Darts is a game, or rather a variety of related games, in which darts are thrown at a circular target (dart board) hung on a wall. Though various different boards and games have been used in the past, the term ‘darts’ usually now refers to a standardized game involving a specific board design and set of rules.
As well as being a professional competitive sport, darts is a traditional pub game, commonly played in the United Kingdom (the first to officially recognize darts as a sport), the Netherlands, Israel, the Scandinavian countries, the United States and elsewhere.
Betting
On premises where alcohol is consumed, English law has long permitted betting only on games of skill, as opposed to games of chance, and then only for small stakes. An apocryphal tale relates that in 1908, Jim Garside, the landlord of the Adelphi Inn, Leeds, England was called before the local magistrates to answer the charge that he had allowed betting on a game of chance, darts, on his premises. Garside asked for the assistance of local champion William “Bigfoot” Anakin who attended as a witness and demonstrated that he could hit any number on the board nominated by the court. Garside was discharged as the magistrates found darts, indeed, to be a game of skill. More recently, in keeping with Darts’ strong association with pubs and drinking, matches between friends or pub teams are often played for pints.
Famous players
Dave WhitcombeBig Dave – The 80′s legend, twice World Masters champion and News of the World Champion.
John Part Darth Maple
Mark Dudbridge The Flash
Dennis Ovens The Heat
Alan Warriner-Little The Iceman
Colin Lloyd Jaws
Chris Mason Mace the Ace
Richie Burnett The Prince of Wales
Andy Fordham The Viking
Wayne Mardle Hawaii 501
Dave Askew Diamond Dave
Peter Manley One Dart
Kevin Painter The Artist
Roland Scholten The Tripod
Bob Anderson The Limestone Cowboy.
Eric Bristow Crafty Cockney.
Mervyn King The King
Steve Beaton The Adonis.
Bobby George
Trina Gulliver – First women’s darts champion
Arnaud van der Graaf The Enemy
Jelle Klaasen – Youngest dart champion at 21 years of age
John Lowe Old Stoneface.
Phil Taylor The Power – 2 times BDO World Champion, 11 times PDC World Champion
Raymond van Barneveld Barney – 4 times BDO World Champion
Jocky Wilson
Dennis PriestleyThe Menace – 1 time BDO World Champion, 1 time PDC World Champion
Links
Superstars of Dartscontains a popular forum frequented by many top players, officials and organisers
Sports betting systems refers to a set of events that when combined for a particular game for a particular sport represents a profitable betting scenario. Since sports betting involves humans, there is no deterministic edge to the house or the gambler. Systems allow the gambler to have an edge.
Sportsbooks use systems in their analysis to set more accurate odds. Therefore the novice gambler may believe that using a system will always work, it is the general consensus that at some point, the oddsmakers will have adjusted for the system to make it no longer profitable. Very short-lived systems are called trends. Any single event that estimates a selection to have a higher likelihood of winning is called an angle as they are meant to be used in conjunction with other angles and trends to produce systems.
Betting on systems
Systems can be deceiving. Any sample space can be constrained enough with meaningless criteria to create the illusion of a profitable betting system. For example, a coin can be flipped with heads being home teams and tails being road teams. Heads and tails each have a 50% probability of landing but if the amount of flips is limited to a small number, it is conceivable to create the illusion of predicting heads will come up 75% of the time.
That, in conjunction with the fact that sportsbooks adjust their odds according to the systems makes it difficult to follow systems indefinitely. The sportsbooks are slower to adjust the odds in some sports versus other sports depending on the number of games played and the amount of money they take in from bettors.
Determining systems
Determining systems is a matter of using computer analysis tools and extracting all the possible games that meet a bettor’s criteria. Then the bettor analyzes the results of those games to make a determination if one team is favored over the other.
In the poker game Texas hold ‘em, a player’s hand consists of two hole cards, which belong solely to the player and remain hidden from the other players. Five community cards are also dealt into play. Betting begins before any of the community cards are exposed, and continues throughout the hand.
The player’s “playing hand”, which will be compared against that of each competing player, is the best 5-card poker hand available from his two hole cards and the five community cards.
