Ken Uston
Encyclopedia
Ken Uston was a famous blackjack
player, strategist, and author, credited with popularizing the concept of team play at blackjack. During the early to mid 1970s he gained widespread notoriety for perfecting techniques to do team card counting
in numerous casinos
worldwide, earning millions of dollars from the casinos, with some bets as high as $12,000 on a single hand. He then became famous for being banned from casinos around the world, and thus became a master of disguise as he would adopt various costumes in order to conceal his true identity and still be able to play. He is also known for filing a high-profile lawsuit against these casinos, and successfully received a ruling from the New Jersey
courts that casinos could not ban someone simply for counting cards at the Blackjack Table. In response, many casinos changed their systems, increasing the number of decks in games, or changing rules to increase the house edge. In the early 1980s, Uston also authored several popular books on video games and personal computer
s. He was the subject of a 1981 segment on 60 Minutes
, and in 2005, he was the subject of the History Channel documentary, "The Blackjack Man".
, the oldest of three children born to Elsie Lubitz, a native of Austria
, and Senzo Usui, a Japanese
immigrant and businessman.. At the age of 16, Uston was accepted to and henceforth began attending Yale University
, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Shortly after graduating from Yale, he went on to earn an MBA from Harvard University
. He became district manager of the Southern New England Telephone Co., then a senior management consultant with Cresap, McCormick & Paget in San Francisco, California
, where he relocated with his wife and two daughters. After several years in consulting, he became corporate planning manager for American Cement in Los Angeles before returning to San Francisco where he became a Senior Vice-President at the Pacific Stock Exchange
. Uston's son was born in California. On weekends, beginning in his years at Cresap, he read Thorpe's Beat the Dealer and began to spend time in the casinos, becoming what the Cleveland Plain Dealer called "a genius card-counter". Uston was also a talented musician, proficient on the bass as well as the piano. He was frequently asked to play in several San Francisco jazz clubs.
interview, Uston related that he became fascinated by blackjack and its inherent strategies after meeting professional gambler Al Francesco in a poker
game. Francesco had recently launched the first "big player" type of blackjack card counting team, and he recruited Uston to be one of his main team players. Their system was that members of the team would play at different tables around a casino, counting cards. When a count became extremely positive, they would flag the "big player" member of the team who would come in and place large bets. This technique would prevent the increased bet spread from being noticed by the pit bosses. On his first five-day run, the team won $44,100, of which Uston's share was $2,100. After two months of being a counter, Uston was promoted to "Big Player".
Although Al Francesco and other team members have recounted in subsequent Blackjack Forum interviews that Uston made very little money for their team, Uston co-authored with Roger Rapoport a book entitled The Big Player in which he shared credit for many of his card-counting successes with his fellow team members, including noted Blackjack master-strategist Bill Erb. Soon after the publication of Uston's book, it is reported that Al Francesco's team found itself effectively barred from playing in Las Vegas
.
In 1978, the year gambling began in Atlantic City, New Jersey
, Uston moved to the area and formed a profitable blackjack team of his own (discussed at length in a 2005 Blackjack Forum interview with team member Darryl Purpose
). As with most other casinos around the globe, Uston was soon barred from playing at those locations within Atlantic City as well. After he was barred in January 1979 by Resorts International, he filed a lawsuit, claiming that casinos did not have the right to bar skilled players. In Uston v. Resorts International Hotel Inc., 445 A.2d 370 (N.J. 1982), the New Jersey Supreme Court
ruled that Atlantic City casinos did not have the authority to decide whether skilled players could be barred. To date, New Jersey
casinos -- by statute -- are not allowed to bar card counters. In response to Uston's legal victory, Atlantic City casinos began adding decks, moving up shuffle points, and taking other measures to decrease a skilled player's potential advantage.
