\n\u00a9 2000 Blackjack Forum<\/p>\n
In the early 1960s much publicity occurred concerning a 28-year-old professor of mathematics, Edward O. Thorp, first of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at Cambridge, then of New Mexico State University at Las Cruces, finally of the University of California at Irvine, who was making blackjack history.<\/p>\n
I read articles about him in the\u00a0New York Herald Tribune<\/em>\u00a0(January 29, 1961), the Paris edition of the\u00a0New York Herald Tribune<\/em>\u00a0(by Tom Wolfe, December 9, 1962), the\u00a0Atlantic Monthly<\/em>\u00a0(January, 1963),\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0(January 25, 1963),\u00a0Sports Illustrated\u00a0<\/em>(January 13, 1964),\u00a0Life<\/em>\u00a0(March 27, 1964),\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0(April 3, 1964), and so on.<\/p>\n What was the wherefore of all this publicity? Here\u2019s how the\u00a0Time<\/em>\u00a0article explained matters:<\/p>\n The omnipresent computer, whose attention often seems to be concentrated on the welfare of moon travelers and submariners, may have at last produced a palpable boon for the common run of mankind: a system for winning money in a gambling house.<\/p>\n A 30-year-old mathematics professor named Edward O. Thorp claims to have made this historic breakthrough by feeding the equivalent of 10,000 man-years of desk-calculator computations into an IBM 704 computer and arriving at a set of discoveries about the way the odds fluctuate in the game of blackjack, or twenty-one.<\/p>\n This system enables the initiate to bet heavily when the odds are with him, lightly when they are against him. What\u2019s more, the cost of the system \u2014 including a set of palm-sized, sweat-resistant charts to take to the casino \u2014 is only $4.95, which happens to be the cost of Thorp\u2019s book,\u00a0Beat the Dealer<\/em>\u00a0(Blaisdell [Random House]). (By this year, 2000, more than 700,000 copies have been sold.)<\/p>\n Hard Hands & Soft.\u00a0Thorp\u2019s system is based on the fact that blackjack is not what mathematicians call an \u201cindependent trials process,\u201d in which, as in craps or roulette, each play is uninfluenced by the preceding plays. As each card is played in blackjack, it changes the possibilities for both player and dealer by diminishing the number and the variety of cards that may be dealt.<\/p>\n Hence the basic blackjack strategy, according to Thorp\u2019s computer, is that the fewer cards valued at two to eight that are left in the pack, the greater advantage to the player. On the other hand, a shortage of nines, tens, and aces gives the dealer an advantage. [In other words, high- or ten-value cards favor the player.]<\/p>\n A scarcity of fives, Thorp\u2019s figures indicate, is more advantageous to the player than a shortage of any other card; when all four fives have been played, the player has an edge of 3.29% or, expressed roughly in odds, 52-48 in the player\u2019s favor. Thorp has devised a series of charts to show when to split a pair (\u2018always split aces and eights, never split fives and tens\u2019), when to double and when to stand.<\/p>\n Knowing when to stand and when to ask for another card is, of course, the very heart of the game….<\/p>\n This is Thorp\u2019s \u201cbasic\u201d strategy; his \u201cfull-dress\u201d system [the Ultimate Strategy] involves a much more complex technique of betting in terms of the number of tens, aces, and fives remaining in the deck in relation to the number of cards left in the pack before the next shuffle.<\/p>\n As an individual who has always had trouble finding even the On button both on a computer and in life itself, naturally all this intrigued me. Hence before\u00a0Beat the Dealer<\/em>\u00a0was published in late 1962, I approached a life-long friend of mine, William F. Rickenbacker (1928-1995), a businessman, writer, and journalist, to whom I referred at the time as Mr. X, and suggested the following gambling plan, which was to make blackjack history.<\/p>\n If Rickenbacker and one or two others would together put up a bank of $10,000, why could not Edward O. Thorp, with his remarkable blackjack system favoring the player, and Mickey MacDougall (1906-1996), with his expertise in protecting gamblers against cheating casinos, along with Russell Barnhart, his humble servant and stake holder, travel to Las Vegas to earn for us all an honest, capitalistic dollar?<\/p>\n Next I telephoned Mickey MacDougall, who lived in Forest Hills, Queens, and if Henri Daniel, founder of the first magazine for gamblers in Monte Carlo, made his living by repairing typewriters, Mickey MacDougall made a far more lucrative one by being a wholesale and retail numismatic dealer. It turned out that, as MacDougall would be in Boston the following weekend to attend the coin show of the American Numismatic Association, it would be convenient for him to meet Professor Thorp at the latter\u2019s home in nearby Cambridge.<\/p>\n Finally I telephoned Professor Thorp, introduced myself politely, and suggested that he might like to meet Mickey MacDougall and me to hear of our tentative plan to go to Las Vegas and win money using Thorp\u2019s new blackjack card-counting system. As Thorp was also amenable to the meeting, the following Sunday we met for the first time at his home in Cambridge.<\/p>\n The upshot of our meeting was that the three of us agreed to work cordially together to beat the blackjack tables on a trip to Las Vegas. That was our optimistic and rational plan, and I so informed Mr. X (not to be confused with the Mr. X of the first trip to Las Vegas, described in Chapter 6 in Thorp\u2019s\u00a0Beat the Dealer<\/em>,\u00a0a gentleman named Manny Kimmel). What follows is what actually happened.<\/p>\n Now let\u2019s turn once more to Mickey MacDougall. For 20 years, MacDougall wrote for the McClure Syndicate on gambling and other subjects, a national newspaper column, \u201cThe Inside Straight,\u201d and what follows is part of a column he wrote after our trip to Las Vegas. Titled, \u201cEven \u2018Honest\u2019 Vegas House Cheats,\u201d it appeared on December 2, 1962, in 193 American newspapers, including The Sunday Star-Ledger<\/em>, Newark, NJ:<\/p>\n . . . Professor Edward O. Thorp . . . wanted me to accompany him on a trip to Nevada . . . . certain he had evolved a system whereby the player would beat the house at the blackjack tables, wanted me along to make certain he didn\u2019t get cheated.<\/p>\n I told the Professor he was mistaken on two counts. (1) No one could beat the dealers at their own game, and (2) the better casinos never cheated, so even if his system did work, he wouldn\u2019t need me to protect him from chicanery.