Unless otherwise specified, here the term hand applies to the player’s two hole cards, or starting hand.
Soft lines is a betting terminology representing betting odds that have been poorly researched by sportsbooks.
Handicappers commonly use this term to emphasize the value of their play. Since handicappers can focus on a smaller subset of all the possible games, they have the chance to identify soft lines. Soft lines usually exist in the games where the least number of people bet because there is less incentive by the sportsbooks to put an effort into making strong lines.
The game begins with each player being dealt two cards face down and one card face up. If played with a bring-in, the player with the lowest-ranking upcard pays the bring-in, and betting proceeds after that in normal clockwise order. The bring-in is considered an open, so the next player in turn may not check. If two players have equally ranked low cards, suit may be used to break the tie and assign the bring-in. If there is no bring-in, then the first betting round begins with the player showing the highest-ranking upcard, who may check. In this case, suit should not be used to break ties. If two players have the same high upcard, the one first in clockwise rotation from the dealer acts first.
After the first betting round, another upcard is dealt to each player (after a burn card, and starting at the dealer’s left as will all subsequent rounds), followed by a second betting round beginning with the player whose upcards make the best poker hand. Since fewer than five cards are face up, this means no straights, flushes, or full houses will count for this purpose. On this and all subsequent betting rounds, the player whose face-up cards make the best poker hand will act first, and may check or bet up to the game’s limit.
The second round is followed by a third upcard and betting round, a fourth upcard and betting round, and finally a downcard, a fifth betting round, and showdown if necessary. Seven-card stud can be summarized therefore as “two down, four up, one down”. Upon showdown, each player makes the best five-card poker hand he can out of the seven cards he was dealt.
You may note that seven cards to eight players plus four burn cards makes 60 cards, and there are only 52 in the deck. In most games this is not a problem because several players will have folded in early betting rounds. But there are certainly low-stakes home games where few if any players fold. If this is the case in your game, you may want to limit the game to seven players. If the deck does become exhausted during play, previously-dealt burn cards can be used when only a few cards are needed to complete the deal. If even those are not sufficient, then on the final round instead of dealing a downcard to each player, a single community card is dealt to the center of the table, and is shared by everyone (that is, each player treats it as his seventh card). Under no circumstances can any discarded card from a folded hand be “recycled” for later use. Unlike draw poker, where no cards are ever seen before showdown, stud poker players use the information they get from face-up cards to make strategic decisions, and so a player who sees a certain card folded is entitled to make decisions knowing that the card will never appear in another opponent’s hand.
Another hold ‘em variant is Omaha hold’em. Each player is dealt four cards to his private hand instead of two. The betting rounds and layout of community cards is identical to Texas hold ‘em. At showdown, each player’s hand is the best five-card hand he can make from exactly three of the five cards on the board, plus exactly two of his own cards.
The most popular form of the game is high-low split, called many different names such as “Omaha Eight or better”, “Omaha HiLo” or “Omaha8″. Each player, using the above rules, makes a separate five-card high hand and five-card low hand, and the pot is split between the high and low (which may be the same player). To qualify for low, a player must be able to play an 8-7-6-5-4 or lower. A few casinos play with a 9-low qualifier instead, but this is rare.
When high hands only are used, the game is generally called “Omaha high” to avoid ambiguity.
Omaha can be played fixed limit, pot limit (where it is often called “PLO”) or no limit. It is sometimes played where each player gets five cards instead of four. The same rules apply for showdown: each player must use two of his cards with three of the community cards.
In the game of “Courcheval”, popular in Europe, instead of betting on the initial four cards and then flopping three community cards for the second round, the first community card is dealt before the first betting round, so that each player has four private cards and the single community card on his first bet. Then two more community cards are dealt, and play proceeds exactly as in Omaha.
Play begins with each player being dealt four cards face down. Each player may observe those four cards she is dealt, but not the cards dealt to other players. The hand begins with a “pre-draw” betting round, beginning with the player to the left of the big blind (or the player to the left of the dealer, if no blinds are used) and continuing clockwise. Each player must either call the amount of the big blind (put in an amount equal to the big blind), fold (relinquish any claim to the pot), or raise (put in more money than anyone else, thus requiring others to do the same).
