MIT Blackjack Team Coming to a Theatre This March: "21" Shows How it was Done

The premiere of "21," the movie about the MIT Blackjack team, opens the South by Southwest Film Conference & Festival in Austin March 7.  It's about a group of students who learned how to beat the casinos playing blackjack. 

Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne star in the Columbia Pictures film that is based on Ben Mezrich's bestseller "Bringing Down the House".  The Robert Luketic-directed "21" opens in theaters March 28.

The team and its successors operated from 1979 through the beginning of the 21st century.

Blackjack gives the house a low statistical advantage compared to other casino games. Beyond the basic strategy of when to hit and when to stand, individual players can use a combination of betting strategy, card tracking, and card counting 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 to counter the most popular methods.

The origin of the MIT Blackjack Team was a mini-course called 'How to Gamble if you Must', taught in January 1979 at MIT over what is known as Independent Activities Period (IAP). A number of MIT students from a living group known as Burton-Conner, who often played penny-ante poker with each other, attended this course and learned about blackjack and card counting methods.



Determined to put their newly-discovered knowledge to work, the group resolved to travel to Atlantic City in the spring of 1979 to win their fortunes. Failing miserably in this endeavor, the group went their separate ways when most of them graduated in May, but two members maintained an avid interest in card counting. These people decided to give their own IAP course on card counting in January 1980, and created a course-listing in the MIT Independent Activities Period Guide, published in early November of 1979.

In late November of 1979 a Burton 5 resident known as 'Big Dave', contacted Johnny Chang, another Burton 5 resident, and JP Massar of Connor III (the original organizers), and proposed forming a new team to travel down to Atlantic City and taken advantage of the New Jersey Casino Commission's recent ruling that made it illegal for the Atlantic City casinos to bar card counters.

The team, consisting of four players and an investor who put up most of its $5000 in capital, went to Atlantic City in late December after months of intense training, and over the next few weeks doubled and then redoubled its capital.

This was the beginning of the actual MIT blackjack team. The team members held their January IAP course and recruited a number of additional MIT students as players. The players continued to play in Atlantic City through May of 1980 but sustained consistent losses during this period. Frustrated and bewildered by their inability to win at the game, some of the original players suspended play and new trainees dropped out. In May of 1980, Big Dave was voted off the team because of disagreements over whether certain shuffle-tracking techniques were mathematically correct, as well as disagreements over strategic directions.

With most of the original team barred, most members retired, having made an amount variously reported as $1 million to $10 million. Some members have used reports of their successes to start public-speaking careers or businesses selling blackjack card counting systems or running blackjack seminars. J.P. Massar, the team founder known as Mr. M, became involved in playing No Limit hold-em and was a coach for 2002 World Series of Poker champion Robert Varkonyi, another MIT graduate.

At one point, the team was betrayed by someone who sold a list of team members to Griffin Investigations.

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Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com

Originally published January 6, 2008 6:33 pm EST