Blackjack Institute

David Irvine

Football season is over and bookies are taking a break. But Wall Street’s handicappers work 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day, in an effort to bring down the house.

Money never sleeps...global exchanges are open 1440 minutes a day. But sometimes you need to unwind.

Blackjack anyone?

The Gonz Show
Boston Magazine
February 2007

Being on the MIT blackjack team, that had to be a huge rush. Did you have to settle yourself down before playing?

When I get all amped up, I listen to Michael Bolton. Something about his golden mullet is just…soothing. Every trip was exciting. You get ready to rock and roll every time you go into the casino. You’d get excited—kinda controlled excitement rather than go-crazy excitement, though. It was wanting to be technically perfect.

Remind me, how did you guys get hooked up with Ben Mezrich?

The funny thing is, Mezrich talked to one guy mainly. I was not one of the characters in the book. My partner, Mike Aponte was, but it was mostly this other person’s viewpoint and he was feeding that to Mezrich.

Was the book good for you? Because, on the one hand, it made you guys the envy of every gambler in the world—and now you have this new venture going. But, on the other hand, I’m guessing you guys didn’t get any loot from the book sales. Or did you?

No, not at all. When it first happened, it was like, aw, man the secret is out. But with the Blackjack Institute, since everyone already knows what we did and who we were, there’s an opportunity now to teach the people what we did and how we made our millions.

So that’s a no—Mezrich didn’t give you guys any money?

No.

You’re an MIT guy. Couldn’t you just devise a formula to make that bastard Mezrich pay up?

(Laughs). Hey, more power to him. Honestly, we wouldn’t have done it. He was much more forward thinking than we were.

It’s been a while since I read the book, but I seem to remember the biggest problem being how you guys would transport the cash. Didn’t team members have to strap money to themselves and serve as cash mules?

Transporting money—put it in perspective. It was pre 9/11. We could never do this today. We would wad up bricks of $10,000 and put them in our pockets, tape it to our body, strap it to our legs. Whatever. It looked enormous. The rule was to keep it on your body and never put it in a suitcase. The story Mike tells is when he was carrying 40K, he ran out of spots to hide it. He had to carry the last of it under his hat.

You know some people actually smuggle baloney to Mexico and sell it at three-times the price. Seriously, they’re baloney mules. I’m just sayin’—could have been worse.

(Laughs.) I’ve never heard that. I suppose I could always start a baloney exporting business. I haven’t had baloney in a long time.

Read Part one and part two

Bust Vegas after attending the Blackjack Institute

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Here is a “docu-drama” short that will have to do...until “21” hits the theaters starring Kevin Spacey, Laurence Fishburne and Kate Bosworth

FAQ “21” movie IMDB

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The content contained in this blog represents the opinions of underthecounter. This commentary in no way constitutes a solicitation of business or investment advice. It is intended solely for the entertainment of the reader, and the author.

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