<\/p>\n I had previously played at every temple of luck in Las Vegas as a special investigator for the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Like every other agent, my bets were limited, seldom exceeding $20.<\/p>\n However, Dr. Thorp\u2019s system necessitated wagers of $500. And I learned a bitter lesson. Some casinos which wouldn\u2019t think of cheating a small bettor have no qualms about taking an unfair advantage of a big bettor.<\/p>\n I have in mind one particular gambling house [the Riviera] . . . . which gets world-wide favorable publicity . . . . I recommended it highly to Dr. Thorp .\u2026 The very next day the cheating began\u2026. I noticed the pit boss signal an idle dealer and whisper some instructions . . . . I edged nearer, overheard the dealer say: \u201cOkay, I\u2019ll give it to \u2019em . . . .\u201d<\/p>\n A stout man, whom I had seen working as a shill at the dice games, came hurrying down the aisle [and] sat down directly to the right of Dr. Thorp.<\/p>\n On the very next hand Dr. Thorp was dealt eleven. Automatically he turned his cards face up, shoved out $100 to signify he was going down for double.<\/p>\n The newcomer played first . . . . He drew a card, a queen. He drew a second card, a ten. Then he tossed his hand in, face down, so I couldn\u2019t see the cards, and said, \u2018I\u2019m busted . . . .\u2019 I thought then that the shill was an \u201canchor man,\u201d put into the game to draw cards when it would injure Dr. Thorp\u2019s play, or to stand pat when that would be more advantageous for the house.<\/p>\n On the next hand . . . . I watched the dealer\u2019s eyes [This is the key to MacDougall\u2019s method of catching cheaters.] Sure enough, he constantly glanced at the pack in his hand, at the same time bending the corner of the top card so he could see its index . . .<\/p>\n I gave Dr. Thorp the signal that I was suspicious . . . . Soon the anchor man got careless. I could glimpse his cards. Once he stood on eleven, another time he drew to nineteen . . . .<\/p>\n Dr. Thorp, the modern Wizard of Odds, has published a book detailing his winning system,\u00a0Beat the Dealer. Now, to balance the scales, a Nevada gambler [casino owner] should write a book detailing crooked gambling methods and entitle it,\u00a0Beat the Player.<\/p>\n Of all Mickey MacDougall\u2019s articles on crooked gambling casinos, perhaps one of the best, explaining both the founding and operation of the State of Nevada Gaming Control Board, the police arm of the State Gaming Commission, as well as sleight-of-hand methods using false dice and cards, is \u201cWhy Nevada\u2019s Gamblers Toe the Mark\u201d (Look, October 28, 1958), an article I recommend.<\/p>\n As MacDougall\u2019s article on one Strip casino\u2019s use of an anchor man against Thorp, just quoted in part, wasn\u2019t published , of course, until a few months after our blackjack trip to Nevada, when we three arrived in Las Vegas on Tuesday, January 23, 1962, none of us knew what fate held for us at even the best casinos on the Strip, so our optimism, though tempered, ran fairly high. Our trip lasted until February 1st, when we departed Reno for our several homes.<\/p>\n Our first setback occurred when all three of us came down with colds brought on by our ignorance, in the forty-degree cold, of how to operate the heating control buttons in our individual rooms in the City Center Motel on Fremont Street. MacDougall began taking anti-histamine tablets, I visited the local hospital emergency center to obtain sulfa tablets, and Edward O. Thorp tried both. A bad head cold hardly helps to count cards under casinos conditions.<\/p>\n I hired a self- drive car, a light blue Rambler, to drive us from one casino to another. \u201cYou\u2019re our wheel man,\u201d declared MacDougall whimsically, who favored the rear seat, the initiative Thorp always sitting on my right so he could see, figuratively and literally, where we were going.<\/p>\n In the Tables on pages 14 and 15, I list the amounts that we won or lost at blackjack at each gambling casino, reserving my text for a brief discussion of what happened to us at each of these so-called temples of chance in both Las Vegas and Reno. At all casinos Thorp played his Ultimate Strategy of counting aces-tens- and-others, which he explains at length in\u00a0Beat the Dealer<\/em>.<\/p>\n As all of us were quite tired from traveling to Las Vegas, on our first evening we ate down the street at the El Cortez Casino and then decided, for our financial backers, Mr. X and his partners, to test the waters with only small stakes, so at the El Cortez, Thorp sat down and played his count system for an hour. In wagers his spread was from $1 to $5 as we note in the first entry on page 14. Already suffering from a worsening head cold, MacDougall kept on his overcoat and usually sat on Thorp\u2019s right to watch for any cheating by a dealer.<\/p>\n In contrast, when MacDougall was working as an undercover agent for the Gaming Control Board, he would naturally never sit, even when alone, and stare with even casual suspicion at a dealer\u2019s hands as the latter dealt the cards. Instead, as he explained to me, to catch any cheating he employed only casual, peripheral vision. \u201cThere are fifteen different ways they can cheat you at blackjack,\u201d he explained. \u201cI sit there and casually bet and, in my mind, just go down my list, eliminating one by one the methods the dealer isn\u2019t using until I come to the one I see him or her using \u2014 if any.\u201d<\/p>\n This brings to mind an amusing experience MacDougall had on another trip at the Desert Inn.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was late in the evening, and I was playing blackjack for minimum stakes,\u201d the Gambling Detective recounted to me. \u201cI wasn\u2019t winning or losing much, and the dealer, though odd in mannerisms, hadn\u2019t been cheating so far, so possibly to draw him out, I said…<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018I\u2019m glad this is an honest house. I didn\u2019t do so well at the Sands though I suppose it was just bad luck.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018We\u2019re an honest house because the Gaming Control Board sends in undercover agents to watch us to see if we cheat.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018They do?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Yes. One of their main agents,\u2019 he whispered confidentially, \u2018is a man called Mickey MacDougall. So every night I keep a look-out for him on my shift.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018What does he look like?\u2019 I whispered back.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018I\u2019m not sure. They say kind of tall…\u2019 [Note: MacDougall was actually a rather short man whose appearance was mundane. He had the air of an ordinary businessman \u2014 as that\u2019s what he was.]