Mystery of The Blackjack Ball

There is a well known saying in Las Vegas: what you see and do here, leave it here.

Those words do an excellent job of describing an annual event called the Blackjack Ball, a prestigious event that nobody talks about and that attracts 100 of the world's greatest gamblers and their spouses.

It is difficult if not IMPOSSIBLE to be invited to the Ball. The location of each year's event is kept a strict secret!

But its attendees represent some of the world's greatest gamblers. They are mostly blackjack players, but they include gamblers who have been successful at other games like dice, baccarat and poker.

I have never been invited to the Ball, but it would be intriguing if an invitation showed up in the mail. I doubt I would turn the invitation down.

Many of the attendees have been banned by gambling casinos around the world. The reason is simple: casino owners don't like to lose money and these players rarely lose.

The invitees come from all over the world -- Australia, Hong Kong, and the United States. In order to be invited, you must be nominated by a sitting member of the Blackjack Hall of Fame and then approved by the attendance committee.

Once you are given the location of the Ball, you are expected to be a show. If you don't, you will probably never be invited again.

Then there is the price of admission. At the door, which is protected by armed security guards, you must produce proper identification along with a bottle of vintage champagne and a $100 bill. NO exceptions.

I had heard about the Blackjack Ball and decided to do some research on it.

Max Rubin, a well-known blackjack player and gambler, is the organizer and originator of the Ball. And if there are any 'godfathers' whey would be Dr. Edward Thorp, author of 'Beat The Dealer,' and Stanford Wong, a well-known gambling author and blackjack player.

Here are some of the past attendees of the event:

1. Blair Hull, who founded the Hull Trading Co. in 1995 and sold it to Goldman Sachs in 1999 for $531 million, is one of them. His sale, by the way, is considered one of the 40 greatest trading deals of all time.

2. Bill Benter is a computer software CEO who heads the Benter Foundation in Pittsburgh, PA. His foundation is a multi-billion dollar corporation that deals in education, health and fine arts.

3. James Grosjean is an intellectual, engineer and graduate of Harvard University with a masters degree from the University of Chicago School of Economics. He is author of BEYOND COUNTING EXHIBIT CAA, a comprehensive book on advantage gambling, which is what the Ball is all about.

4. Rubin has been a Las Vegas fixture for nearly five decades. He is a long-time member of the American Assn. Advisor of the Board for the Global Gaming Expo. In his younger years, he was a professional blackjack player. He is also a consultant for the Barona Resort and Casino in San Diego, CA. which came up with a unique policy...

...Barona comps all the past attendees to a free room, food, beverages and other privileges, but will not permit them to play blackjack on the premises. That is a no-no. Barona, by the way, prides itself on having the loosest slots and table games in the world. It also has the loosest comps, including free rooms and food. It has a well-deserved reputation as San Diego's most popular casino.

Advantage players are intelligent gamblers who know how to shift the odds in their favor by various methods. They have strategies based on counting cards and knowing when to increase the size of their bets. They consider blackjack as the perfect teacher for success in gambling as well as in life.

One attendee said:

"We focus on our desire to succeed. We realize the slightest misstep means the difference between success and failure. By the way, that reasoning is a perfect analogy for life as well as blackjack and that is what draws us together."

"Blackjack is the perfect teacher. It shows the importance of teamwork and the humble knowledge of knowing you can have a bad day and still feel good knowing you did everything right."

5. Rick Blair is a retired Wall Street investor and author of numerous books on advantage play. He wears $5,000 suits when he attends the Blackjack Ball. He believes in treating his employees as partners in order to get the best out of him. In 2015, he was given the title of the World's Greatest Blackjack Player.

Another famous blackjack player is Don Johnson who several years ago beat three Atlantic City casinos for $15 million.

6. Zeljko Ramogajec, an attendee of the Blackjack Ball, hails from Australia. One of the world's most successful gamblers, he revealed the secret of his success: "You have to love what you are doing," he said. He no longer gambles and says his interest these days is focused on his family.

7. Ed Thorp attended the 2019 Blackjack Ball. He was given rousing applause by the attendees.

"It was his book 'Beat the Dealer' that started all of this," said one of the gamblers. "He deserves to be honored."