Edward Thorp: The Road To The Blackjack Hall of Fame

The History Of A Genius

Thorp also developed and applied effective hedge fund techniques in the financial markets, and collaborated with Claude Shannon in creating the first wearable computer.

Ninety years old and still going from, Thorp received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1958, and worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1959 to 1961. You might recognize MIT as the home of another infamous Vegas character – the MIT Blackjack Team. The MT team made use of some of Edward Thorp’s work, namely his high low system.

Thorp worked at New Mexico State University from 1961 to 1965 as a professor of mathematics, and then joined the University of California, Irvine, where he was a professor of mathematics from 1965 to 1977 and a professor of mathematics and finance from 1977 to 1982.

With all his learning and expertise in the fields of mathematics and finance, it seems only natural that Thorp became interested in the mathematics of gambling. Specifically, the idea that games of chance were unbeatable seemed to intrigue Thorp. 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. As any regular player knows, some wins are in the hands of Lady Luck herself, no matter how much strategy you apply when playing.

However, after having his interest piqued with a statistical journal article about blackjack.

Thorp found that the game could indeed 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 System. Thorp 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.

The Ten Count System was the first of its kind – a card-counting system where the player keeps track of the odds of receiving a 10-value card. The higher the count goes, the greater chance you have of seeing a 10.

Thorp devised this system and, as such, made his way into the Blackjack Hall of Fame in 2002. He was inducted on his first ballot due to his contributions to the strategy of the popular casino game, and has a pretty high net worth, thanks to his gambling and financial acumen.

Counting cards is not an illegal activity but it is frowned upon in most casinos on the strip. Many players have made bank using Thorp’s methods but, after a while, the casino may ask you to leave and could even end up banning you from the premises.