It's 1961 and Pit Bosses are rushing across the , MGM casino floor an awkward looking youngster has just won nine Blackjack hands in a row it's , costing the house thousands they think he must be cheating but they haven't got a clue how they . have no idea who he is but soon they won't forget his name because this is the true story of . a man that beat Vegas and changed casinos forever to understand how it happened . we need to go back 2 years earlier it's 1959 in Massachusetts and Ed Thorp a driven math PhD has just started a premier teaching position at MIT he's a true geek , deeply engrossed in solving puzzles to him tackling complex problems is fun he calculates the . odds on everything uh every Everything everyday things uh he's very involved with statistics of . every kind so when he stumbles across an article in an academic Journal that details the issue . of probability in blackjack he's intrigued the charm of blackjack lies in its simple play Victory requires a player to hold a card total surpassing the dealers without exceeding 21 the article . Thorp's been reading details the optimal approach for playing each possible hand it's precisely the , type of mathematical puzzle that gets Thorp going with a brief getaway to Vegas already planned , his interest is peaked now he's not interested in risk-taking and somewhat short on funds but . while he's there he decides to engage in a little play so he can get a feel for the game we went out to Las Vegas and I never gambled because I knew it was a loser for most people and the odds . were against you but I I bet $10 and I played for about 40 minutes and I had an interesting , experience armed with insights from the article we previously pursued he takes a seat holding . a small card listed on the card of fundamental strategies for playing Blackjack efficiently the people at the table around him almost immediately erupt into laughter the dealer even ridicules him asking him what farm he comes from in an attempt to recover his dignity he tells them that it's his first time playing they think he's stupid but an unexpected turn is just around the corner his , strategy card recommends him to play the opposite hand to what the more season players around him , might propose his system is counterintuitive the outcome his first systematic win the dealer is , shocked Thorp however is immediately hooked at this point he's convinced there's a method to outsmart the casinos it's a defining moment that leads him onto an obsessive Adventure . he just can't resist I was intrigued by this problem of blackjack because mathematicians had . spent roughly 300 years studying and analyzing gambling games and no one had ever found a way to . beat any of the uh major gambling games Blackjack is unique to all other games the odds shift with , each play this realization is at the core of his plan and though he ends up losing his money . shortly after this small significant insight has set the stage for Monumental impact on both forp and blackjack forever you see most casino games rely on random distribution each play is . independent from the last they're not linked at all take roulette for instance outcome of 20 , consecutive reds don't influence the likelihood of the next spin being red just like the toss of , a coin however Blackjack is different and back in 1959 when Thorp first secured this win Blackjack was being played using a 52 card deck as each hand was dealt and set aside the composition of the remaining cards he shifted in the deck thought's punch was this both the player and the . house ODS actually moved back and forth during game playay as cards were then removed from the , deck in theory he could keep track of the cards that had been played and then potentially he could , outsmart the greedy Pit Bosses at their own game it appeared almost too good to be true he just had to perform numerous calculations to perfect his newly discovered strategy however a few weeks . with a calculator revealed that the single deck could result in 32 million different combinations . working at the pace of 60 calculations a minute it would take him more than 10,000 years to complete , but thorp's luck is in with technology advancing a programmable computer with his local University , will allow him to simulate all 34 million hands a lot quicker eventually after almost a year of , late nights and total Obsession Thorp thinks he's cracked it 1960 I had all the results it . showed that there were drastic shifts depending on which cars were out thorp's analysis revealed .

significant flux situations based on the early removal of certain cards he's pinpointed exactly which cards tilted the odds in the casino's favor and which ones benefited the player in essence , removing smaller cards from the deck shifted the odds in the player's favor adversely removing , larger cards favors the casino now regardless of the cards that are laid out by the dealer or how deep into the deck the game has progressed Thorp has devised the most favorable strategy for , playing any forthcoming hand in doing so he's achieved what many thought was imposs possible but as an academic Thorp naively shares his Discovery in a publication for the American mathematical , society which catches the attention of a Boston journalist who then spotlights thorp's work in . a national newspaper it's an unexpected term for the geek that he hadn't considered suddenly a , flood of people are eager to get in touch with Thorp the MIT math department receives 20,000 letters in less than two months and thorp's logic is being questioned Thorp feels compelled to validate his findings realizing that the only place that you can do so is at an actual blackjack , table within the authentic environment of a casino uh I figured that there's no point in writing , a book unless I knew it really worked I knew it worked in theory but what if you actually tried . to do it and you know a lot of things they seem to work in theory but when you get down and . actually you find out there are all kinds of things you didn't think of but there's a problem employing his newly discovered strategy requires playing substantial number of hands and playing . hands means money Thorp hasn't got any to solve the problem he realizes he has to find a partner . that's willing to finance his theory enter manik Kimmel amongst the individuals reaching out to . Thorp a wealthy 63-year-old New Yorker caught his attention he was a seasoned risk taker . familiar with Casino high rollers previously he claimed to have been a professional Gambler and bookie in his younger years the origins of Kimmel's wealth are murky yet is irrelevant to , Thorp his deep knowledge of cinos coupled with his financial resources made him the ideal partner , so Thorp agrees to teach Kimmel while Kimmel will impart wisdom on the ins and outs of how casinos , operate once a mutual understanding was reached kiml pledged to finance thorp's gamble Adventures , while observing from a distance thorp's 2 years of research had now been distilled into One Singular . potent strategy he cautiously introduces Kimmel to the concept now known as card counting , Kimmel grasps the concept immediately the strategy didn't guarantee a constant Advantage but highlighted the best moments for aggressive play and bigger Stakes this is because the chance . of winning was was always changing depending on which cards remain in the deck after the others , are played High cards pose a problem for dealers since they're required to hit on 16 with more High , cards remaining in the deck the Dealer's chance of busting increases tipping the odds in the favor . of the player conversely certain cards remaining in the deck are advantageous for the dealer Thorp . devises a card scoring system to simplify tracking the game's Dynamics in essence low cards like twos or threes are undesirable while high cards and Aces are favorable mathematically they enhance the players winning chances by assigning scores to each card and maintaining a tally one can gauge , the potential Edge and wager accordingly Kimel found the mathematical aspects of keeping track , of challenge but after several weeks of rigorous training Thorp receives a call from New York . they're good to go with financial backing secured Thorp is ready to hit Vegas and put his system , to the test in a real Casino setting however his wife's worries cast a shadow over the excitement indifference to the potential financial gain her primary concern is thorp's involvement in this , risky Endeavor one of the reasons that I didn't want him to go is because of the kind of people , that uh were in Las Vegas the gamblers and the gangsters and people like that and I I didn't want , him to get involved with them and I didn't know how safe it would be the stakes are further . heightened by Kimmel's desire to start with a staggering $100,000 are some that for Fears . losing especially given Kimmel's suspected mob connections preferring a cautious approach Thorp . suggests beginning with a more manageable $10,000 again he finds himself delicately balancing . the risk between Casino Pit Bosses and his new associate either way Thorp is up to his neck .

