Edward Thorp: The Best Gambler of All Time – HighstakesDB

If you invest or pursue the game of blackjack competitively, the name Edward Thorp might ring familiar. For the average person, Edward Thorp is largely unknown. From inventing the first wearable computer to devising a system of beating the casino in blackjack, anybody in the gambling world should be familiar with the man who laid the foundation for modern card counting.

While his father was deployed in World War II, his mother had to pick up a job at a factory to help make ends meet. With his new-found alone time, Thorp began tinkering around the house and picking up different hobbies like chess and crafting explosives.

Thorp and his family relocated to Lomita, California, where, despite attending one of the worst rated schools in the area, he continued to thrive academically. Thorp went on to get his masters from UCLA in 1955.

While working as a professor at MIT, Thorp found that games like roulette were almost impossible to beat due to each of the spins being independent of each other. However, after having his interest piqued with a statistical journal article about blackjack, he found that the game could be beaten.

With the help of an IBM 704 computer and the Kelly criterion, a formula developed in 1956 to find the ideal bet size, Thorp devised the 10 count blackjack system. He and fellow mathematician and gambling friend Claude Shannon also devised the first wearable computer to give players an advantage, a piece of technology that is now illegal.

After being backed for $10,000 by Manny Kimmel, the two went to Las Vegas for a weekend. After leaving with a profit of $11,000, Thorp was sure his system was sound. The math prodigy decided to move to Vegas to rack up the profits, but was soon banned from a number of Vegas casinos.

As a result, Thorp had devised a number of disguises to gain him entry into casinos. He even maintained a notebook to keep track of his wide array of disguises. According to Thorp, casinos would continuously serve him alcohol to stifle his winning ways. He even claims that his car had been tampered with.

The content of the book ranges from tips on recognizing cheating to card-counting strategies. The book went on to sell over 700,000 copies and notched itself on the New York Time Bestseller List.

With the inception of the Blackjack Hall of Fame in 2002, Thorp was rightly inducted on his first ballot due to his contributions to the strategy of the popular casino game.

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Edward Thorp: The Best Gambler of All Time - HighstakesDB