MIT Blackjack Team - First MIT Blackjack "bank"

First MIT Blackjack "bank"

In late November 1979, a professional blackjack player contacted J.P. Massar after seeing a notice in the IAP Guide for a blackjack course to be taught in January at MIT, and proposed forming a new group to travel to Atlantic City to take advantage of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission's recent ruling that made it illegal for the Atlantic City casinos to ban card counters in general, but rather they would need to ban the players individually from the property.

Consisting of four players (Roger, J.P., Jonathan, and the professional blackjack player, Dave) and an investor who put up most of its capital ($5,000), this group went to Atlantic City in late December to play. The players then held the January IAP course and recruited a number of additional MIT students as players. The group played intermittently through May 1980 and increased the capital roughly four-fold but was nonetheless more a loose group of players sharing capital than a more coherent team with consistent strategies and quality control.