<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018There are lots of guys that look like that. How\u2019ll you know which one is he?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018By the way he bets. I can always tell an agent.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018How?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI told you \u2014 by the way they bet. Agents always bet like shills \u2014 only one dollar at a time. They just buck us to death.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cNaturally I reported this conversation to the Gaming Control Board,\u201d concluded MacDougall, \u201cand from then on,every agent has been given enough money so he can spread at least a little bit \u2014 no more \u2018bucking them to death.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Be that as it may, while Thorp and MacDougall sat playing blackjack cooperatively at the El Cortez, what was I doing? I just wandered around this small casino room as unobtrusively as possible, betting small amounts on red and black at roulette, or on two dozens with my Creep Along system, while keeping a weather eye on the pitbosses and various dealers, none of whom paid me any heed.<\/p>\n But why should they have? I did nothing unconventional, being, after all, the most unimportant individual of our gambling trio. Indeed, inconspicuous was my appropriate manner in all subsequent casinos though I often joined MacDougall to peer over Thorp\u2019s shoulder to watch the master play and see if I could detect any cheating on the dealer\u2019s part.<\/p>\n After an hour of warm-up play at the El Cortez we\u2019d lost $33. So for a second hour of play we went down to the Fremont Casino, where Thorp spread from $5 to $50 and lost $100. Then we went for a quarter of an hour to Benny Binion\u2019s Horseshoe Casino, where the Professor of Mathematics spread again from $5 to $50 and won $40.<\/p>\n At this point, as all our colds had worsened, we decided to call it a night and returned to the City Center Motel for a restless sleep in the deep freeze. All told, by the end of our warm-up night, we had lost $93.<\/p>\n The foregoing figures comprise, for our first day of gambling, the results I\u2019ve listed in the Tables on pages 14-15, to which the reader may refer as I discuss matters concerning our remaining eight gambling days in Las Vegas and Reno.<\/p>\n As Mickey MacDougall demonstrated them to Thorp and me, here are the main ways that the casinos used to cheat us frequently on our trip to Nevada to play blackjack. The reader will find more extensive elucidation comprising Chapter 7, \u201cHow to Spot Cheating,\u201d in Thorp\u2019s cited book on blackjack,\u00a0Beat the Dealer<\/em>,\u00a0whence my own name was omitted by Thorp at my personal request, for to become known hobbles further learning and winning.<\/p>\n (1) The anchor man. This method was explained in MacDougall\u2019s article quoted earlier in part. See also Chapter 7 in\u00a0Beat the Dealer,\u00a0in which reference to Mickey MacDougall and our blackjack trip begins on p. 133.<\/p>\n (2) The peek and deal. MacDougall elucidated this method as he saw it during his three subsequent trips to Hot Springs, Arkansas. The six illegal casinos were run by the New Orleans mafia according to MacDougall; I myself visited Hot Springs twice.<\/p>\n (3) The turn over. When the dealer holds a deck in his left hand, he openly places discarded cards cumulatively face up under the face-down ones on top. As he picks up these discarded cards, however, he secretly stacks them in an order later favorable to himself. Between hands the dealer slowly inches the pack down in his left hand and out over his left fingers preparatory to the rapid sleight-of-hand move. Then as he reaches with his free right hand to pick up the discarded cards of some last hand, he snaps the deck leftward extremely quickly, thereby invisibly turning it over.<\/p>\n According to MacDougall, this sleight occurs often about half way through a whole deck deal, and the warning tip-off is the inching down of the pack, which one may perceive. Thus the stacked cards, formerly uselessly face up, are now face down on top, ready to be dealt out to the dealer\u2019s advantage. I saw this method of cheating used subsequently at the illegal Automobile (gambling) Club in Nashville, Tennessee.<\/p>\n (4) The high-low pick up. As the dealer overtly picks up the cards discarded from each player\u2019s hand, he covertly and unobtrusively stacks them in the following order favorable to himself: high-low, high-low, high-low. After a false shuffle, if there be an odd number of players, everyone, including the dealer, will get a bad hand consisting of one high and one low card, for a mediocre total like, say, 15. Naturally everyone will ask for another card, and the next high card will put him over 21.<\/p>\n True, the dealer must bust too, but as all the players have lost before him, he\u2019ll thereby win. If there be an even number of players, knowing the stacked high-low order, the dealer, through sleight-of-hand, merely deals the second card from the top, thereby righting the order, rendering it favorable to himself. See\u00a0Beat the Dealer<\/em>,\u00a0p. 132, in which Thorp states that, in his opinion, during our nine-day trip to Nevada the high-low pick up was \u201cthe most widespread single method of dealer cheating.\u201d<\/p>\n (5) Marked Cards. MacDougall elucidated on this method as used during his three trips to Hot Springs, Arkansas. To both Thorp and me he confessed that, as an undercover agent in Nevada, he often saw casinos using the Bee brand, sort-edge deck, both along the Strip, in downtown Las Vegas, as well as in Reno and elsewhere in the state, like Winnemucca, Elko, etc.<\/p>\n (6) The Kentucky or seven-card step up (and variations). Ahead of time the dealer stacks the following eight cards thus: 9, 10, 10, J, and 10, 10, Q, A. After the usual false shuffle, the dealer crimps or bridges lengthwise the deck. If the player cuts to the crimp or bend, then on the first hand, he gets 19, while the dealer gets 20. On the second hand the player gets 20, while the dealer gets 21.<\/p>\n While picking up the discards on both hands, the dealer rights their order and crimps again the last card, thereby readying the stack again for the next deal. On the other hand, if the player doesn\u2019t cut to the crimp, no matter, for when the dealer perceives during the deal the crimped or subtly bent card, he may adjust the order of the stack if need be by skillfully dealing the second card one or more times. Remember that, to himself, the dealer often deals a good hand or, to the player, a bad hand, letting chance deal a favorable second hand to himself. In other words, he doesn\u2019t employ the second deal compulsively.