After his numerous casino barrings -- now on his own and without a team -- Uston adopted a wide variety of physical disguises in order to continue to play blackjack. He was also known for his aggressive approach along with his flamboyant playing style. In an article in Blackjack Forum, Arnold Snyder
describes playing with Ken Uston at Circus Circus Las Vegas
near the end of Uston's life. He states that Uston was disguised as a worker from Hoover Dam
and got away with spreading his bets from table minimum to table maximum on a single-deck game. Since this took place at a time when card counting was well understood by casino executives and managers, and since the primary clue by which casinos detect card counting is a card counter's "bet spread" pattern, most card counters would also consider Uston a genius of disguise
, and/or "card counting camouflage
".
After The Big Player, Uston went on to write Million Dollar Blackjack. This book includes details about professional gamblers' techniques for gaining an advantage at the game. Uston also authored a companion piece, Ken Uston On Blackjack.
and then Breakout. In 1979 Space Invaders
became his video game of choice and, after his blackjack team made $350,000 in Atlantic City, they rented a house in California and bought a Space Invaders machine. The game appealed to him in part because of the trick of counting one's shots to get the maximum number of points for the spaceship at the top of the screen.
In 1981, Uston began frequenting the Easy Street Pub near the Playboy Casino in Atlantic City. It was there he began a competition with some other regulars for having the high score on the bar's Pac-Man
arcade game. He realized the game had patterns and, in order to gain an advantage, he began experimenting and writing them down on diagrams of the maze he had created, but he was unable to go beyond a certain level. On a trip back to San Francisco, he came across two Chinese-American boys by the names of "Tommy" and "Raymond" who taught him how to go further in the game. People had been telling Uston he should write a book about Pac-Man, but he had felt he didn't have enough knowledge. After receiving lessons from the two boys, Uston decided to go ahead with the book, titled Mastering PAC-MAN, and wrote it in four days. It went on to appear in the New York Times Best Seller list
.
Uston went on to write several more books about video games and home computers during the 1980s. He also licensed his name to Coleco
for the ColecoVision
game, Ken Uston's Blackjack/Poker. In 1983, Screenplay published software titled Ken Uston's Profe$$ional Blackjack for the Apple II series
, Atari 8-bit family
, Commodore 64
, and IBM PC to assist in the learning and practice of Uston's relatively complex, yet highly accurate card-counting techniques.
He was also credited with the idea for the 1984 game Puzzle Panic
.
Blackjack
Blackjack, also known as Twenty-one or Vingt-et-un , is the most widely played casino banking game in the world...
player, strategist, and author, credited with popularizing the concept of team play at blackjack. During the early to mid 1970s he gained widespread notoriety for perfecting techniques to do team card counting
Card counting
Card counting is a casino card game strategy used primarily in the blackjack family of casino games to determine whether the next hand is likely to give a probable advantage to the player or to the dealer. Card counters, also known as advantage players, attempt to decrease the inherent casino house...
in numerous casinos
Casino
In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...
worldwide, earning millions of dollars from the casinos, with some bets as high as $12,000 on a single hand. He then became famous for being banned from casinos around the world, and thus became a master of disguise as he would adopt various costumes in order to conceal his true identity and still be able to play. He is also known for filing a high-profile lawsuit against these casinos, and successfully received a ruling from the New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
courts that casinos could not ban someone simply for counting cards at the Blackjack Table. In response, many casinos changed their systems, increasing the number of decks in games, or changing rules to increase the house edge. In the early 1980s, Uston also authored several popular books on video games and personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s. He was the subject of a 1981 segment on 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
, and in 2005, he was the subject of the History Channel documentary, "The Blackjack Man".
