November 14, 2007. The casino executives had an unexpected meeting with Las Vegas' most notorious blackjack card counters at the Global Gaming Expo Wednesday.
Eyewitness News of Channel 8 was able to document the said encounter between two mit blackjack team members and some casino execs.
It was an interesting scenario that the counters were able to meet face to face with the people they have cheated and the same people who tried to prevent them from doing so.
Michael Aponte and Dave Irvine, two retired members of the MIT blackjack card counters, were able to talk to the casino executives, telling about their experience in the past which ushered in a lot of money for them.
According to the two, their team was able to haul in $10 million from different casinos in Las Vegas and other surrounding places.
Aponte and Irvine also explained how their cheating scheme worked successfully for seven years.
Douglas Florence, moderator of the Global Gaming Expo, recalled how he chased the team of Irvine and Aponte during his time as the security chief of Rico Casino.
Interestingly, Florence remembered that Aponte was among the first twenty-five blacklisted faces in the casino, as recognized by the face recognition software.
Florence, however, gave credit to the team for causing the demand for casino security, more technology investments and the rise of the face recognition software, which they first used in 1990s.
When asked about the names of their previous team members, both Aponte and Irvine refused to cite them.
Sunday, December 23 , 2007
Thomas Johnson