Once everyone has put the same amount of money in the pot or folded, play proceeds to the draw. Beginning with the first player still in the pot to the left of the dealer, each player may discard any number of cards and receive an equal number of replacement cards (called the “draw”). Replacement cards are dealt before the next player chooses the number of cards to draw. The discarded cards are not readded to the deck but are discarded from the game.
The first draw is followed by a second betting round. Here players are free to check (not put in any money, but also remain in the hand) until someone bets. Again betting proceeds until all players have put in an equal amount of money or folded. After the second betting round ends, there is another draw followed by a third betting round. After that there is the final draw, followed by a fourth betting round and the showdown, if necessary.
If at anytime all players but one have folded, the sole remaining player is awarded the pot. If there are more than one player remaining at the conclusion of the final betting round, the hands of those players are compared and the player with the best badugi hand is awarded the pot.
Chingona is a dice game played by two or more players, using five poker dice and a cup. It is usually played to decide who is to pay for the next round of drinks, but betting can also be involved.
Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs) are computerised machines normally found in betting shops which allow players to bet on the outcome of various games and events with Fixed Odds. They were introduced to UK shops in 2002, shortly after the abolition of the Betting Tax in October 2001.The most commonly played game is Roulette. The minimum bet per spin is £1 and the maximum is £100. Chips can be as small as 20 pence. The maximum amount that can be won on any spin is £500.
Other games include Spoof, Bingo, Virtual Racing and Triple Disc.
Shops are allowed a maximum of four such terminals, although since this number also includes fruit machines, many shops have fewer than four.
Seven Twenty-Seven is a vying game similar in some respects to poker, and often played as a “dealer’s choice” variant at home poker games. It uses the same equipment and betting system, but the value of hands does not use traditional poker hand rankings, either high or low. Rather, only the sum of the cards is used to calculate the worth of a hand. The game is somewhat of a cross between blackjack hands and poker bluffing.The game play proceeds like this:
Each player is dealt a downcard and an upcard.
A betting round begins with the player on the dealer’s left, and proceeds exactly as in poker: all players must either equal the largest bet or drop out.
After the betting, each player may draw a card, face up, in turn from the dealer’s left. If all players pass on their opportunity to draw, there is one more round of betting, followed by a poker-style showdown. Otherwise the game continues with another betting round (often beginning to the left of the player who began the previous round) and another draw, so there can be as few as two betting rounds in the game, but more often three or four.
Numbered cards are scored at face value; face cards count for one-half a point. Aces count for one and eleven, so a hand with a five and two aces scores 7 and 27 at the same time.
On showdown, the pot is split in half, with the hand(s) valued closest to 7 and the hand(s) valued closest to 27 each winning one half of the pot. If there is a tie where two players are off by the same amount, but in different directions (6 to 8), the lower hand wins. If there is an exact tie, that half-pot is split again among the tied players. Ties are common. The same player may contest for both high and low, usually because of aces. A player with a five and two aces can win the whole pot.
There are a few variations in rules that complicate things somewhat: first, the rule about ties in different directions varies; also, some players play with a declaration, while others play cards speak.
A daily double is a type of wager offered by horse and dog racing tracks. It requires bettors to select the winners of two consecutive races. Because of the increased difficulty of picking two straight winners, wining daily double bets often pay off at relatively high odds.The daily double was the first so-called “exotic” wager to be offered by American racetracks. The wager was typically offered only for the first two races of each day’s program, as an enticement for spectators to arrive early for the entire program (and hopefully wager more). As with all other American racing wagers, the “double” is conducted in parimutuel fashion, with the number of betting interests in the daily double pool equal to the product of the number of runners in both races — in other words, if there are ten entries in the first race and eight in the second, there will be 80 separate betting interests, one for each combination. By sheer mathematics, this results in the higher payoffs than those found in straight betting for win, place or show.
For many years, the daily double was the only exotic wager offered. Later on, the exacta was also offered on select races during each program. The wagers were offered only a few times each day largely because of the limitations of electro-mechanical totalisator systems. When computer technology took over, many more exotic wagers were introduced, such as the trifecta, superfecta and pick 6. The higher payouts for these wagers tended to diminish interest in the “old fashioned” daily double, but it is still offered at all tracks, sometimes more than once during a program. (A “late double” is frequently offered on the last two races on a program.)
