized Crime Da Capo Press
  • Ed Reid and Ovid Demaris. 1963. The Green Felt Jungle Buccaneer Books
  • Gary Sleeper. 2006. I'll Do My Own Damn Killin': Benny Binion, Herbert Noble, and the Texas Gambling War Barricade Books
  • Doug J. Swanson. 2014. Blood Aces: The Wild Ride of Benny Binion, The Texas Gangster Who Created Las Vegas Poker, Penguin ISBN9780698163508

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Benny Binion.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benny_Binion&oldid=1007260487'

The MIT Blackjack Team was a group of students and ex-students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and other leading colleges who used card counting techniques and more sophisticated strategies to beat casinos at blackjack worldwide. The team and its successors operated successfully from 1979 through the beginning of the 21st century. Many other blackjack teams have been formed around the world with the goal of beating the casinos.

Blackjack and card counting[edit]

Blackjack can be legally beaten by a skilled player. Beyond the basic strategy of when to hit and when to stand, individual players can use card counting, shuffle tracking, or hole carding to improve their odds. Since the early 1960s, a large number of card counting schemes have been published, and casinos have adjusted the rules of play in an attempt to counter the most popular methods. The idea behind all card counting is that, because a low card is usually bad and a high card usually good, and as cards already seen since the last shuffle cannot be at the top of the deck and thus drawn, the counter can determine the high and low cards that have already been played. They thus know the probability of getting a high card (10,J,Q,K,A) as compared to a low card (2,3,4,5,6).

In 1979, six MIT students and residents of the Burton-Conner House at MIT taught themselves card-counting. They traveled to Atlantic City during the spring break to win their fortune. The group went their separate ways when most of them graduated in May of that year. Most never gambled again, but some of them maintained an avid interest in card counting and remained in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Two of them, J.P. Massar and Jonathan, offered a course on blackjack for MIT's January, 1980 Independent Activities Period (IAP), during which classes may be offered on almost any subject.

First MIT blackjack 'bank'[edit]

In late November 1979, Dave, a professional blackjack player contacted one of the card-counting students, J.P. Massar, after seeing a notice for the blackjack course. He proposed forming a new group to go to Atlantic City to take advantage of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission's recent ruling that made it illegal for the Atlantic City casinos to ban card counters. Casinos instead have to take other countermeasures like shuffling the cards earlier than normal, using more decks of cards, or offering games with worse rules to destroy the advantage gained by counting—even though these all negatively impact the non-counter as well.[1]

The group of four players, a professional gambler, and an investor who put up most of their capital ($5,000), went to Atlantic City in late December. They recruited more MIT students as players at the January blackjack class. They played intermittently through May 1980 and increased their capital four-fold, but were nonetheless more like a loose group sharing capital than a team with consistent strategies and quality control.

'Mr. M' meets Bill Kaplan[edit]

In May 1980, J. P. Massar, known as 'Mr. M' in the History Channel documentary, overheard a conversation about professional blackjack at a Chinese restaurant in Cambridge. He introduced himself to the speaker, Bill Kaplan, a 1980 Harvard MBA graduate who had run a successful blackjack team in Las Vegas three years earlier. Kaplan had earned his BA at Harvard in 1977 and delayed his admission to Harvard Business School for a year, when he moved to Las Vegas and formed a team of blackjack players using his own research and statistical analysis of the game. Using funds he received on graduation as Harvard's outstanding scholar-athlete, Kaplan generated more than a 35 fold rate of return in fewer than nine months of play.[2]

Kaplan continued to run his Las Vegas blackjack team as a sideline while attending Harvard Business School but, by the time of his graduation in May 1980, the players were so 'burnt out' in Nevada they were forced to hit the international circuit. Not feeling he could continue to manage the team successfully while they traveled throughout Europe and elsewhere, encountering different rules, playing conditions, and casino practices, Kaplan parted ways with his teammates, who then splintered into multiple small playing teams in pursuit of more favorable conditions throughout the world.