<\/p>\n To Thorp and me MacDougall explained that the Kentucky step up was invented by a crooked dealer name Charley in an illegal gambling house in Newport, Kentucky (near Covington). \u201cHe was very proud of his invention,\u201d declared MacDougall.<\/p>\n I asked MacDougall if he\u2019d ever seen the Kentucky step up in the casinos in Hot Springs, Arkansas. \u201cNo, never,\u201d he replied, \u201cjust the peek and deal.\u201d<\/p>\n (7) The Nevada step up. Ahead of time the dealer stacks thirteen cards of various suits in the ordinary serial order thus: 2, 3, 4, 5… 10, J, Q, K, A. Although this step up may be obviously substituted for the Kentucky step up, its great drawback is that, owing to its obvious regularity of order, the dealer may not use it a second time in a row.<\/p>\n (8) The short shoe. This method of cheating wasn\u2019t used against us three gamblers in our January, 1962, trip to Nevada, because at that time almost all blackjack games were dealt from a single deck held in the dealer\u2019s hand. When a casino wants to use several decks \u2014 commonly 4, 6, or 8 \u2014 it employs a regular dealing shoe, and these became common in Nevada in the 1970s. According to MacDougall, the Gaming Control Board advocated the use of shoes to preclude the sleight-of-hand cheating methods which had theretofore become rampant.<\/p>\n After Mickey MacDougall explained the short shoe to me around 1975, with his permission I explained it in turn to Edward O. Thorp, because its elucidation would require mathematics way beyond my ability and training. So besides writing a magazine article on the short shoe, Thorp included his computational results in Chapter 2 of his book,\u00a0The Mathematics of Gambling\u00a0(Lyle Stuart, 1984), which I recommend.<\/p>\n According to MacDougall, the short shoe remained the favorite way of cheating by a casino whenever it chooses to deal from several decks.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s return to what happened on my trip with Professor Thorp and Mickey MacDougall in January, 1962. For the extent of Thorp\u2019s spread and the sums of our wins and losses, I again refer the reader to the Win\/Loss Tables, pages 14 and 15.<\/p>\n As I mentioned, on our first evening, in our warm up at the El Cortez Casino, Thorp lost $33, and then at the late Benny Binion\u2019s Horseshoe Casino, he won $40.<\/p>\n On our second day, January 24th, as MacDougall suspected that at the Dunes the dealer was using the high-low pickup, we soon left. \u201cBetter safe than sorry\u201d was his admirable motto in these matters, for although it was indeed our goal to seek out an honest dealer in a game in order to gain Thorp\u2019s average plus PC of about 3% from his blackjack count system, by the same token it obviously behooved us to scuttle a dealer and his casino when MacDougall reasonably suspected that dealer of cheating. In other words, we always tried to strike an intelligent balance between, at one extreme, baseless suspicion that carks the soul, and, at the other, an equally absurd and inevitably disastrous faith in a casino\u2019s honesty.<\/p>\n And after MacDougall had demonstrated, on more than one occasion, to Thorp and me the sleight-of-hand and other cheating methods that I\u2019ve already enumerated, we two other gamblers would have had to be blind not to detect them occasionally ourselves when a crooked dealer employed them.<\/p>\n Once, for example, when we three had just come out of a rear door to the parking lot of the Desert Inn, MacDougall turned to Thorp and said, \u201cGo back and look at the dealer shuffling at that last table and then tell me what you think.\u201d In the meantime, MacDougall and I loitered by our light-blue Rambler. After a short interval, a cynically smiling Thorp rejoined us: \u201cI think sometimes he\u2019s doing the high-low pick up, and sometimes he\u2019s not. Then he uses the push-through shuffle.\u201d MacDougall smiled paternally: \u201cThat\u2019s exactly what I thought myself.\u201d<\/p>\n So we got into the Rambler and drove down the Strip to the Hacienda Casino. Prior to Thorp\u2019s play the evening before at Binion\u2019s Horseshoe Casino, MacDougall had advised Thorp that if he, MacDougall, perceived any cheating, he would poke the mathematical gambler between the shoulder blades and announce: \u201cLet\u2019s get a bite to eat.\u201d That became our signal to leave a casino at once. So when MacDougall saw the blackjack dealer at the Hacienda peeking at his top cards, fearing the next move would be a second deal and another loss to our beneficent Mr. X and his partners, he accordingly poked Thorp between the shoulder blades.<\/p>\n Unfortunately in the heat of his concentrated play Thorp had forgotten that \u201cLet\u2019s get a bite to eat\u201d was a dire signal indeed, so he replied indifferently, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not hungry yet.\u201d Again, MacDougall poked the mathematician between the shoulder blades. \u201cI already told you,\u201d replied Thorp irritably, \u201cI\u2019m not hungry yet!\u201d Given this misunderstanding, when we left the Hacienda, we\u2019d lost $60, which sum the reader will duly note as the fourth entry under Day 2 in the Tables.<\/p>\n I mention this trifling misadventure, because it\u2019s most important for us all to realize that at one time or another all of us become fallible under fire, and anon I\u2019ll give much more important illustrations of my own vanity, ignorance, and ineptitude.<\/p>\n On our third gambling day, January 25th, while my two partners were jousting in the arena of aces-tens-and-others, I drove over to meet in his boarding house the elderly host at the Sands, Frederick O. Brown, who\u2019d written an autobiographical pamphlet about his own gambling experiences. Once a year, in the annual Las Vegas Helldorado parade, Frederick O. Brown would stand up in a convertible and, waving to the spectators, lead the parade.<\/p>\n Although I liked the effusive Brown, when I asked him courteously about his claim in his pamphlet that he\u2019d become the confidant of the late King Farouk of Egypt and that both of them, seated side by side at the baccara and roulette tables at the Monte Carlo Casino had been royally cheated there, he admitted having made up the whole episode. He\u2019d never even met Farouk. I mention this trifling incident, because sometimes knowledge of the honorability of a casino arises from some chance remark or fugitive pamphlet like Brown\u2019s and requires verification.