Online Gambling PhD
Bringing Down the
House
Dear Mark,
What do you know about a group of college students who
were featured on NBC Dateline who beat the casinos in
Las Vegas out of millions by card counting? Doug F.
First, Doug, a quick point of fact. It was ABC Primetime
who did the segment, not NBC Dateline.
Herešs how it went down. During the 1990s, six MIT
students by employing card counting techniques made
millions of dollars playing blackjack in Vegas casinos
on the weekends.
Your typical card counter can be spotted easily because
they tend to make large bets for no apparent reason, but
these counters had four individuals spread out making
them as a group much harder to detect. They used a
back-spotter that would stand and count cards, but not
play. A spotter, who would make small bets at the table
and relay messages to the Gorilla. The Gorilla would
move around from table to table placing huge bets when
the spotter and back-spotter indicated that there might
be an advantage at a table. And finally, you had the Big
Player, who would play large hands and count the cards.
Casinos fastidiously keep track on card counters by
employing agencies that seek out, and monitor suspected
card counters. They were caught when someone from their
own inner circle sold their names to an agency in Las
Vegas. After that, anytime they entered a casino; they
were shown the door.
It is an interesting story, yes, but hardly new. Ken
Uston described the same sophisticated of team
collaboration and mathematical mastery two decades
earlier in his book, The Big Player: How a Team of
Blackjack Players Made a Million Dollars. But, Doug, if
you want to read more about this group of counters,
check out Ben Mezrichšs book, Bringing Down the House:
The Inside Story of Six MIT Students who Took Vegas for
Millions.
Dear Mark,
Do you happen to know the origin of strip poker? Russell
R.
I received a question similar to yours a few years
ago, but to date, I have yet to find the actual origin
of the game strip poker.
I can perceive risk takers of past cultures sitting
around a campfire playing with black walnut half shells
filled with pine resin and charcoal shaking die trying
to induce the opposite sex to shed a garment or two, but
I still cannot find any lineage of the game.
Your question, Russell, does remind me of a true story a
dear friend shared with me that happened in a casino in
Monaco. An American consultant working out of Milano,
stopped off for an evening of fun while en route to
Paris to pick up his wife-of French extraction-who'd
been visiting the family farm up around Charleville.
He staked out a roulette table where a gorgeous
brunette, very nearly into a low-cut gown, had done well
early on, but had been on a slide for the last several
spins and clearly didn't have enough moolah left to play
again. She stamped a pretty little foot and began to
leave with the bravura look that needs no translation:
"OK, you bastards! Just you wait!"
She and my acquaintance had been playing on opposite
sides of the table and were aware of each other but
hadn't actually spoken until she now stormed past him.
He had been quite lucky and now, like the generous
philosopher he was, he tapped her on the elbow and
offered to stake her for another round or so.
"And why would monsieur want to do that?"
"Blind faith, cash overload, not to mention an eye for
the chic and decorative."
"Too kind, a gallant gesture .... and collateral ?"
"Your underwear-at so much per item."
"Oh, mon Dieu, jamais, jamais; I'm not that kind ...
etc., etc."
And so it was arranged that in exchange for his loan,
she would visit the ladies' room and return leaving in
his hands whatever she wore under the gown-at 30,000
francs per item.
As it turned out, bit by bit, she lost the 90,000 francs
and along about dawn withdrew to her hotel. The
consultant, a man of wide-ranging concepts, well above
dreary details, was left with three items of intimate
apparel in his pockets.
Typically, he failed to dispose of the evidence, and
would his wife ever believe how he got them out of a
pure humanitarian gesture?
Of course not.
Online Gambling quote of the week: "Vegas holds a warm
place in my heart, although, I used to go in a $30,000
car and come home in an $800,000 bus." -actor James Caan
-------------------------
|