Kaplan observes Massar and friends in action[edit]

After meeting Kaplan and hearing about his blackjack successes, Massar asked Kaplan if he was interested in going with a few of Massar's blackjack-playing friends to Atlantic City to observe their play. Given the fortuitous timing (Kaplan's parting with his Las Vegas team), he agreed to go in the hopes of putting together a new local team that he could train and manage.

Kaplan observed Massar and his teammates playing for a weekend in Atlantic City. He noted that each of the players used a different, and overcomplicated, card counting strategy. This resulted in error rates that undermined the benefits of the more complicated strategies. Upon returning to Cambridge, Kaplan detailed the problems he observed to Massar.

Kaplan capitalizes a new team[edit]

Kaplan said he would back a team but it had to be run as a business with formal management procedures, a required counting and betting system, strict training and player approval processes, and careful tracking of all casino play. A couple of the players were initially averse to the idea. They had no interest in having to learn a new playing system, being put through 'trial by fire' checkout procedures before being approved to play, being supervised in the casinos, or having to fill out detailed player sheets (such as casino, cash in and cash out totals, time period, betting strategy and limits, and the rest) for every playing session. However, their keen interest in the game coupled with Kaplan's successful track record won out.

Club Jack Casino Cleveland

The newly capitalised 'bank' of the MIT Blackjack Team started on 1 August 1980. The investment stake was $89,000, with both outside investors and players putting up the capital. Ten players, including Kaplan, Massar, Jonathan, Goose, and 'Big Dave' (aka 'coach', to distinguish from the Dave in the first round) played on this bank. Ten weeks later they more than doubled the original stake. Profits per hour played at the tables were $162.50, statistically equivalent to the projected rate of $170/hour detailed in the investor offering prospectus. Per the terms of the investment offering, players and investors split the profits with players paid in proportion to their playing hours and computer simulated win rates. Over the ten-week period of this first bank, players, mostly undergraduates, earned an average of over $80/hour while investors achieved an annualized return in excess of 250%.

Strategy and techniques[edit]

The team often recruited students through flyers and the players' friends from college campuses across the country. The team tested potential members to find out if they were suitable candidates and, if they were, the team thoroughly trained the new members for free. Fully trained players had to pass an intense 'trial by fire,' consisting of playing through 8 six-deck shoes with almost perfect play, and then undergo further training, supervision, and similar check-outs in actual casino play until they could become full stakes players.

The group combined individual play with a team approach of counters and big players to maximize opportunities and disguise the betting patterns that card counting produces. In a 2002 interview in Blackjack Forum magazine,[3] John Chang, an MIT undergrad who joined the team in late 1980 (and became MIT team co-manager in the mid-1980s and 1990s), reported that, in addition to classic card counting and blackjack team techniques, at various times the group used advanced shuffle and ace tracking techniques. While the MIT team's card counting techniques can give players an overall edge of about 2 percent, some of the MIT team's methods have been established as gaining players an overall edge of about 4 percent.[citation needed] In his interview, Chang reported that the MIT team had difficulty attaining such edges in actual play, and their overall results had been best with straight card counting.

The MIT Team's approach was originally developed by Al Francesco, elected by professional gamblers as one of the original seven inductees into the Blackjack Hall of Fame. Blackjack team play was first written about by Ken Uston, an early member of Al Francesco's teams. Uston's book on blackjack team play, Million Dollar Blackjack, was published shortly before the founding of the first MIT team. Kaplan enhanced Francesco's team methods and used them for the MIT team. The team concept enabled players and investors to leverage both their time and money, reducing their 'risk of ruin' while also making it more difficult for casinos to detect card counting at their tables.