<\/p>\n Indeed, I\u2019d like to go on record as saying that I myself have never heard of anyone who could adduce evidence of any cheating whatsoever by the Monte Carlo Casino. In my own opinion, it is now, and always has been, a perfectly honest gambling house \u2014 one of the reasons I chose to gamble there.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, back at el rancho Vegas, as it were, Thorp and MacDougall had gone on by themselves to win $180 from the Silver Palace, only to lose back $176 of it to the Stardust, as per the Win\/Loss Tables. They told me later that at the Silver Palace, although the dealer had dealt honestly, the pitboss had been visibly upset by their winning even $180.<\/p>\n In Las Vegas and Reno each dealer\u2019s shift lasted for twenty minutes, so my two partners had become suspicious when the dealer hadn\u2019t gone off his shift after the usual twenty minutes, especially after they saw the pitboss go and telephone someone. After thirty minutes with the first dealer they saw a second man burst through the front door of the Silver Palace, and without stopping even to tie on the regulation green apron he came over and tapped the first dealer on the shoulder to relieve him.<\/p>\n Feeling that the second dealer was probably a crooked dealer on call \u2014 in the cheating trade, called a mechanic \u2014 my two partners left immediately, following Mac- Dougall\u2019s prudent motto, \u201cBetter safe than sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n [For confirmation of how corrupt this era was, see\u00a0Easy Money: Inside the Gambler’s Mind\u00a0by David Spanier (London, 1987), and especially his\u00a0All Right, Okay, You Win: Inside Las Vegas\u00a0(London, 1992 and 1993); see also the book,\u00a0Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas, by Nicholas Pileggi (New York, 1995) and the\u00a0movie\u00a0by the same name about Lefty Rosenthal (at the Stardust Casino).]<\/p>\n At this point, I rejoined them, and MacDougall related to Thorp and me that, as on a trip to Las Vegas six months earlier, when he\u2019d detected the Silver Slipper using the Kentucky step up, he wanted to show it to the two of us as \u201cthe epitome of what I\u2019ve been trying to teach you two guys.\u201d So we got into the Rambler and drove back to the Silver Slipper. After my two partners got out of the automobile and went into the Silver Slipper, I had some trouble finding a parking place, taking a bit longer than usual. Then I too got out of the Rambler and began walking toward the casino\u2019s front door.<\/p>\n Lo and behold, out popped MacDougall and Thorp, grinning.<\/p>\n \u201cHey \u2014 where are you two guys going?\u201d I cried. \u201cMickey \u2014 you promised to show Ed and me somebody in there using the Kentucky step up.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we saw it,\u201d exclaimed Thorp.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it took me only two minutes to park the car.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s when we saw it,\u201d explained MacDougall smiling.<\/p>\n Sure enough, the two adventurers had gone into the Silver Slipper and walked directly to a blackjack dealer standing behind an empty table. They didn\u2019t bother even to sit down. Thorp made his two bets standing up. On his first hand he bet $1: he got 19 and the dealer got 20. On his second hand he bet another $1: he got 20, and the dealer got 21.<\/p>\n At that point they thanked the chuckling dealer for his cooperation and left the casino, bumping into me as I was heading toward its front door. So all three of us went over and got back into the Rambler. \u201cIt cost Mr. X two dollars,\u201d commented MacDougall, comfortably adjusting himself in the back seat, \u201cbut wasn\u2019t the lesson worth it? \u2018Seeing is believing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n On our fourth gambling day, January 26th, as we\u2019d won $738 on the day before, Thorp suggested to me the option of our inviting Professor Elbert Walker, one of his mathematical colleagues at New Mexico State University, to join us, thereby doubling our win rate. Thorp described Walker as being as good a counter as he was.<\/p>\n My new role was to stand behind Walker and spot any cheating. In other words, with Walker I was to take the role that Mickey MacDougall took with Thorp.<\/p>\n I mentioned earlier that I would cite an illustration of my own vanity, ignorance, and ineptitude, and herewith is an outstanding example. For as the official and responsible stake holder representing our beneficent Mr. X and his partners I should have had the mature judgment to hold fast to the single partnership approach which had so far produced tangible financial rewards for us all. And in this regard it must be most importantly borne in mind, that had we not been so frequently and unquestionably cheated by practically every major casino on the Strip, in the Win\/Loss Tables the plus figures in the Net column would have been far larger, and by the same token, the minus figures far smaller.<\/p>\n Be that as it may, like a perfect fool, instead of conservatively protecting Mr. X, I acceded, largely through vanity, to the option of Professor Walker\u2019s joining us and flying up to Las Vegas at Mr. X\u2019s expense. Thus from our fifth gambling day, January 27th, through our seventh, January 29th, a period of three days, our so-called syndicate was composed, on the one hand, of Thorp and MacDougall, and on the other, of Walker and Barnhart. [In\u00a0Beat the Dealer,\u00a0neither Professor Walker\u2019s name nor mine is mentioned.]<\/p>\n As it turned out, under fire, spreading from only $1 to $10, Walker wasn\u2019t so proficient as Thorp himself, for in the middle of a deal, Walker, alas, would often freeze and forget his count. Yet Walker\u2019s lack of experience under fire wasn\u2019t at all the prime cause, in my opinion, of our debacle \u2014 it was my own absurd vanity of considering myself, a mere tyro in the harsh world of card and dice cheating, sufficiently knowledgeable and competent under casino conditions to detect cheating and protect Walker from cheating dealers.<\/p>\n That was the chief cause of Walker\u2019s and Barnhart\u2019s losing money at the tables. Try as I did, I was simply never competent enough to perceive when a dealer may or may not have been cheating Professor Walker. To be as proficient as Mickey MacDougall as a gambling detective requires a lifetime of experience under fire. In considering Thorp\u2019s proffered option concerning Professor Walker I should have immediately admitted to myself my own lack of experience. I did not do so.