History
Uston was born Kenneth Senzo Usui in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, the oldest of three children born to Elsie Lubitz, a native of Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, and Senzo Usui, a Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
immigrant and businessman.. At the age of 16, Uston was accepted to and henceforth began attending Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Shortly after graduating from Yale, he went on to earn an MBA from Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. He became district manager of the Southern New England Telephone Co., then a senior management consultant with Cresap, McCormick & Paget in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, where he relocated with his wife and two daughters. After several years in consulting, he became corporate planning manager for American Cement in Los Angeles before returning to San Francisco where he became a Senior Vice-President at the Pacific Stock Exchange
Pacific Exchange
The Pacific Exchange was, until 2001, a regional stock exchange with a main exchange floor and building in San Francisco, California, USA and a branch in Los Angeles, California, USA. Its history began with the founding of the San Francisco Stock and Bond Exchange in 1882 and the Los Angeles Oil...
. Uston's son was born in California. On weekends, beginning in his years at Cresap, he read Thorpe's Beat the Dealer and began to spend time in the casinos, becoming what the Cleveland Plain Dealer called "a genius card-counter". Uston was also a talented musician, proficient on the bass as well as the piano. He was frequently asked to play in several San Francisco jazz clubs.
Blackjack
In a 1983 Blackjack ForumBlackjack Forum
Blackjack Forum was a trade journal for professional blackjack players, founded in 1981 and published by noted blackjack author Arnold Snyder. Originally a 100-page quarterly journal, it expanded into an online forum which is frequented by professional gamblers, attorneys, industry people,...
interview, Uston related that he became fascinated by blackjack and its inherent strategies after meeting professional gambler Al Francesco in a poker
Poker
Poker is a family of card games that share betting rules and usually hand rankings. Poker games differ in how the cards are dealt, how hands may be formed, whether the high or low hand wins the pot in a showdown , limits on bet sizes, and how many rounds of betting are allowed.In most modern poker...
game. Francesco had recently launched the first "big player" type of blackjack card counting team, and he recruited Uston to be one of his main team players. Their system was that members of the team would play at different tables around a casino, counting cards. When a count became extremely positive, they would flag the "big player" member of the team who would come in and place large bets. This technique would prevent the increased bet spread from being noticed by the pit bosses. On his first five-day run, the team won $44,100, of which Uston's share was $2,100. After two months of being a counter, Uston was promoted to "Big Player".
Although Al Francesco and other team members have recounted in subsequent Blackjack Forum interviews that Uston made very little money for their team, Uston co-authored with Roger Rapoport a book entitled The Big Player in which he shared credit for many of his card-counting successes with his fellow team members, including noted Blackjack master-strategist Bill Erb. Soon after the publication of Uston's book, it is reported that Al Francesco's team found itself effectively barred from playing in Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
.
In 1978, the year gambling began in Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, and a nationally renowned resort city for gambling, shopping and fine dining. The city also served as the inspiration for the American version of the board game Monopoly. Atlantic City is located on Absecon Island on the coast...
, Uston moved to the area and formed a profitable blackjack team of his own (discussed at length in a 2005 Blackjack Forum interview with team member Darryl Purpose
Darryl Purpose
Darryl Purpose is an American singer-songwriter folk musician, known for his narrative lyrics and fingerstyle guitar. Before becoming a professional musician, Purpose was a professional blackjack player and was known as one of the best in the world...
). As with most other casinos around the globe, Uston was soon barred from playing at those locations within Atlantic City as well. After he was barred in January 1979 by Resorts International, he filed a lawsuit, claiming that casinos did not have the right to bar skilled players. In Uston v. Resorts International Hotel Inc., 445 A.2d 370 (N.J. 1982), the New Jersey Supreme Court
New Jersey Supreme Court
The New Jersey Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It has existed in three different forms under the three different state constitutions since the independence of the state in 1776...
ruled that Atlantic City casinos did not have the authority to decide whether skilled players could be barred. To date, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
casinos -- by statute -- are not allowed to bar card counters. In response to Uston's legal victory, Atlantic City casinos began adding decks, moving up shuffle points, and taking other measures to decrease a skilled player's potential advantage.
