I've been reading -- and enjoying very much -- Arnold Snyder's new book, Radical Blackjack. But he sure seems enamored of the Blackjack Hall of Fame. I certainly understand what an honor it was for him to be inducted in the original group and the continuing esteem when you're voted in by your peers. But I'd like a few more details about how the Hall came to be. Can you tell the history?
More than happy to, especially since it involves our long-time friend and author, Max Rubin.
In 2002, Max, casino executive, advantage player, and author of our wildly successful and hilarious book Comp City, came up with the idea of a Blackjack Hall of Fame — no doubt inspired, at least in part, by Binion’s Wall of Fame, which at the time honored the world’s greatest poker players. Back then, Rubin was a marketing consultant for Barona Casino in San Diego and he had a four- or five-pronged vision for the Hall, all of which came to pass.
First and foremost, the Hall recognizes the players, theorists, and authors who have had the greatest impact on the game, particularly in gaining an advantage over the casino; it also reveals to the public the manifold abilities of the players “whose achievements at the tables have largely been hidden from view.”
Second, since it was sponsored and hosted by Barona, it garnered a lot of publicity for the casino. And since a casino was sponsoring a celebration of the greatest blackjack players, “Its creation was in some way an admission by the gaming companies that card counting does exist and that ultimately little can be done to stop it,” as expressed nicely by the website countingedge.com. Plus, as a fine example of Rubin’s originality and ingenuity, Barona issues a “lifetime comp” to all inductees — full room, food, and beverage, for free, for life! — as long as they agree never to play blackjack at Barona for as long as they shall live.
Third, voting for the original members was open to the public and took place online, which again attracted a lot of publicity and votes. In fact, we sponsored the voting; the 21 blackjack luminaries were listed at www.LasVegasAdvisor.com. The public was allowed to cast votes, with the seven highest vote-getters receiving one vote in the official balloting by the BJ masters at the Blackjack Ball, an annual skills competition. The inaugural Blackjack Hall of Fame inductees (with percentage of ballots marked) were:
Ed Thorp 100%
Al Francesco 80%
Peter Griffin 74%
Tommy Hyland 72%
Stanford Wong 70%
Arnold Snyder 70%
Ken Uston 57%
Fourth, the whole thing was tied in to the Blackjack Ball (a QoD for another day), which Max hosts every January in Las Vegas. The original seven inductees were announced at the 2003 Ball and all subsequent members have been nominated by the current Hall of Fame members and voted in by the Blackjack Ball attendees, one at a time (except for 2004 and 2008). Our own Anthony Curtis was voted in and inducted at the 2020 Blackjack Ball.
There are 27 members. Barona exhibits their photos and bios and you can get almost the whole story at the BJ HoF website (it hasn't been updated since the 2018 induction).
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Stewart Ethier
Sep-29-2021
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