How Atlantic City became top gambling destination
Resorts International opened in Atlantic City, the first legal East Coast casino in the twentieth century. Their four- and six-deck blackjack games offered a new form of surrender. This rule gave basic strategy players a small edge over the house right off the top, without any card counting whatsoever! And the advantage to card counters was even greater. From opening day, card counters had a field day at Resorts’ tables. And, ironically, Resorts International was soon the most profitable casino in history, winning an average of $650,000 per day.
A team of professional blackjack players whose founders were from Czechoslovakia that had been playing in Las Vegas flew all of their members to Atlantic City to take advantage of this new surrender rule. This team, which later became known in the casino industry as simply the Czech Team, found the Resorts’ game to their liking and stayed for months.
Indeed, it was a combination of that easy-to-beat early surrender game and Ken Uston’s The Big Player that had just been published in 1977 that worked together to create an environment where new teams of smart young kids could make millions playing blackjack.
It was also in 1978 that the first MIT blackjack team was started. This team actually consisted of students from MIT, Harvard, and other East Coast colleges. Johnny C.j now a legendary player who joined the team in 1981, plays high-stakes blackjack to this day and continues organizing teams of professional players. The Czechs, the Hyland teams, and the MIT teams would be the scourge of the casino industry for decades to come. Many believe these teams owe their existence to the Resorts’ game with its early surrender rule that made the game so easy to beat. College kids found that they could pool their money, play blackjack with a modicum of intelligence, and get rich quick.