<\/p>\n The wins and losses of Professor Walker I haven\u2019t included in the Win\/Loss Tables, probably because I don\u2019t care to look at them again myself. Although Walker was a fine mathematician, a congenial, soft-spoken Texan, friendly and cooperative, for the sake of Mr. X\u2019s dwindling resources, after our three losing days as a second count team I had to see Walker off on a plane back to New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.<\/p>\n And what of MacDougall and Thorp, Mr. X\u2019s premier count team? As these two men had won relatively large sums at the Riviera Casino, they decided to try it again, preferring its tranquility and lack of crowds to the Thunderbird, the deafening clamor of whose lounge acts disturbed them. So to the Riviera they went, but it was at this casino that they were cheated by Fatso, the anchor man, who even followed them invidiously from table to table. For details of this casino\u2019s predatory response I refer the reader to MacDougall\u2019s article, \u201cEven \u2018Honest\u2019 Vegas House Cheats,\u201d of December 2, 1962, which I quoted in part earlier.<\/p>\n Disgusted with the anchor man at the Riviera Casino, MacDougall and Thorp moved to the Desert Inn, where MacDougall again spotted the Kentucky step up. So although Thorp\u2019s Ultimate Strategy of aces-tens-and-others rarely calls for the player to take insurance when the dealer has an ace showing, when MacDougall spotted the step up appearing on Thorp\u2019s second hand, he warned Thorp against following the correct mathematical strategy, declaring, \u201cYou\u2019d better insure \u2014 I think he\u2019s got the ten of hearts in the hole.\u201d Sure enough, when the dealer turned over his hole card, it was the ten of hearts.<\/p>\n Disgusted again, MacDougall and Thorp left the Desert Inn, where on their way out, much to their consternation, they spotted, leaving the dealers\u2019 staff room, the next dealer coming on duty, who had the effrontery to be arranging in his hands the very deck of cards he was to use on the next table of gullible blackjack players.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, at the Sands I\u2019d been standing behind Professor Walker, who\u2019d also been playing the aces-tens-and-others count, spreading only very minimum bets of from $1 to $10. Soon another player sat down on Walker\u2019s immediate right. He was a middle-aged man, who kept grinning and chatting loquaciously with the dealer. Overly friendly, effusively affable, the man proceeded to draw and stand in such a way to ruin Professor Walker even though the latter was making the lowest possible bets.<\/p>\n When Walker and I moved to a second empty blackjack table, the garrulous man had the effrontery to follow us there immediately, plopping himself down again on Walker\u2019s right, declaring, \u201cI\u2019m glad you guys moved \u2014 my luck at the first table was lousy too.\u201d The man then proceeded to stand on 9 and draw on 18, a strategy so absurd even a beginner wouldn\u2019t follow it. Most anchor men try to be quiet and inconspicuous. At the Sands their anchor man strove to be a garrulous pest. He certainly succeeded. Walker and I left. And remember: Walker was a very low roller.<\/p>\n On our seventh gambling day, Monday, January 29th, while MacDougall went to talk to Butch, the Sheriff of Clark County (containing Las Vegas), Thorp and I repaired on our own to the Stardust, whose 25 blackjack tables in the morning were largely deserted. The two of us seated ourselves at the first table and watched the dealer shuffle the cards suspiciously. When he dealt Thorp the first hand, he used the second deal, which both of us immediately perceived. When the dealer began doing the high-low pick up, Thorp and I got up and moved down to the fifth empty table. (MacDougall later remarked that, in the cheating trade, the high-low pick up is called hen pecking.)<\/p>\n At the fifth table the new dealer shuffled in such a way that the large bottom stock obviously remained unmixed. Annoyed, Thorp asked, \u201cWould you mind shuffling the cards once more \u2014 just for luck?\u201d Blushing, the dealer refused to reshuffle. So Thorp called over the pit boss, who made the dealer reshuffle. Just the same, once more the cards had been so inadequately mixed that, again, too many of them came out in the stacked order of high-low, high-low, high-low. In disgust Thorp and I got up and forsook the Stardust.<\/p>\n That night MacDougall rejoined us, and I drove Thorp and him once more to the Flamingo. As the two partners started off by winning, another anchor man soon sat down on Thorp\u2019s right and proceeded to stand and draw to injure Thorp. But in this process the anchor man was so obvious that, incensed, for the first time, MacDougall stood up and declared angrily to the pit boss: \u201cI\u2019m surprised that in a place like this you\u2019d use an anchor man!\u201d The pit boss reddened and just stared in silence at the floor.<\/p>\n When he so wishes, MacDougall may be outspoken, hard-hitting, and to the point, and although Thorp and I obviously agreed with him, just the same, now at least the Flamingo management realized that that so-called businessman customarily sitting next to the blackjack-playing Professor of Mathematics \u2014 that businessman, his overcoat folded across his lap, his fedora perched jauntily on the back of his head \u2014 obviously knew a great deal more about the gambling world than they have ever suspected; so on MacDougall\u2019s part, his chastisement of the Flamingo pit boss, however justifiable, was perhaps also a moment of imprudent self-indulgence. As the boys would say over at the poker table, \u201cNever tip your mitt.\u201d<\/p>\n That night, at the City Center Motel, we three held a council of war. Although Thorp\u2019s Ultimate Strategy had won for Mr. X almost $2,000 (more precisely, $1,849), we felt that, owing to the rampant cheating we\u2019d received at the hands of the Strip casinos, this sum was ludicrously small. So we decided that on the morrow we\u2019d fly north to Reno, for although Reno blackjack rules were and are comparably less favorable to count systems, perhaps Washoe County might contain, in its untutored, provincial way, fewer cunning rogues.<\/p>\n As the three of us rose to our feet, I remarked, \u201cWell on the Strip there remain at least two honest casinos \u2014 The Tropicana and the Thunderbird.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d responded MacDougall cynically, \u201cbecause though the Thunderbird didn\u2019t cheat us, while Thorp and I were playing at our table, I noticed the dealer at the next table doing the high-low pick up. So that leaves just one honest casino \u2014 The Tropicana \u2014 and how long can they hold out?\u201d<\/p>\n When I said goodnight to MacDougall at his motel door, he stared gloomily down the corridor and, avoiding my gaze, declared: \u201cDo you know why casinos cheat?