Team history 1980–1990[edit]

The MIT Blackjack Team continued to play throughout the 1980s, growing to as many as 35 players in 1984 with a capitalization of as much as $350,000. Having played and run successful teams since 1977, Kaplan reached a point in late 1984 where he could not show his face in any casino without being followed by the casino personnel in search of his team members. As a consequence he decided to fall back on his growing real estate investment and development company, his 'day job' since 1980, and stopped managing the team. He continued for another year or so as an occasional player and investor in the team, now being run by Massar, Chang and Bill Rubin, a player who joined the team in 1984.

The MIT Blackjack Team ran at least 22 partnerships in the time period from late 1979 through 1989. At least 70 people played on the team in some capacity (either as counters, Big Players, or in various supporting roles) over that time span. Every partnership was profitable during this time period, after paying all expenses as well as the players' and managers' share of the winnings, with returns to investors ranging from 4%/year to over 300%/year.

Strategic Investments 1992–1993[edit]

In 1992, Bill Kaplan, J.P. Massar, and John Chang decided to capitalize on the opening of Foxwoods Casino in nearby Connecticut, where they planned to train new players. Acting as the General Partner, they formed a Massachusetts Limited Partnership in June 1992 called Strategic Investments to bankroll the new team. Structured similar to the numerous real estate development limited partnerships that Kaplan had formed, the limited partnership raised a million dollars, significantly more money than any of their previous teams, with a method based on Edward Thorp's high low system. It involved three players: a big player, a controller, and a spotter. The spotter checked when the deck went positive with card counting, the controller would bet small constantly, wasting money, and verifying the spotter's count. Once the controller found a positive, he would signal to the big player. He would make a massive bet, and win big. Confident with this new funding, the three general partners ramped up their recruitment and training efforts to capitalize on the opportunity.

Over the next two years, the MIT Team grew to nearly 80 players, including groups and players in Cambridge, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, and Washington. Sarah McCord, who joined the team in 1983 as an MIT student and later moved to California, was added as a partner soon after SI was formed and became responsible for training and recruitment of West Coast players.

At various times, there were nearly 30 players playing simultaneously at different casinos around the world, including Native American casinos throughout the country, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Canada, and island locations. Never before had casinos throughout the world seen such an organized and scientific onslaught directed at the game. While the profits rolled in, so did the 'heat' from the casinos, and many MIT Team members were identified and barred. These members were replaced by fresh players from MIT, Harvard, and other colleges and companies, and play continued. Eventually, investigators hired by casinos realized that many of those they had banned had addresses in or near Cambridge, and the connection to MIT and a formalized team became clear. The detectives obtained copies of recent MIT yearbooks and added photographs from it to their image database.

With its leading players banned from most casinos and other more lucrative investment opportunities opening up at the end of the recession, Strategic Investments paid out its substantial earnings to players and investors and dissolved its partnership on December 31, 1993.

1994 and forward[edit]

Jack

After the dissolution of Strategic Investments, a few of the players took their winnings and split off into two independent groups. The Amphibians were primarily led by Semyon Dukach, with Dukach as the big player, Katie Lilienkamp (a controller), and Andy Bloch (a spotter). The other team was the Reptiles, led by Mike Aponte, Manlio Lopez and Wes Atamian. These teams had various legal structures, and at times million dollar banks and 50+ players. By 2000 the 15+ year reign of the MIT Blackjack Teams came to an end as players drifted into other pursuits.

In 1999, a member of the Amphibians won at Max Rubin's 3rd Annual Blackjack Ball competition. The event was featured in an October 1999 Cigar Aficionado article, which said the winner earned the unofficial title 'Most Feared Man in the Casino Business'.[4]

In the media[edit]

Books[edit]

