Casino News

Annual Blackjack Ball visited

2008-03-25 18:43:18

As featured in the April issue of Men's Vogue, Michael Kaplan has visited the 12th annual Blackjack Ball in Las Vegas.

He spent time with John Chang and Mike Aponte, two major players from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) blackjack team that has been made famous by the book Bringing Down the House.

The Blackjack Ball is where the world's most skilled blackjack players discreetly convene to drink and "talk shop", leaving Las Vegas' gaming tables "unmolested for an evening", according to the publication.

"All told, they have taken north of $100 million out of the casinos across town by implementing techniques like card counting, hole carding, and shuffle tracking," states the magazine.

Both Aponte and Chang told the magazine they are unable to play in most casinos because they are too well-known. In fact, the latter has taken to cross-dressing to beat the casino spies but even this does not fool everybody.

"At Taj Mahal in Atlantic City they were looking at my hands. An Asian host came over and whispered in my ear, 'We know who you are'.

"I had to run around the casino in high heels and make sure they weren't following me."

The origin of the MIT blackjack team was a course entitled How to Gamble if You Must taught in 1979.