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Ken Uston Begins at Blackjack
From his early years it was always evident that Ken Uston would go far. At the age of 16 years he was accepted to Yale University on a scholarship and later went to Harvard Business School at a very young age. After graduating he became fascinated with the idea and concept of the Poker tables and strategic ways to win. He had read some of the articles and books written by Al Francesco who is thought to be the original father of blackjack card counting. Ken Uston engineered a meeting with Francesco at a Poker game and managed to get accepted as one of the team members of his "Big Player" Blackjack teams. This concept worked with blackjack teams of "Big" and "Small" players, where the small players passed information to the big players which helped them win their blackjack games.
The Good Years with the Blackjack Teams
In 1978 Ken Uston moved to Atlantic City and formed his own blackjack card counting teams based on the "Big Player" theories he had learnt from Francesco. It was here that Ken Uston is reported to have made millions of dollars, exactly how much, no one knows. The casinos cottoned on to his card counting and tried to ban him from their casinos but he took them to court in a famous case which he won. The basis of Uston's court case was that no casino could ban him just for card counting which is not an illegal activity. It was after his famous win, that casinos started getting cleverer and adding more shuffling techniques and decks to their blackjack games to try and prevent these card counters from winning. Uston was not put off by the casinos barring him and he became the master of disguise in order to get into the same casinos time and time again. In one disguise he was even known to have placed a single bet as high as $12000 and won!
Ken Uston, the Author
During his good years Uston also embarked on his writing career during which time he wrote over 15 bestselling books. Some of his best known books were about Video Games which became a passion of his, he wrote "Mastering Pac-Man" in only 2 days and it became a bestseller amongst other Blackjack related books. Uston as an author is most well known for his book "Big Player" which exposed the ideals and workings of Al Francesco's team games. A year after Uston's book was published, the MIT Blackjack Team began its winning career and although many scorned Ken Uston's book, without a doubt the genii of MIT used its principles for their winning MIT Blackjack teams, which had a career of 20 years.
Not an Author and Blackjack Player
Ken Uston was a very accomplished character. Not only did he play on Blackjack teams and subsequently by himself in disguises, but he also held down a thriving day job, moving up corporate ladders. At the height of his career, Ken Uston was the Senior Vice President of the Pacific Stock Exchange. In his spare time, Uston also enjoyed playing jazz piano and acted as a consultant for many countries and businesses. He was once flown out to South Africa to help the Sun City casinos discover why they were not making money. Uston's fifteenth book "An American in Kuwait" was based on his time in Kuwait where he acted as a business consultant for the government. It is thought that over the years Ken Uston made millions from his Blackjack games but he was also very talented in every other area of his life and unfortunately suffered a premature death in 1987 while living alone in Paris. Although the official line is that Ken Uston died from heart failure, there are still rumors that casinos were not too happy with him and helped to cause his early death. One thing is for sure; Ken Uston has left a legacy behind him and will always be known as the modern author of blackjack card counting and a genius Blackjack player. Despite his premature death at the age of 52 years, Ken Uston still managed to make his mark as an author, infamous Blackjack player and strategist as well as a talented and accomplished jazz piano player.
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