When it comes to casinos, everybody knows the likelihood of winning big is rather slim. This is because the house always has the edge no matter what. Most people will have heard stories about people who have managed to upset the odds on a lucky occasion, walking away with huge amounts of cash. Well a team of MIT students not only managed to win big by getting lucky or even by cheating. They managed to win millions by playing blackjack using a very special system called card counting.
People have tried and failed to swing the odds in their favour in the past but usually by cheating. The MIT students learnt three skills in particular. They understood the basic playing strategy of blackjack and knew it like the back of their hand. They learnt to count cards, a skill that many have tried to master many times but failed and they also learned how to work together as a team in order to reach their goals.
With all the members of the MIT team knowing their roles and working as a team, the spotters would enter a casino and get themselves positioned at various blackjack tables on the premises. What these players did was use their card counting skills to determine when the deck went positive. A deck being positive means the edge is in the players’ favour. The spotters themselves wouldn’t increase their best, they would give a signal to a team member known as the Big Player or BP to come and enter the game, betting big. When the deck goes negative, the spotter signals again and the big player leaves the table.
The system worked because of how the MIT students planned it meticulously. The spotters never raised suspicion as they always bet low continuously. The big player just appeared like any other high roller, throwing huge amounts down hand after hand. They also devised the signals perfectly to indicate when the deck is warm, hot, boiling hot, cold or if there was a problem and they had to depart immediately.
The fact that the MIT team had a team bankroll was probably their biggest weapon against the casinos. As well as the players having money themselves in the pot, they were backed by investors too. Every player in the team used the team bankroll like it was their own and this allowed for them to place bigger bets and therefore win more money. This is precisely why blackjack teams have become so powerful.
After months of practice and getting everything spot on, the MIT team was ready to take on the casinos. They started winning and even losses were not as damaging due to the fact they were working together as a team with one bank roll. As time progressed their pot grew as wins increased and as the team started to grow, still using the same systems, the wins grew with them. At one stage they had millions in their pot and this was down to the way the MIT students went about their business inside the casinos.