The “Pick 3″ and “Pick 4″ wagers are derived from the daily double; they require bettors to pick the winners of three or four consecutive races. These are often offered on a “rolling” basis — a rolling pick 3 on races one through three, another on races two through four, and so on throughout the day.
Occasional doubles are offered on important races contested on separate days. The most prominent example of the “Oaks-Derby Double” offered by Churchill Downs, where bettors pick the winners of the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby. The Oaks is run the day before the Derby.
A dead pool, or deathpool is a game of prediction which involves guessing when someone will die. Sometimes it is a bet where money is involved. The combination of dead or death and betting-pool, refers to such a gambling arrangement. A typical modern dead pool might have players pick out celebrities who they think will die within the year. There are several scoring variants. For example, a player might be rewarded few, if any, points for predicting the death of someone who is over 80 years old or is suffering from a terminal disease. Other pools require participants to form a list ranked on how sure they are that a person on the list will die, with points given based on how high a person on their list is ranked, and others award points based on how many other contestants selected the deceased celebrity. Another variant on the game has a single point awarded for each correct prediction, regardless of the celebrity’s age or medical condition. The advantage of this scoring method is that there is more scoring, and it rewards research (learning which celebrities are experiencing failing health) rather than luck.One example of the concept is a series of segments on the Howard Stern Radio Show, where show regulars would place bets into a celebrity death pool, each trying to predict the next celebrity to pass on. The practice has been expanded to include wagering on such abstract entities as businesses.
Definitions of celebrity vary from contest to contest. Smaller pools may rely on consensus of the players as to who is famous. Others require an obituary to appear in a recognized newswire such as the Associated Press or Reuters. The Lee Atwater Invitational employed a Fame Committee consisting of non-contestants who assess ahead of time the name-recognition of each celebrity. The Rotten.com Dead Pool, the largest in the world, uses NNDB as its source of qualified celebrities, and as arbiter of their life status.
The concept and success strategies are also detailed in an annual guide called “The Dead Pool”, written by KQRS radio personality Mike Gelfand and author Mike Wilkinson. KQRS also does an annual on air dead pool contest, similar to Stern’s, where show hosts and listners will attempt to pick which celebrity will die in that calendar year.
In most pools, killing the celebrity in question is considered cheating and results in the killer’s immediate disqualification from the pool. Such a dead pool was depicted in the aptly-titled Clint Eastwood movie, The Dead Pool.
Death List is unlike a traditional dead pool as there are no competitors involved and no points are awarded. The names on the list are chosen by a committee, members of Death List then track the well-being of the chosen celebrities over the course of the year. The Death List was first conceived in a student bar on November 29th 1986, the inspiration being the death of Cary Grant earlier the same day. The list’s aim is to predict which people in the public eye will die in the following year. Ever since 1987, a list has been drawn up, but starting in 1994 the Death List has consisted of 50 prominent people chosen annually by the committee, who might merit a prominent obituary in the UK media — ranging from politicans, religious figures and show business stars.
The Dead Pool is also an arena in the Mortal Kombat series only being featured in Mortal Kombat II and Mortal Kombat: Deception. The stage itself is a pit surrounded with acid. On Mortal Kombat II, you had to wait for the “Finish Him/Her”" screen, then you could knock your opponent in the acid, and it would count as a Fatality. On Mortal Kombat Deception, you could just knock your opponent in the acid with a single powerful strike.
A Calcutta Auction is an open auction held in conjunction with a golf tournament, horse race, or similar contest with multiple entrants. It is popular in Backgammon and is currently enjoying rising popularity for NCAA Basketball pools during March Madness.Bidding for each contestant begins in random order, with only one contestant being bid upon at any time. Accordingly, participants (originally in Calcutta, India, from where this technique was first recorded by the Colonial British) bid among themselves to “buy” each of the contestants, with each contestant being assigned to the highest bidder. The contestant will then pay out to the owner a predetermined proportion of the pool depending on how it performs in the tournament. While variations in payoff schedules exist, in an NCAA Basketball tournament (64 teams, single elimination) the payoffs could resemble the following schedule: 1 win – 0.25%, 2 wins – 2%, 3 wins – 4%, 4 wins – 8%, 5 wins – 16%, tournament winner with 6 wins – 32%.
