The MIT Card Counting Team
Online casinos can be pretty entertaining. Many people are confident they can beat the system and attempt to play at the top online casinos. They will try as hard as they can, but eventually, they are caught and banned for the rest of their lives.
If we go back to brick-and-mortar casinos, we will find some people who beat them for a brief time. This is what gives them a place in casino history. Las Vegas and the MIT Card counting team were responsible for one such legend.
This story is fantastic because beating the odds in any casino game, such Casinos requires a lot of patience and specialized training. The MIT team was a group of university students who were ambitious and extremely intelligent. The team was able to count cards because of their high IQs in science and math.
These university students enjoyed playing poker and other casino games in the 1980s. They decided to test their intelligence by trying to beat a casino. A former professor at MIT decided to put a bunch of students to the test. After carefully eliminating the weaker players, he formed a group that was able to count cards. The professor then taught them how to use verbal and nonverbal cues to win at the casino.
The 1990s were when the team performed at its peak. The team would wager tens to thousands of dollars per hand, and the casinos loved big spenders. These casinos were not privy to the truth. While there is no official record of their winnings, some believe the team raked millions of dollars. They would do their card counting on weekends, then return to school Monday mornings and act as average students.
It wasn’t the casino that was catching up to the MIT team. It was their egos that eventually led to their downfall. They lost their money, VIP status, and free travel – which is understandable given the group of children. The pattern of friends was one of the first things casino security noticed. Casino security began to see the team being more active than they should be.
The team was ultimately expelled from the casinos.
In “21”, you can see the fast-paced action of their adventures. The movie stars Kevin Spacey as the professor and Kate Bosworth as the famous MIT card-counting team member. It didn’t end there for the actual team. Although they tried to hide their identities to return to the tables, casino security proved too bright. Rumors are that some team members may still be playing in European online casinos. Maybe they have learned from their mistakes this time and are now making big bucks.
Is it any wonder that no one was sent to jail? Incredibly, they weren’t doing anything illegal. It is nearly impossible to prove card counting in your head. Unless the CIA develops mind-reading technology and sells it off to casinos, card counting is likely to go unnoticed for all eternity.
