Andy Bloch

I'm WBEZ Chicago.

It's This American Life.

Okay, here we go.

Blackjack, $10 table, $10.

High limit room, which no one is in.

Monday, late morning.

This American Life producer Robin Semien and I are in a casino that will remain unnamed here on the radio because we did not have permission to record.

I did not ask for permission due to the nature of our visit.

Come on, let's see over here.

We stand by one of the blackjack tables and Robin does a quick scan of the cards.

What's the count on this table?

We were there to count cards, to play blackjack and count cards while we did it, which gives a player such a big advantage against the house that most casinos ask you to leave the table if they catch you doing it.

And how did we end up here?

Well, we've gotten a lesson the day before in how to count cards.

We used to say that you could teach a piece of wood to play blackjack.

We got our lesson from Andy Block, who played blackjack for what is possibly the most famous group of blackjack card counters, the so-called MIT blackjack team.

The winnings inspired a best-selling book and a terrible Hollywood film called 21.

These were real MIT students.

Andy studied electrical engineering.

There is no reliable way to know how much they won.