Talk:MIT Blackjack Team

Overall edge

The article claims that "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%." It seems to me that this needs a citation. I've been searching google but have found no reports of how much the MIT team improved their black jack odds. Theinsomniac4life 20:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't belive there is any refernce on-line. Check out the book "Bringing Down the House : The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions" by Ben Mezrich -- Jason Palpatine 20:33, 11 July 2006 (UTC) (speak your mind | contributions)[reply]

Thanks for the reply, Jason. I'm still becoming familiar with Wikipedia and wanted advice on editing this article. Should that line be removed since it lacks a proper reference? I'm not going to take the time to read the book simply to edit this article. It was academic curiosity that made me wonder how great of an edge the team had attained. Of course this is an extremely difficult question to assess, and guesswork estimates of 2-4% seem utterly meaningless to me. My question then, stated more directly, is should this line and similar statements of fact remain in wikipedia articles without proper referencing? Theinsomniac4life

The "methods" being referred to presumably include shuffle-tracking, hole-card play, and exploiting dealer errors. Tricks one couldn't use all the time, depending on unusual conditions or special expertise. Blogjack (talk) 08:53, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like pure fiction.

I don't get it. The casinos are known to be run by the mafia. Most likely they just kill troublesome people and have their bodies sleep with the fishes or pour them in concrete and there will be zero witnesses (law of omerta), so the crime never gets solved. How come the MIT team survived so long instead of being invited to their own funerals by the Godfather? 82.131.210.162 (talk) 14:36, 10 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You've been watching too many movies. Yes, casinos have been run by criminals in the past - back when they were *funded* by criminals - but today's casinos tend to be publically owned and regulated corporations. Players occasionally have gotten beaten up by overzealous security personnel, but the casinos make too much money for it to be worth the lawsuit risk of that being the general policy. Hurting or killing your customers when they win is bad for business. If some customers are especially good at winning, it's just as easy to modify the rules of the game to reduce their edge. Or keep shuffling until they go away. --Blogjack (talk) 20:15, 10 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Roles section is lifted directly from a Wired article, Hacking Las Vegas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.123.17.83 (talk) 14:43, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch, I have deleted this section as a copyright violation. A "Roles" section could be usefully re-created, so long as it does not violate Wikipedia copyright policies. Baileypalblue (talk) 19:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Self-contradictory header.

> MIT Blackjack Team is part of WikiProject Gambling, an attempt at building a useful gambling resource. <

Is that theoretically possible? I mean can gambling or anything related to it be "useful"? If I understand correctly, gambling is a sub-zero sum game for the whole society, that is benefits from individual win are always less than the harm done to public good. 82.131.210.162 (talk) 16:35, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Horribly unreferenced

The entire article reads to me like original research. Where is all this information from? I'm tempted to delete most sections, as none of them are referenced. ~MDD 46 96 17:10, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"took liberties with the truth"

It attacks an author's credibility. Do not add this back in. If you believe he took liberties with the truth, you need to cite another source saying that it is the case, and state that it is the opinion of that source. Otherwise, you just libeled someone. GusChiggins21 (talk) 19:10, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but that's laughable. Mezrich would be the first to admit it wasn't meant to be a documentary. Characters are composites. And the movie isn't close. There was no professor running the teams. No one was beat up. It's fiction. Everyone on the teams has talked about the inaccuracies. Objective3000 (talk) 19:40, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, you're right about the movie. We need a source for the books, though. We're calling an author's integrity into question, and we shouldn't do that lightly, for obvious legal reasons. GusChiggins21 (talk) 20:09, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]