After his numerous casino barrings -- now on his own and without a team -- Uston adopted a wide variety of physical disguises in order to continue to play blackjack. He was also known for his aggressive approach along with his flamboyant playing style. In an article in Blackjack Forum, Arnold Snyder
Arnold Snyder
Arnold Snyder is a professional gambler and gambling author. He was elected by professional blackjack players as one of the seven original inductees into the Blackjack Hall of Fame for his record as a blackjack player and his innovations in professional gambling techniques...
describes playing with Ken Uston at Circus Circus Las Vegas
Circus Circus Las Vegas
Circus Circus Las Vegas is a hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by MGM Resorts International. Circus Circus features circus acts and carnival type games daily on the Midway...
near the end of Uston's life. He states that Uston was disguised as a worker from Hoover Dam
Hoover Dam
Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the US states of Arizona and Nevada. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President...
and got away with spreading his bets from table minimum to table maximum on a single-deck game. Since this took place at a time when card counting was well understood by casino executives and managers, and since the primary clue by which casinos detect card counting is a card counter's "bet spread" pattern, most card counters would also consider Uston a genius of disguise
Disguise
A disguise can be anything which conceals or changes a person's physical appearance, including a wig, glasses, makeup, costume or other ways. Camouflage is one type of disguise for people, animals and objects...
, and/or "card counting camouflage
Camouflage
Camouflage is a method of concealment that allows an otherwise visible animal, military vehicle, or other object to remain unnoticed, by blending with its environment. Examples include a leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier and a leaf-mimic butterfly...
".
After The Big Player, Uston went on to write Million Dollar Blackjack. This book includes details about professional gamblers' techniques for gaining an advantage at the game. Uston also authored a companion piece, Ken Uston On Blackjack.
Video games and computers
In an interview published in Video Games, Uston revealed he got hooked on the games PongPong
Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games, and is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. While other arcade video games such as Computer Space came before it, Pong was one of the first video games to reach mainstream popularity...
and then Breakout. In 1979 Space Invaders
Space Invaders
is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released in 1978. It was originally manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and was later licensed for production in the United States by the Midway division of Bally. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and the aim is to...
became his video game of choice and, after his blackjack team made $350,000 in Atlantic City, they rented a house in California and bought a Space Invaders machine. The game appealed to him in part because of the trick of counting one's shots to get the maximum number of points for the spaceship at the top of the screen.
In 1981, Uston began frequenting the Easy Street Pub near the Playboy Casino in Atlantic City. It was there he began a competition with some other regulars for having the high score on the bar's Pac-Man
Pac-Man
is an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games,...
arcade game. He realized the game had patterns and, in order to gain an advantage, he began experimenting and writing them down on diagrams of the maze he had created, but he was unable to go beyond a certain level. On a trip back to San Francisco, he came across two Chinese-American boys by the names of "Tommy" and "Raymond" who taught him how to go further in the game. People had been telling Uston he should write a book about Pac-Man, but he had felt he didn't have enough knowledge. After receiving lessons from the two boys, Uston decided to go ahead with the book, titled Mastering PAC-MAN, and wrote it in four days. It went on to appear in the New York Times Best Seller list
New York Times Best Seller list
The New York Times Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. It is published weekly in The New York Times Book Review magazine, which is published in the Sunday edition of The New York Times and as a stand-alone publication...
.
Uston went on to write several more books about video games and home computers during the 1980s. He also licensed his name to Coleco
Coleco
Coleco is an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as "Connecticut Leather Company". It became a highly successful toy company in the 1980s, known for its mass-produced version of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and its video game consoles, the Coleco Telstar and...
for the ColecoVision
ColecoVision
The ColecoVision is Coleco Industries' second generation home video game console which was released in August 1982. The ColecoVision offered arcade-quality graphics and gaming style, and the means to expand the system's basic hardware...
game, Ken Uston's Blackjack/Poker. In 1983, Screenplay published software titled Ken Uston's Profe$$ional Blackjack for the Apple II series
Apple II series
The Apple II series is a set of 8-bit home computers, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977 with the original Apple II...