The most interesting element of Calcutta Auctions is in determining an appropriate wager for each contestant, as the payoff will directly hinge on the size of the pot and thereby the size of the bids being placed. Thus the value of each team fluctuates during the course of the betting. For example, even if a bidder knew the Tar Heels would be the tournament winner and thus pay out 32% of the pool, she would still be unsure of the exact value of the team (unless it was the last team being bid on) as the payout would depend on the sum total of all winning bids.
This is similar to parimutuel betting, in that the winnings are awarded from the total pool of bets, but differs in that only one player can bet on any one contestant. However, a player may purchase as many contestants as they desire.
Bourré (also commonly known as Bouré and Boo-Ray) is a trick-taking gambling card game primarily played in the Acadiana region of Louisiana in the United States of America. The game’s closest relatives are probably Spades and Poker; like many regional games, Bourré sports a large number of variant rules for both gameplay and betting considerations.
Object
The object of Bourré is to take a majority of the tricks in each hand and thereby claim the money in the pot. If a player cannot take a majority of tricks, their secondary goal is to keep from bourréing, or taking no tricks at all. A bourré usually comes at a high penalty, such as matching the amount of money in the pot.
Rules
The game is played with a standard 52-card deck; aces are high. With four players, everyone is guaranteed fresh cards if they draw replacements; with more, it may be necessary to use previously-discarded ones, so five or six players is considered the practical limit of single-decked Bourré. An online casino should provide the type of Bourré rules they use.
After every player antes, the dealer passes out five cards to each player, one at a time. The dealer flips their own fifth card–the last dealt–and the suit of that card is considered trumps. As in Spades, this suit beats all others; a 2 of trumps is “higher” in rank than an Ace of any other suit.
After the deal, each player (starting with the one to the dealer’s left and continuing clockwise) states their intent to play. Many variants require an additional ante at this point. Those who are not playing in the hand fold, and those cards are collected by the dealer for possible use if the main stock runs out.
Once every player has stated their intent, the dealer asks those still in the game (in the same order as before) how many new cards they desire. They can take any number from zero to five; their discards go in a separate pile, and the dealer hands them as many new cards as they discarded. If the main stock is depleted before all the players have been serviced, the dealer shuffles the “folded” hands and deals those; if that stock is depleted as well, the discards are shuffled and used.
Once everyone, including the dealer, has either folded or completed their redraw, the trick-taking phase begins. The first player to the dealer’s left that is still in the game starts by playing any card from their hand (with few exceptions); rules of play are as follows, and a lower-numbered rule overrides any higher-numbered one.
You must play to win. This goes beyond simply “playing a higher card;” if you know that no one else has any trumps, and it is your turn to lead, you must play trumps if you have them.
You must play on-suit if possible, even if your highest on-suit card will not beat the highest card in play. Even if a trump has been played on a non-trump lead, if you have a card of the suit led, you must play on that suit.
You must play a trump if you have no on-suit cards. You still must play to win; if the only trump played is a 3, you hold the 2 and the Ace of trumps but no cards of the lead suit, you must play the Ace of trumps.
If you have neither any cards of the lead suit nor any trumps, you may play any card. This is an off card, and is effectively lower than the 2 of the lead suit.
The winner of a given round, or trick, collects the cards and places them face-up in front of them. They then lead with another card. Play proceeds until all five tricks have been completed.
If a single player has taken more tricks than any other player, they have won the hand and take all of the winnings in the pot.
If more than one person ties for the most tricks, this is a split pot. With five tricks, the only possible splits are 2-2-1 and 1-1-1-1-1. On a split pot, no one takes the winnings; they stay on the table.
If anyone did not take any tricks, or reneged during play–that is, did not follow the rules properly–they have bourréd and must match the pot for the next round instead of their usual ante. For example, if there are five red chips in the pot at the end of a hand and someone has bourréd, they must put five red chips (or their equivalent) in the pot for the next round.
