Card Counting in 21 Movie - Is It a Real Deal?
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Card Counting in 21 Movie - Is It a Real Deal?
Directed by Robert Luketic, 21 is a rather unusual drama movie that takes inspiration from the Bringing Down the House book by Ben Mezrich and the true story of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Blackjack Team. Releasedin 2008, 21 featured an excellent crew of experienced actors and actresses including Kate Bosworth, Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, and Laurence Fishburne. Even though not all critics liked the movie, it was a major success and during its first weekend of release, it was the number one movie in Canada and the United States.
Back to the story that inspired the movie, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Blackjack Team included a group of MIT students who turned to various card counting techniques alongside a couple of other advanced strategies to gain a competitive edge over casinos. The MIT Blackjack teams operated for many years starting in 1979 and its major goal was to beat the house.
The 21 Movie and the True Story Behind It
In his Bringing Down the House book released in 2003, Ben Mezrich incorporated fictional elements with non-fiction. It was later revealed that certain stories from the book were inspired by real events but they were exaggerated to add more suspense. Besides inspiring the 21 movie, the same book also inspired The Last Casino movie from 2004. Now, let’s explore the true story behind Bringing Down the House and the 21 Movie. If you want to learn more about the real story behind the 21 movie, more than revealed here, make sure you check what experts at bestonlinecasino.com say.
The movie’s director Robert Luketic, who also directed Killers, Paranoia, Legally Blonde, and Monster-in-Law, decided to make a movie about the MIT Blackjack Team after coming across the Bringing the House Down book. As previously mentioned, the book tells the story of the very much real MIT Blackjack Team that cheated Las Vegas casinos for millions back in the early 80s and 90s. The main character in the movie is Ben played by Jim Sturgess who is a very intelligent student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.
Ben just like his colleagues is striving to succeed in life and one of his major goals is to get a scholarship at the Harvard School of Medicine. Ben comes from a middle-class family, and he cannot afford to invest over $300,000 to study what he wants. After some consideration, Ben applies for the Robinson Scholarship that would cover the whole cost of getting into and studying at the Harvard School of Medicine. Unfortunately, Ben’s very high MCAT score and great grades did not help him get the scholarship due to extremely fierce competition.
Back at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ben befriends a professor Micky Rosa played in the movie by Kevin Spacey, an actor who played in quite a few films that epitomize the American dream. The professor sees a lot of potential in Ben after he quickly solved the Monty Hall Problem. After examining Ben’s scores on non-linear equation examinations, he decided to invite him to join his MIT Blackjack Team which at the team consisted of Kianna, Jill, Fisher, and Choi played by Liza Lapira, Kate Bosworth, Jacob Pitts, and Aaron Yoo.
The Story of the MIT Blackjack Team
The team earned massive profits at Las Vegas casinos by using covert signaling and card counting techniques. Soon after, Ben joins the team and travels to Las Vegas where the team’s card counting strategies bring considerable profits. The real story about the MIT Blackjack Team is not much different from the story depicted in the movie.
In November of 1979, a blackjack player Dave contacted J.P. Massar who at the time run a blackjack course. He proposed to form a new team of card-counting students who would go to casinos in Atlantic City and take advantage of the most recent ruling by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission that made it illegal to prohibit card counters from using card counting techniques at Atlantic City casinos.
Meeting Bill Kaplan
J.P. Massar joined the team that included four students, one investor, and a professional gambler. Over the several next months, other MIT students were recruited. One year later in May, J.P. Massar met Bill Kaplan who three years prior had his own blackjack team. After earning his Bachelor's degree at Harvard, he moved to the gambling capital of Las Vegas. Once there, he formed his blackjack team that in addition to using card counting techniques to beat casinos also used Kaplan’s own statistical analysis and research on the iconic casino games.
In the following months, Kaplan runs his blackjack team while at the same time he attended Harvard Business School. After several months of cruising Las Vegas casinos, the team was forced to travel outside of the United States to Europe but there, winning opportunities were not so great as they expected. Several months after parting ways with the team, he met Massar and his blackjack team. It was Massar who asked Bill Kaplan to come and observe him and his team playing blackjack at Atlantic City casinos.
Since he just parted ways with his team, he agreed to join them. After observing the team’s complex card counting strategies, he offered to help them financially and this was when the most successful card counting blackjack team was formed. All of the team members were required to learn and use more advanced betting and card counting techniques and go through rigorous training.
The new team of ten players including Big Dave, Goose, Jonathan, Massar, and Kaplan among others started playing with an investment stake of $89,000. Only ten weeks later, they doubled this. The team operated very successfully until the beginning of the twenty-first century cheating casinos for millions. So, the story behind the 21 movie and its card counting team of students is very much real.
