The MIT Card Counting Team
Playing online casinos is not without its drama. There are several individuals who are more than sure they can somehow beat the system and try to take on the best casinos online. Try as they will many if not all, eventually get caught and subsequently get banned for life.
Going back in time to the more popular brick and mortar casinos, there are some who did in fact beat the casinos for a short period of time, leaving them a place in casino history. One such legendary story came from Las Vegas and the MIT card counting team.
This particular story is truly amazing because beating the odds at any popular casino game, in this case Casinos, takes particular skills, major training and quite a bit of patience. Enter the MIT team, a group of university students who obviously were ambitious and incredibly intelligent. Because of their IQ in math and science, the team developed an incredible talent for card counting.
During the 1980’s these university students played Poker and other casino games simply for fun. It wasn’t too long after that they decided to explore just how smart they really were by attempting to beat a casino. Finally, a former MIT professor decided to gather a group of students and put them to the test. After carefully weeding out the weaker players, he eventually formed a group of students with the inept ability to count cards. It was then that the training began, the professor taught them discipline and how to utilize verbal and non-verbal cues to beat the casino.
It was during the 1990’s where the team was playing at peak performance. They would bet tens of thousands of dollars per hand and the casinos as you well know loved the big spenders. These popular casinos had no clue what the heck was really going on…well, not at this point anyway. Although there is no official count of their winnings, some estimate the team milked the casinos for millions of dollars. Amazingly they would perform their card counting tricks on weekends then return to school on Monday and act like average students.
Believe it or not, it wasn’t the casino that caught up with the MIT team, unfortunately they caught up with themselves and eventually it was their enormous egos that would see their demise. The money, free trips and major VIP status went straight to their heads – understandable for a group of kids. Casino security began noticing their mistakes – one in particular was the pattern of friends. The casinos began noticing the team hanging around more often than they should have.
The team was eventually banned from the casinos.
You can watch the fast paced action of their adventures in a movie called “21”. It stars Kevin Spacey as the professor and Kate Bosworth as one of the legendary MIT card counting team. For the real team it didn’t quite end there. They did try to change their identities and get back to the tables, but casino security got way to smart. Some of the team members are rumored to still be playing today in European online casino. Perhaps this time they learned from their mistakes and are raking in the big bucks.
Are you wondering why no one ended up in jail? Unbelievably what they were doing was not illegal. You see, card counting in your own head is almost impossible to prove. Unless the CIA comes out with mind reading technology and sells it to casinos, card counting will go completely un-noticed for eternity.