Deal then passes to the left.
There are complex rules about forced plays; a simple example is when someone has just taken their second trick and holds the Ace of trumps in their hand. Since the Ace of trumps is unbeatable, they must play it as their next card. Similar occurrences are when a player has taken one trick and has both the Ace and King, or (more complex) the Ace, Queen, and Jack. While the rules themselves are simple in theory, the details about forced plays can make Bourré challenging for even the skilled player.
The “must play to win” rule can have contentious results if a player is playing “nice,” trying to keep others from bourréing. Most games disallow such “nice” plays; players must attempt to bourré as many other players as possible. As Bourré is a game with imperfect information, and gamesmanship should (hopefully) trump rules-lawyering, care should be applied to any analysis of rounds when looking for such “nice” plays.
Variations
Variations in the rules of Bourré abound, possibly due to its nature as a regional game. Perhaps the most common is the introduction of a pot limit, which caps the total amount a single bourré or renege can cost a given player. In some games, it is common for the dealer to ante for all of the players; this simplifies trying to determine whether individuals have anteed. In a sense, the dealer is paying for his face up trump. In this variation, for a five person, one dollar ante game, the dealer of each hand would ante five dollars. A common point of dissent is whether a player who holds trumps but not the lead suit should be forced to play a trump if they cannot beat a higher trump already on the table; while the general consensus seems to be that they must, groups of players are known to not follow that particular detail. Punishments for misplay range from simple retraction (good for new players), retraction-and-renege, or just a renege, which can lead to the misplaying individual attempting to bourré one or more other players. The default ante amount is understandably variable, and the second ante is fairly common.
Resources
Guidry, Preston (1988). Graeff, Benny and Lantier, Ivy (eds.) Official Rules and Techniques of the Cajun Card Game Bourré (boo-ray). Louisiana: National Cajun Bourré Association.
Engler, Henry J (1964). Rules and Techniques of Bourré.
An Asian Handicap is a sports betting term used to describe spread betting in football (soccer). Described as Asian because of its Eastern origins, the phrase has little else to do with the region. This form of soccer betting has gained increased popularity over the last few years and is now offered by a variety of mainstream bookmakers.Football bets can be made using a few different formats. From a gambler’s standpoint, Asian handicap odds provide many benefits. For starters, the Asian handicap system eliminates any chance for loss due to a tie, which increases the gamblers chances of success. Secondly, bookmakers typically charge less Vigorish than with other bets.
Description
Soccer is one of the few sports in the world where a tie is a fairly common outcome. With traditional fixed odds, ties are treated as an additional outcome to the game. In other words, bettors lose when they place a wager on either team to win and the game ties. With Asian Handicaps, however, the chance for a tie is eliminated by use of a handicap that forces a winner. This creates a situation where each team has a 50-50 chance of winning; similar to the odds for a basketball or baseball game where a tie is impossible.
This system works in a straight-forward manner. The bookmakers’s goal is to create a handicap or “line” that will make the chance of either team winning (considering the handicap) as close to 50% as possible. Since the odds are as close to 50% as possible, bookmakers offer payouts close to even money, or 1.90 to 2.00. Asian Handicaps start at a quarter goal and can go as high as 2.5 or 3 goals in matches with a huge disparity in ability. What makes Asian Handicaps most interesting is the use of quarter goals to get the “line” as close as possible. Taken in conjunction with the posted total for the game, the handicap essentially predicts the game’s final score. Take a look at this example:
Example
Match: Everton vs. Newcastle United
Handicap: 0 : 1 1/2
Explained: This handicap states that Everton is “giving” Newcastle one and one half goal for the match.
This means is that Newcastle is starting the game with a 1.5-0 lead. If the final score of the game is 2-1, then a bet on Newcastle wins the with the final score (considering handicap) as 2-2.5.
Quarter Handicaps
Subsequently, many matches are handicapped in 1/2 and 1/4 intervals; both of which eliminate the possibility of a tie since no one can score a half-goal. Quarter (1/4) handicaps split the bet between the two next closest 1/4 intervals. For instance, a $1000 bet with a handicap of 1 3/4 is the same as betting $500 at 1 1/2 and $500 at 2. With 1/4 handicap bets, you can win and tie (win 1/2 of wager) or lose and tie (lose 1/2 wager).
