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Bill Kaplan

Bill Kaplan was an important member of the MIT Blackjack Team. Although he wasn't a founding member of the team, he was the one who turned around the team to make it into a profit making enterprise which lasted for more than ten years.

Who is He?

Bill Kaplan had graduated from Harvard in 1977 and hadn't always been an avid card player. While he was in college his interest had been sparked by a book on card counting. He soon began researching to find out the right technique for winning at blackjack.

Instead of going back to school, he took a one year break and moved to Las Vegas. He put together his own team and used his graduation money as investment. In less than nine months his team had made immense profits on the investment. After three years of success, Kaplan broke away from his first team.

Career at MIT Team

It was then that Bill Kaplan met J.P. Massar from the original MIT Blackjack team which had been struggling to make profits. Kaplan agreed to travel to Atlantic City with the MIT Team to figure out why they were unsuccessful. Kaplan then took over the team and along with Massar and decided to turn things around.

They recruited new members, coached them to use a uniform card counting technique and run the team like a business with strict supervision. In 1980, the new MIT Team went ahead to play under Kaplan's guidance with an investment of $89,000. In only ten weeks the team had doubled their investments.

For the next ten years, the MIT Team enjoyed immense success under his guidance. In 1992 he started another team with MIT player John Chang with an initial investment of a million dollars and was able to make large profits but the casino managements were soon catching up with them. The team had to be soon dissolved.

With the increase in the awareness of card counters in the casinos and because of their constant successes at the tables, it became difficult for the players to keep up with the pressure of the game as well as trying to avoid the casinos' prying eyes. The morale of the team had been an all time low and many players had left the team.

It was then that Bill Kaplan retired as a manager of the Blackjack team. Since then Bill Kaplan founded several other businesses, most of which have been successful over the years. He is the CEO of FreshAddress which creates emailing solutions for businesses. Kaplan still enjoys casino games occasionally and hasn't lost his winning abilities over the years.