The MIT Blackjack Team
Everyone always asks me: “Was the movie 21 true?” and “Were the stories in Ben Mezrich’s book ‘Bringing Down the House’ accurate?” My answer is this, while the general premise of both was dead on, there were some liberties taken with the details. For starters, the movie 21 was not intended to be a documentary, it was simply based on a true story. The movie 21 had to balance the commercial aspects – like making it a reasonable length and entertaining – with the true story. I think Sony did a good job doing that. Honestly, I don’t know if it was the best movie of the year, but it kept my attention and did a good job demonstrating our lives as college students during the week and high stakes gamblers during the weekend. We didn’t wear the elaborate disguises that movie 21 characters did, but we did take great lengths to use different personalities and personas at different casinos to avoid detection by security.
“Bringing Down the House” was much more accurate it terms of the details, and I thought Ben Mezrich did a very nice job on the book. Most people I talk to think it is wildly entertaining. Ben Mezrich used Jeff Ma (my old housemate and fraternity brother at MIT) as a resource for the book, and got a lot of great info from him as Jeff Ma was one of the Big Players players on the team for years. If you are looking to see what is more accurate in terms of the true story, the answer is definitely Ben Mezrich’s book “Bringing Down the House.”
While I am a big fan of both the movie 21 and “Bringing Down the House,” there were some liberties taken in both that I feel I should point out. A few examples of things that aren’t true:
- There never was an MIT professor who was the leader of the team. The original incarnation of the team, SI (see above), did have three older managers who were in their early 30’s at the time and were former MIT students and/or Harvard students. The MIT professor character was based on these three people. Incidentally, I have it on good source that the reason MIT did not let Sony shoot on the MIT campus during the filming of the movie 21 was because of the way they portrayed the professor character. He wasn’t exactly a good representative of the university. If you look closely you will notice that all scenes with actual MIT buildings are filmed from public spaces which does not require MIT approval.
- There were no mysterious outside investors as Ben Mezrich describes in “Bringing Down the House.” The seed money for SI came from the three managers. The seed money for the other incarnations of the team came from the players themselves.
- There was no “underground” casino in Chinatown for final checkouts. Some team members did play at an underground casino in Boston at least once, but there were no checkouts at this place.
- No club members were ever beat up or had their hotel rooms broken into in a violent manner by casino security. While the casino would try to use intimidation tactics, they didn’t resort to physical violence like was seen in the movie 21.
- There was no silver-haired man tracking the team members all over the country that made a team member eat a casino chip at gun point. That is just plain silly.
- The procedures for how the team operated (as a “professor” making command decisions for the team) was not true. For the most part, players operated fairly autonomously when they were out on a trip. For example, if there were 3 Spotters and 1 Big Player on a trip together, most of the decisions were made by the Big Player with input from the Spotters.
- The team never gave old style chips to strippers to cash out to avoid filing cash transaction report after the MGM Grand changed the chip design.
- Beautiful women were never used by the casinos as undercover spies to infiltrate the team.
- While players did keep some cash in their rooms, we need not keep hundreds of thousands of dollars stashed randomly in the ceiling of our dorm rooms, risking the chance of a break-in. The Big Players had safety deposit boxes for storing the bulk of the money.
A few interesting things that happened in real life but are not included (or not included accurately) in the movie 21 or Bringing Down the House include:
- The team did not always make money hand over fist. In fact, SI underperformed and eventually folded. The real money started flowing in 1994, when we started using "call-ins" was adopted by a new incarnation of the team. The team made more money in one month with the new system than SI made in its entire 1.5 year existence. At one point, we “broke the bank” (doubling the entire teams bankroll) twice in one month.
- At one point, handling large amounts of cash was so commonplace that a team member once left $100,000 in a gym duffel bag in the MIT classroom where we trained. The cash was discovered by a janitor, who stored it in his locker overnight before reporting it to MIT administration the next day. The authorities were called and the money was not returned initially because MIT wanted the money tested for drug residue to make sure it wasn’t drug money. Unfortunately, the money did happen to have microscopic amounts of drugs on them. This was not sue to us, obviously, but because gamblers and drug dealers are big users of $100 bills. The attorneys got involved and the money was eventually returned. This event was the wake up call to MIT that something big was happening in their halls.
- The core team members were a close-knit group of friends that lived together at one point. Two of our top players took in their friend and roommate. This new member was trusted like a brother as they did most everything together. Eventually, there was a breakup in a very dramatic way which eventually led to the downfall of the team.
- The second incarnation of the team – the one that made all the money as described in the movie 21 and the book “Bringing Down the House” – was fully funded by the members, not outside investors. In fact, the investment in the team was ONLY by players, and there were strict rules concerning how much different levels of players could invest. The investors were guaranteed an 18% return minimum, but it was usually much higher. After starting call-ins, the players and investors earned upwards of 600% bonuses each bank.
- The highest ever won by the team in one weekend was during the Super Bowl in 1995. Together the team won over $400,000 in cash. Usually the team was all business, but that weekend we understandably went to Crazy Horse 2 and partied until the early hours of the morning.
- The comps were amazing: One of our players was flown the morning of the Super Bowl from Atlantic City to New Orleans in a private plane, went to a private pre-game party, watched the game from an amazing suite, and then was flown back to Atlantic City immediately after the game. Another time, team members were flown from Boston to Aspen for an all expenses paid weekend of skiing, then to Purto Rico to watch a Vinnie Pazienza flight, and then back to Boston.
- The quantities of cash and chips we carried was so large, that one time somebody literally had every pocket stuffed so he had to hide the last $40,000 he was carrying under his baseball hat to go through airport security.
- A team member once dressed up as a women – a very unattractive women at that – to play on a cruise ship. It was obvious that the pit boss knew something wasn’t right, and the gig was up soon enough.
- Rooms were often used by multiple players. One morning the player who’s name the room was in checked out early to catch a flight home. Another player was using the room to take a shower when the maid, who thought the room was empty, came in and saw over $100,000 in chips and cash sprawled over the bed. She called security and the money was confiscated. This same person once left a pillowcase full of cash and chips in his room. It wasn’t until he was half way to the airport that he remembered.
- Someone on the team sold the list of team members to the casinos. This was discovered one trip when a player used a $100,000 bank check in his real name and was asked to see the casino manager the next morning. Three suits walk in and start grilling him on where the money came from. Eventually, the casino manager let it slip that they had a list of the MIT Blackjack Team “cheaters.”
- Once as team members were asked to leave the hotel security tried to back room them and physically grabbed one of their arms. He tensed up, refused to go, and caused a scene. A casino manager quickly came out to quell the situation and eventually just let them go.
- The team won $200,000 playing “cuts” (not card counting, but another advanced strategy game) at a Puerto Rico casino. The next time they visited, they were given a penthouse suite but only played there sparingly, and instead played down the street. The day before they were to leave, the casino management locked them out of our room and tried to get them to pay for the very expensive suite. Luckily, the second door of the double door was still unlocked from the room service order from the night before. Their girlfriends broke into the room and got their luggage and left undetected.
Beyond the glitz, glamour, and girls, what we really were was a close-knit group of college students who lived together and were best of friends. We took a blackjack system to heights never before achieved, won millions of dollars, and ultimately fell victim to our own success. As high stakes gamblers, we partied with celebrities and were granted our every wish – luxurious penthouse suites, gourmet meals, ring side seats to championship fights, and more. As the team grew, the new members lost sight of the core values that bred the success, and became consumed by the lifestyle, which led to a bitter breakup and ultimately to the team’s demise. Some of the team members still do not talk to this day.
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