Early Years
Beevers' father taught him how to count cards in blackjack from age 10. His father also taught Beevers how to work out permutations and probabilities on a Sinclair ZX81 computer. Beevers left school at age 16, and became a part of a card-counting team with his father and two others at age 18. They often played at the Sergeant Yorkes Casino in Luton, where they found a croupier who often paid out 3-1 on blackjacks, and sometimes also paid out when a player's hand was bust. The team eventually stopped playing as their success led to Beevers being banned from 4 London casinos, and his father being banned from 19. Between them they were banned from 21 out of 23 London casinos. They also went to gamble on horse racing events about three times a week.
Beevers worked first for NatWest (as his father had done before him) then for Citibank in Hammersmith. He went on to attend Middlesex University as a mature student towards of the end of his 4 years playing regular blackjack, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Honour's degree in Finance and Accounting at the age of 24.
Around this time, Beevers placed dog racing bets for future Hendon Mobster Ram Vaswani in Harrow, and they later met in Luton, starting an ongoing friendship.
Read more about this topic: Joe Beevers
Famous quotes related to early years:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)