Whole Handicaps and Ties
Handicaps that are whole numbers still allow for the possibility of a tie. Sportsbooks will refund both bets in the event of a game tied by the handicap.
Reference & Payout Charts
Asian Handicap Betting Article from DragonBets.com
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Bau cua ca cop is a Vietnamese gambling game using three dice. The six sides of the dice, instead of showing numbers one through six, have pictures of a fish, prawn, crab, rooster, calabash gourd and stag. Players place wagers on a board, betting on which pictures will appear. (The game is similar to the English dice game Crown and anchor).
Bau cua ca cop is often played at Tet (Vietnamese New Year).
The MIT Blackjack Team, as the name suggests, was a group of students and ex-students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who attempted to beat casinos at blackjack worldwide. The team and its successors operated from 1979 through the beginning of the 21st century.
The plan and operation
Blackjack gives the house a low statistical advantage compared to other casino games. Beyond the basic strategy of when to hit and when to stand, individual players can use a combination of betting strategy, card tracking, and card counting to improve their odds. Accurate card counting is a fairly difficult skill, but since the early 1960s a large number of schemes have been published — and casinos have adjusted the rules of play to counter the most popular methods.
The chance to make large amounts of money card counting appealed to some mathematically minded students at MIT. The university had card playing clubs, but some students decided to develop their hobby. The group combined the individual player advantages with a team approach of counters and players to maximise any opportunities and disguise the betting patterns card counting produces. In a 2002 interview in Blackjack Forum magazine, MIT team manager Johnny Chang reported that, in addition to classic card counting and blackjack team techniques, the group at various times made use of advanced shuffle tracking and ace tracking techniques. While the card counting techniques used by the MIT team can give players an overall edge of up to about 2%, some of the MIT team’s methods have been established as gaining players an overall edge of up to about 4%. However, in his interview Chang reported that the MIT team had difficulty attaining such edges in actual play, and their overall results had been best with straight card counting.
The original team recruited students through flyers posted around campus. The team tested interested students to find out if they were suitable candidates, and if they were, the team thoroughly trained the new members. A corporate called Strategic Investments bankrolled the team. With the backing of the corporation, they were able to play with a bankroll of hundreds of thousands of dollars, far larger than would normally be available to college students. Eventually, with team morale suffering after a series of large losses, the corporation closed shop, and the original team disbanded, to be replaced by several new teams founded by alumni of the first group.
The team approach used by the MIT groups was originally developed by Al Francesco, elected by professional gamblers as one of the original 7 inductees into the Blackjack Hall of Fame. Blackjack team play was first written about by Ken Uston, an early member of Al Francesco’s teams. Uston’s book on blackjack team play, Million Dollar Blackjack, was published shortly before the founding of the first MIT team. The team methods devised by Al Francesco, and later used by the MIT team, at first made it more difficult for casinos to detect card counting at their tables. Unfortunately, Uston’s books alerted casinos to the methods of blackjack team play, and several MIT team members were identified and barred. These members were replaced by fresh MIT students, and play continued. Investigators hired by casinos eventually realized that many of those they had banned had addresses in or near Boston, and the connection with MIT became clear. The detectives obtained copies of recent MIT yearbooks and added photographs from it to their image database.
With most of the original team barred, most members retired, having made an amount variously reported as $1 million to $10 million. Some members have used reports of their successes to start public-speaking careers or businesses selling blackjack card counting systems or running blackjack seminars.
In the media
The story of the MIT Blackjack Team was told in the documentary Breaking Vegas, in the book Bringing Down the House, and on an episode of the Game Show Network documentary series, Anything to Win. The private investigation firm referred to as Plymouth in Bringing Down the House was Griffin Investigations.
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Darts is a game, or rather a variety of related games, in which darts are thrown at a circular target (dart board) hung on a wall. Though various different boards and games have been used in the past, the term ‘darts’ usually now refers to a standardized game involving a specific board design and set of rules.
