Edward O. Thorp

There were only seven men elected to the first Blackjack Hall of Fame, and Edward O. Thorp was certainly one of them. With his incredible mathematical mind and his groundbreaking book, Beat the Dealer, Edward O. Thorp changed the way that people have viewed blackjack ever since. While blackjack has previously been seen as a side game, this Blackjack Hall of Fame author brought the game into the forefront, making it a popular casino game that came to the attention of thousands.

Edward O. Thorp in the Early Days

Born in 1933, Edward O. Thorp received his Master's degree in physics and his doctorate in math from UCLA. He was a professor of math at MIT, UCLA, NMSU and UC Irvine. It was while at MIT that he started looking at the probability of winning at blackjack. He noticed that, in other casino games, the chance of winning was always the same, no matter what happened in the past. The last roulette spin didn't have any influence over the one coming up; the last roll of the craps dice didn't dictate this roll. In blackjack, however, he noticed the opposite. It did matter which card was drawn two minutes ago and it did influence what would happen next. Edward O. Thorp came up with his blackjack card counting strategy as a result of this observation. He devised a system that made is better to bet more when the odds were in your favor, and to bet less when the odds were against you.

More about Edward O. Thorp

He decided to put his blackjack strategy ideas to work for him, and found that he won a great deal in one weekend of play. His Ten-Count System was then published in his book Beat the Dealer in 1962. Certainly, worth of the Blackjack Hall of Fame, his book sold 700,000 copies and made it onto the New York Times bestseller list. A few years later, in 1966, he presented a new version of the book with a revised, and easier-to-follow counting system.

Edward O. Thorp Gets More for His Money

From these strategies, Edward O. Thorp then branched out into Wall Street. He used his understanding of probability and statistics to focus on a few key anomalies in the securities market. He published Beat the Market in 1967 with a co-author J. Regan. He then created his own hedge fund called Princeton/Newport Partners and became president of the Edward O. Thorp & Associates group. Certainly, all of his experiences and expertise granted him a place in the Blackjack Hall of Fame and many other honorable locations!