Ken Uston - Card Counting Genius

Ken Uston was a charismatic figure who left an indelible mark on the casino game of blackjack. Uston was born with an exceptional intelligence and he used it well duringhis lifetime to challenge the blackjack authorities and to create unique strategies for playing the game.

Uston was born in New York City in 1935 to Japanese-American parents. His gifted I.Q. of 169 allowed him to enter Yale at the age of 16, and to graduate from Harvard Business School while still in his early 20's. At 31, Uston became Vice-President of the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange. It was during this time that he learned computer programming.

At the same time, he became fascinated with blackjack, and he teamed up with professional gambler, Al Francesco, who had started a card counting team to play Las Vegas blackjack. Uston was enthralled with the idea, and soon became a member of Francesco's team on a full-time basis.

The team utilized mathematical systems, similar to the ones perfected in the 1990's by the M.I.T. team as featured in the 2008 blockbuster movie, "21." Uston played the Las Vegas blackjack tables in the 1970's and made them pay dearly. In 1976, Uston formed his own team that played the blackjack tables in casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

Uston ingeniously set up a communication system with members of his team who were sitting at the blackjack table. It involved a small computer in the inside of the player's shoe, and the players were able to give card input into the computer. The computer then would indicate to the players whether they should hit, stand, draw, double down or fold.

Uston used a variety of disguises to evade casino security wherever he went. Eventually, he was barred from Resorts in Atlantic City and he took them to court, claiming that he was using skill and not cheating by counting cards. Uston won the case; however, the casinos soon took to multiple card decks in blackjack which has made card counting close to impossible.

Uston wrote several books on blackjack. Some of his best sellers in the early 1980's were The Big Player, Million Dollar Blackjack and Ken Uston on Blackjack. In 1981, Uston was featured in a segment on gambling on 60 Minutes, and he authored several books on video games and personal computers.

Uston died of a heart attack in Paris in 1987 at the age of 52.  During his life, he revolutionized the game of blackjack by perfecting card counting techniques.  Ken Uston was the subject of a documentary on the History Channel in 2005, aptly named, “The Blackjack Man.”