in Risk it's 1961 and they're poised to take on the establishment heeding Kimmel's Council . they initially bypass Vegas aiming to keep a low profile for their first run they head to Reno . instead Thorp has a single weekend and $10,000 to validate his strategy after years of meticulous research intense preparation everything converges on one table with one dealer and a single deck of . cards his partner high stakes Gambler Manny Kimmel is nearby eager to witness the outcomes firsthand , thorp's ambition is to turn Kimmel's $10,000 into 20,000 the stakes couldn't be higher failure . will tarnish his reputation in the academic Community but success will undoubtedly draw attention from the mob things start in the worst possible way Thorp quickly finds himself . down $1,000 the pressure is mounting and he can feel Kimmel's gaze intensifying but then the LW of . probability starts to do its thing variant swings back in Thorp's Direction leaving him firmly in , the green his mathematical Edge is taking effect and his successes don't go unnoticed the casino , staff grow increasingly Vigilant in a bid to disrupt his winning streak management instruct , the dealer to shuffle the deck repeatedly as I played they began to shuffle up more and more . and more pretty soon they were shuffling up when there were still 40 cards to play I was only , getting to play two rounds and they kept changing dealers and shuffling but it doesn't make a . difference they're powerless Thorp secures a $600 win equivalent to about $6,200 today he's just tasted his first Victory against the house shortly after the casino's bewilderment turns . quickly into irritation within an hour Thorp and Kimmel are asked to leave Thorp has just beaten the dealer but it doesn't end there they Venture into other casinos nearby a familiar sequence of events unfold each time the buzz about Kimmel and his prote spreads making it progressively harder to find a welcoming venue although Thorp isn't doing anything wrong the house just doesn't like . it ironically they don't want to gamble undeterred the pair waste no time and move on next they hit . Tahoe around an hour south forp sets his win rate at $1,000 an hour because he knows that they won't . let him win for long but news is traveling fast among the casinos about the blackjack players who . seemingly never lose the not so bright Pit Boss don't know how to deal with Thorp they haven't got , a clue how he's consistently winning feeling the window of opportunity closing Thorp bets hard in , a counter move the dealer increases the frequency of shuffles but when the conditions are just right th places a maximum bet he's consistently winning big money now and it's drawing a lot of attention . from Spectators the casino boss emerges closes the blackjack table and bans them permanently after . just 3 days of continuous play they've proven the effectiveness of their strategy and massing , $21,000 in the process equivalent to about $218,000 in today's money thorp's share amounts to $1,200 approximately 3 month salary at that time a tiny Drop in the Ocean compared to what he does . next after the book came out it frightened a lot of the casino managers and the pit losses the book scared him to death a year after his breatht and run thought publishes the now iconic book beat the . dealer the book recounts his remarkable journey and educates his readers on on his revolutionary strategy he quickly becomes a bestseller selling hundreds of thousands of copies this prompts a . significant reaction from Las Vegas leading to an emergency meeting among the city's top Casino . bosses mobsters and strategists initially there's fear it will be the end of blackjack however in reality the outcome was quite different the book triggered a nationwide frenzy with thousands . of Americans flocking to casinos in a surge of blackjack play but despite the enthusiasm very . few succeeded in mastering card counting in reality the book became an excuse to take a trip . to Vegas and gamble plus the casinos fought back against Thorp strategy by throwing out suspected . card counters and introducing multiple deck shoes these devices which hold several decks of . cards complicate the card counting process by mixing the decks thoroughly and introducing , more combinations but Thorp couldn't care less his next move would be far bigger than Las Vegas it rapidly became clear that U the biggest game that I could find it anywhere was the New York Stock Exchange with an estimated net worth of around $800 million today he didn't just beat the dealer he beat Wall Street 2

The Man Who Beat Vegas Casinos and Got BANNED for Life