\u201d \u201cNo,\u201d I replied. \u201cBecause if they cheat, they make more money than if they\u2019re honest. Goodnight.\u201d With that, he closed his door, and if that\u2019s what the premier agent of the Gaming Control Board said, that\u2019s how I\u2019m quoting him.<\/p>\n So on our eighth gambling day, Tuesday, January 30th, we three resolutely boarded an early afternoon plane bound for Reno, Nevada. Our carrier was Bonanza Airlines, owned by the late eccentric billionaire, Howard Hughes, and our equipment was a relatively small turboprop plane, the number of its propellers being just two. Up to that day Bonanza Airlines had never suffered a single fatal crash.<\/p>\n To fly from Las Vegas to Reno, Nevada, is like flying over the moon. Looking down through the passenger cabin ports, the three of us viewed the bleakness of a lunarscape. Toward all horizons we saw nothing but dun-colored mountains, treeless and usually grassless too, interspersed with barren plains: no houses, no people, no animals, nothing. On rare occasions we might sight a long pickup truck slowly jouncing its way over a rutted road leading in the desert from nowhere to nowhere.<\/p>\n Twenty minutes after takeoff, in our cabin I occupied an aisle seat next to Thorp, on my right. Farther forward, on the left side, MacDougall occupied another aisle seat, deep in his old mystery novel,\u00a0Death in a White Tie.\u00a0Besides us three, the cabin contained, scattered in seats about its rear, four other travelers, including a middle-aged lady, who kept coughing slightly.<\/p>\n As Thorp and I chatted about blackjack, our attention became gradually focused on the slowly swinging door separating our passenger cabin from the cockpit of the two Bonanza airline pilots. When the turboprop plane tilted gently to port, the door would creak slowly open. When the plane tilted gently back to starboard, the door would creak slowly closed. So half the time, Thorp and I could glimpse the blue-uniformed shoulders of the pilot and copilot, and half the time we could not. The constant swinging and creaking were mesmerizing.<\/p>\n Suddenly I turned to the Wizard of Odds and said, \u201cJust suppose that, the next time the door creaks open, instead of the two pilots facing forward and flying the airplane we see them facing each other, casually playing blackjack, and the pilot remarks to the copilot, \u2018Hit me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEven better,\u201d responded Thorp immediately, \u201csuppose that the next time the door creaks open, instead of the two pilots actually working in their cockpit we see nothing but open sky \u2014 nothing but air!\u201d<\/p>\n While guffawing at our own absurdities, we hadn\u2019t noticed that the airplane had become beset with mechanical difficulties. After completely feathering our right engine, the pilot had turned the aircraft around, and we were headed back to Las Vegas. But would we make it? Our problem wasn\u2019t one of insufficient fuel. Would our overheated port engine alone be able to last for the twenty-minute return flight to Las Vegas? Or would it fail too? While dismally contemplating his end, everyone in the cabin watched as the surrounding hills and desert hove closer and closer.<\/p>\n Finally getting up, I walked a few paces forward and tapped MacDougall on the shoulder.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t even glance up from his mystery novel. \u201cI know,\u201d he murmured, \u201cwe\u2019re going to crash. We\u2019ve been losing altitude form some time.\u201d He continued to read calmly.<\/p>\n I went back and took my seat again next to Thorp. Like everyone else in the cabin we too had become silent and grim. I no longer chose to glance out the ports to assess conditions. Why gaze at the dun-colored desert coming ever nearer and bringing only death?<\/p>\n Just as we\u2019d lost so much altitude that everyone aboard the plane assumed his life was near its end, however, the ever-approaching desert suddenly turned into the concrete runway of McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. We\u2019d been saved, but it had been very close.<\/p>\n As we\u2019ve all heard, after an unnerving experience on an airplane, to regain one\u2019s positive attitude toward life, a person should immediately board the next flight \u2014 to anywhere. So that\u2019s what we three adventurers immediately did \u2014 but not to regain our emotional stability but to reach as quickly as possible the blackjack tables of Reno, Nevada. So in the late afternoon of Tuesday, January 30th, we belatedly touched down in a second Bonanza airplane at the Reno airport.<\/p>\n In Las Vegas, with our benevolent Mr. X\u2019s $10,000 bank behind us, we\u2019d managed to win roughly $2,000. During our two days in Reno, how did we do? If the reader glances again at Win\/Loss Tables, he\u2019ll note, under the final Reno section, at least three dismal minus figures. In other words, in Reno we managed to lose back to the casinos most of the $2,000 we\u2019d won from them in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n What was the cause of our financial loss in Reno? Did the casinos there cheat us even more viciously than had those in Las Vegas? Not at all. In Reno we found the casinos neither more nor less honest than those in Las Vegas \u2014 indeed, MacDougall gave both Harrah\u2019s and Harold\u2019s Club an admirably clean bill of health.<\/p>\n Here are a few of my own comments.<\/p>\n As the responsible stake holder for Mr. X, as I\u2019ve already mentioned, in Las Vegas my own primary mistake was, for me \u2014 a mere tyro \u2014 to substitute for the experienced Mickey MacDougall, a professional in detecting the cheating methods of gambling casinos. In Reno I continued my purblindness. Thus, on the evening of Tuesday, January 30th, at the Holiday Inn there I foolishly substituted for MacDougall again, and in only fifteen minutes Thorp lost the largest sum of our entire nine-day trip \u2014 $600. Although two detectives for the Gaming Control Board later experienced the same cheating methods at the hands of the same crooked female blackjack dealer, whom the Holiday Inn management then fired, her just deserts hardly served to compensate Mr. X, who was out $600!<\/p>\n As for our premier gambler, Edward O. Thorp, according to MacDougall, Thorp had a stubborn tendency to ignore prior warnings, so that instead of making small initial bets to see if a dealer was honest, he would imprudently make large initial wagers. As too often, alas, the dealer turned out to be a crook, Mr. X lost therefrom.