  • A variety of stories about a few of the players from the MIT Blackjack Team formed the basis of The New York Times best-sellingBringing Down the House, written by Ben Mezrich. While originally marketed as nonfiction, Mezrich later admitted characters and stories in the book were mostly fictive and composites of players and stories he had heard about through hearsay. The private investigation firm referred to as Plymouth in Bringing Down the House was Griffin Investigations.[5]
  • Mezrich wrote a follow-up book, Busting Vegas, which took even greater liberty with the actual happenings of the team. Many events in this book were at least partly based on incidents that occurred during the team's Strategic Investments era.[6]
  • Jeffrey Ma wrote a book titled The House Advantage: Playing the Odds to Win Big in Business about his time on the 1994 MIT blackjack team.
  • Nathaniel Tilton, a student of former MIT team captains Mike Aponte and Semyon Dukach, authored The Blackjack Life detailing his experiences playing and being trained by the MIT Blackjack Team players.[7]

Films[edit]

  • The 2004 film The Last Casino is loosely based on this premise and features three students and a professor counting cards in Ontario and Quebec.[8]
  • The 2008 film 21, inspired by Bringing Down the House and produced by and starring Kevin Spacey and Jim Sturgess, was released on March 28, 2008 by Columbia Pictures. Jeff Ma and Henry Houh, former players on the team, appear in the movie as casino dealers, and Bill Kaplan appears in a cameo in the background of the underground Chinese gambling parlor scene. The script took significant artistic license with events, with most of its plot being invented for the movie, hence it refers to being 'inspired by true events' rather than 'based on true events.' One of the most significant departures from reality was the portrayal of the team being run by a professor (the Kevin Spacey character), when in reality the team was always run by students and alumni. The characters in the movie were also fictionalized amalgams of various players throughout the years of the team's existence - for example, the character Choi is very loosely (and inaccurately) based on Johnny Chang, and the character Ben Campbell, is an amalgam of numerous players, with the opening scene based on Big Dave's interview, and subsequent admission to Harvard Medical School, where much of the interview revolved around his participation on the team.
  • The 2010 film Teen Patti is an uncredited remake of 21.

Television[edit]

  • The Mysteries at the Museum series on the Travel Channel featured the story of the MIT Blackjack Team in the episode titled 'Siamese Twins, Assassin Umbrella, Capone's Cell'.
  • The story of the MIT Blackjack Team, in its incarnation as Strategic Investments, was told in The History Channel documentary, Breaking Vegas, directed by Bruce David Klein.
  • The Bringing Down The House period was featured on episodes of the Game Show Network documentary series, Anything to Win, and HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (episode 116).
  • The BBC documentary, Making Millions the Easy Way, addressed the Bringing Down the House period as part of the renowned 'Horizon' strand (directed by Johanna Gibbon), told the story of a Strategic Investments breakaway group, and revealed the science behind the winning formula.
  • 'Double Down', an episode of Numb3rs concerned a counting group, led by a High School teacher, which launders money through casino winnings.

Other[edit]

Several members of the two teams have used their expertise to start public speaking careers as well as businesses teaching others how to count cards. For example:

  • Mike Aponte of the Reptiles co-founded a company with former MIT Blackjack Team member David Irvine called the Blackjack Institute.
  • Semyon Dukach of the Amphibians founded Blackjack Science.

References[edit]

  1. ^Griffin, Peter A. (1979). The Theory of Blackjack. Huntington Press. ISBN0-915141-02-7.
  2. ^'How a team of students beat the casinos'. BBC.com. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
  3. ^Blackjack Forum interview with Johnny Chang
  4. ^The Twenty One Club: The annual blackjack ball hosts Gambling's Most Furtive (and Quirky) FraternityArchived 2009-04-20 at the Wayback Machine cigaraficionado.com, Sept/Oct 1999
  5. ^Ian Kaplan (March 2004). 'review of Bringing Down the House'.
  6. ^ThePOGG (10 November 2012). 'ThePOGG Interviews – Semyon Dukach – MIT Card Counting team captain'.
  7. ^'ThePOGG Interviews – Nathaniel Tilton author of 'The Blackjack Life''. Retrieved 6 March 2013.
  8. ^The Last Casino at IMDb.Retrieved 2009-11-03.

External links[edit]

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