, Atari 8-bit family
Atari 8-bit family
The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers manufactured from 1979 to 1992. All are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU and were the first home computers designed with custom coprocessor chips...
, Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
, and IBM PC to assist in the learning and practice of Uston's relatively complex, yet highly accurate card-counting techniques.
He was also credited with the idea for the 1984 game Puzzle Panic
Puzzle Panic
Puzzle Panic, also known as Ken Uston's Puzzle Panic, was a computer game created by blackjack strategist Ken Uston, Bob Polin and Ron Karr and published by Epyx in 1984 for the Atari 400/800 and Commodore 64....
.
Death
On the morning of September 19, 1987, Ken Uston, age 52, was found dead in his rented apartment in Paris, France. His official cause of death was listed as heart failure.Blackjack
- The Big Player, 1977 (ISBN 0-03-016921-6)
- One Third of a Shoe
- Million Dollar Blackjack, 1981, Carol Publishing Group. (ISBN 0-89746-068-5)
- Ken Uston on Blackjack (ISBN 0-942637-56-9)
Video games
- Mastering PAC-MANPac-Manis an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games,...
, 1981 (ISBN 0-451-11899-5) - Ken Uston's Guide to Buying and Beating the Home Video GamesKen Uston's Guide to Buying and Beating the Home Video GamesKen Uston's Guide to Buying and Beating the Home Video Games was published in May 1982. The book, published by Signet in New York, was a brief guide to strategy for console video games in existence at the time. The book was divided into chapters by console type or manufacturer, and each chapter...
, 1982 (ISBN 0-451-11901-0) - Ken Uston's Home Video '83, 1982 (ISBN 0-451-12010-8)
- Score! Beating the Top 16 Video Games, 1982 (ISBN 0-451-11813-8)
Computers
- Ken Uston's Guide to Home Computers, 1983 (ISBN 0-451-12597-5)
- Ken Uston's Illustrated Guide to the AdamColeco AdamThe Coleco Adam is a home computer, an attempt in the early 1980s by American toy manufacturer Coleco to follow on the success of its ColecoVision game console...
, 1984 (ISBN 0-13-514647-X) - Ken Uston's Illustrated Guide to the Apple IIeApple IIeThe Apple IIe is the third model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The e in the name stands for enhanced, referring to the fact that several popular features were now built-in that were only available as upgrades and add-ons in earlier models...
, 1984 (ISBN 0-13-514688-7) - Ken Uston's Illustrated Guide to the Commodore 64Commodore 64The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
, 1984 (ISBN 0-13-514621-6) - Ken Uston's Illustrated Guide to the CompaqCompaqCompaq Computer Corporation is a personal computer company founded in 1982. Once the largest supplier of personal computing systems in the world, Compaq existed as an independent corporation until 2002, when it was acquired for US$25 billion by Hewlett-Packard....
, 1984 (ISBN 0-13-514696-8) - Ken Uston's Illustrated Guide to the IBM PC, 1984 (ISBN 0-13-514704-2)
- Ken Uston's Illustrated Guide to the KayproKayproKaypro Corporation, commonly called Kaypro, was an American home/personal computer manufacturer of the 1980s. The company was founded by Non-Linear Systems to develop computers to compete with the then-popular Osborne 1 portable microcomputer...
, 1984 (ISBN 0-13-514795-6) - Ken Uston's Illustrated Guide to the MacintoshMacintoshThe Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
, 1984 (ISBN 0-13-514829-4) - Ken Uston's Illustrated Guide to Today's Most Popular Computers, 1984 (ISBN 0-317-13333-0)
- Ken Uston's Illustrated Guide to the IBM PCjrIBM PCjrThe IBM PCjr was IBM's first attempt to enter the home computer market. The PCjr, IBM model number 4860, retained the IBM PC's 8088 CPU and BIOS interface for compatibility, but various design and implementation decisions led the PCjr to be a commercial failure.- Features :Announced November 1,...
, 1985 (ISBN 0-13-514720-4)