<\/p>\n Secondly, like many fighters, Thorp never wanted to admit defeat and opt for a strategic withdrawal, conserving his resources for the morrow. According to MacDougall, \u201cten o\u2019clock at night was Thorp\u2019s witching hour,\u201d after which fatigue would naturally tend to cloud his judgment, and he would begin losing too much even to honest dealers. Sometimes we had trouble getting him away from the tables. [Retired from teaching at the business school at the University of California at Irvine, Prof. Thorp now runs a hedge fund.]<\/p>\n As for Mickey MacDougall himself, of the three of us I believe he had the most difficult job of all, for as both Thorp and I readily concede, from a technical standpoint it\u2019s excessively difficult to know for sure when a dealer is or is not cheating a player. Just the same, according to us, we\u2019re sure that we both perceived cheating going on when MacDougall insisted that nothing of the sort was occurring.<\/p>\n In the general matter of who ran Las Vegas in the 1960\u2019s and the kind of people who run it today, a matter in which Mickey MacDougall, according to him, had little changed his mind, I think it only fair to give MacDougall the final say. So I quote in part from his second column on our blackjack trip, \u201cCards Stacked Against Big Vegas Winners,\u201d from the November 29, 1964, issue of The Sunday Star-Ledger of Newark, NJ:<\/p>\n Every so often I read of a \u201clucky\u201d gambler who wins a fortune in Las Vegas. Sometimes it\u2019s $50,000. Sometimes it\u2019s $100,000. Occasionally even more.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t you believe it. No one, and I mean no one, can ever hit the gangster-controlled game in Las Vegas for any sizable sum\u2026.<\/p>\n As steady readers of this column know, I accompanied Edward O. Thorp, Professor of Mathematics at New Mexico State University, on a Las Vegas venture\u2026. Professor Thorp thought he was being cheated and asked me along on his second trip to protect him from the tricksters.<\/p>\n All suspicions were soon verified. At casino after casino, once Thorp\u2019s wagers hit the $500 maximum, skullduggery started. It was soon apparent that the hoodlums who control Las Vegas weren\u2019t going to give the sucker an even break. After all, who ever heard of the lamb killing the butcher?<\/p>\n The story of Russian Louie will serve as a perfect example. Louis Strauss wasn\u2019t a tourist passing through Las Vegas. He lived in the gambling capital, had many friends among the gangsters who owned the gambling houses\u2026. So what had Russian Louie to fear if he won a fortune? His friends would protect him.<\/p>\n Russian Louie did win a fortune \u2014 $92,000 to be exact. He started playing blackjack at the Desert Inn and got about $6,000 ahead. In an effort to recoup, the gamblers asked him to join a high-stake poker game in one of the private rooms. Russian Louie, who felt he could hold his own in any company, agreed. His luck held. Came dawn, and he had won another $86,000.<\/p>\n Like all big winners he developed a headache and said he wanted to quit\u2026. Then his very good friend, Jack Dragna, suggested a trip to Palm Springs for a weekend of rest and relaxation\u2026. Soon a shiny black Cadillac pulled away from the Desert Inn. Marshall Caifano, like Dragna, a capo mafioso and one of the most feared gunmen in the gambling underworld, was driving. Jack Dragna sat in the back seat, Russian Louie in front with Caifano.<\/p>\n When the big car arrived in Palm Springs, Caifano was still driving, Jack Dragna was sitting next to him. Russian Louie, the $92,000, and a valuable diamond ring had vanished.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a little argument,\u201d Dragna explained, \u201cand Louie decided to hitchhike.\u201d<\/p>\n When I say Russian Louie vanished, I mean just that. He has never been seen since. Rumor has it that he is buried in the desert, minus the $92,000 which couldn\u2019t be identified, but still wearing the expensive solitaire, which could be identified.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do the hoodlums themselves think happened to the unlucky winner? Well nowadays, when a Las Vegan wants to postpone something indefinitely, he says, \u201cI\u2019ll do it when Russian Louie gets back to town.\u201d<\/p>\n So the next timer you read of someone winning a fortune in Las Vegas, remember the tale of Russian Louie and decide not to buck the tables there until Russian Louie gets back in town.<\/p>\n On Thursday, February 1, 1962, at the Reno airport Mickey MacDougall and I bid Edward O. Thorp a most cordial farewell. Although both of us believed he verily deserved one, we didn\u2019t pin onto Thorp\u2019s chest a gold medal for blackjack bravery \u2014 perhaps because we feared that, if only to get rid of it, he\u2019d give it right back to us.<\/p>\n So far as the money itself goes, from our nine-day trip how much did we three finally win? For the final results, I refer the reader to the two columns of the Summary Table on page 15, which indicate that from the whole incredible venture, we cleared only $317.<\/p>\n When I got back to New York City, on the following Saturday afternoon, as was my occasional custom, at an eatery off Times Square called the 42nd Street Cafeteria, I joined my fellow amateur magician friends for refreshments and a discussion of the best way to saw a woman in half.<\/p>\n One of the younger magicians, a card manipulator with a side interest in gambling, named Persi Diaconis, now a Professor of Mathematics at Cornell University, approached me and whispered confidentially, \u201cDid you hear the rumor that three mathematicians hit the Vegas blackjack tables?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I hadn\u2019t heard that. How much did they win?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA hundred thousand dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n I wanted to say something about that, but I decided to wait until Russian Louie gets back to town.<\/p>\n The wins and losses at each casino visited by Edward O. Thorp, Michael MacDougall, and Russell Barnhart during their nine-day blackjack trip to Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada, from Tuesday, January 23, through Wednesday January 31, 1962.<\/p>\n In Las Vegas<\/strong><\/p>\nThe Plan that Made Blackjack History<\/h5>\n
Mickey MacDougall’s Role<\/h5>\n
That First Historic Blackjack Trip<\/h5>\n
Methods of Casino Cheating at Blackjack in 1962<\/h5>\n
Blackjack History, Day 2 (Or How Professor Thorp Missed MacDougall’s Exit Signal)<\/h5>\n
Blackjack History, Day 3<\/h5>\n
Blackjack History: Professor Walker Joins Team Thorp<\/h5>\n
Blackjack History: On to Reno with Team Thorp<\/h5>\n
Blackjack History: Assessing the Play<\/h5>\n
Thorp’s Card Counting Wins and Losses<\/h5>\n
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