MIT Blackjack Team

The MIT Blackjack Team is the oldest organized team of blackjack players and the players were students and graduated students from some of the top schools in the United States including Harvard University, Harvard Business School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The team consisted of very educated individuals who used every technique available to beat the casinos at the blackjack tables.

Some of the techniques that the team used in order to beat the casinos consisted of card counting, hole carding, shuffle tracking and many others as well which they developed over the years. The MIT Blackjack Team first started after a few individuals attended a mini course at MIT on How to Gamble if you Must. The people who attended the mini course learned card counting techniques that they could use when playing blackjack.

The MIT Blackjack Team went on their first trip in 1979 during the spring to the casinos in Atlantic City, but the trip wasn’t good at all to the team and they ended up losing all of their capital. After the first trip the team decided to split up and most graduated and took on regular jobs, but two of the original MIT players stuck around to learn better techniques and to recruit a new team of players and investors.

The two players who wanted to continue the team presented the same mini course they seen the year before to new students and recruited players who were interested. The team was very small when it formed again and they only had $5K to use on the tables, but they managed to make small amounts of profits this time. They weren’t making it big time though, and most of the team were debating on whether the idea would work or not.

In 1980 the team met Bill Kaplan who was a very successful blackjack player and had already had experience running a blackjack team in Vegas. Bill spent some time watching the team and decided that he would take part in the partnership if it was run like a business. The MIT Blackjack Team formed what was known as a bank with all the funds from investors and players. The fund reached $89K quickly and then the team started playing blackjack.

After only a little over two months the team had doubled the original investment already, and they were making profits of over $150 per hour on average which is incredible. The team ran strong well into the 21st century and although it isn’t running anymore you can bet there are plenty of blackjack teams still making profits at the tables. The MIT Blackjack Team is the most famous blackjack team in the world and they made a mark in casinos all across the globe.

In 1993 the team’s investment funds were dissolved and paid out to the players and investors accordingly. Now that the team wasn’t backed by the investment fund they ended up splitting up and joining other teams with large banks to use. Most of the major players had already been banned from the casinos around the world so most of them moved into real estate which is why the team’s bank was dissolved and paid out to everyone involved.