\nHoward Stutz, Las Vegas Review-Journal \u00b7 September 29, 2015 at 4:37 pm<\/p>\n
\tThe opening address of the gaming industry\u2019s largest trade show and conference was an unusual place for a noted card counter to give a lesson on how to beat the casino.<\/p>\n
\tBut Jeffrey Ma\u2019s remarks at the Global Gaming Expo on Tuesday had more to do with making business decisions than bringing down the house.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cUnderstanding how to use data and analytics gives you a little edge,\u201d Ma said during his G2E keynote address at the Sands Expo and Convention Center. \u201cI believe in the power of math and the power of data.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tMa told the G2E audience he was a professional blackjack player from 1994 until 2001. He became famous for leading a team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students who took casinos for millions of dollars by counting cards at blackjack during the 1990s. The adventures inspired the book \u201cBringing Down the House,\u201d by Ben Mezrich and the movie, \u201c21,\u201d which was based on the book.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI saved Ben\u2019s career,\u201d Ma joked, recounting how he brought the author along on one of the MIT group\u2019s gambling excursions to Las Vegas. Ma earned a cameo role in the movie as a blackjack dealer.<\/p>\n
\tMa, who said he has never used his mechanical engineering degree from MIT, has since become an expert in business analytics and data, which he connected to his experiences at the blackjack table during his G2E address.<\/p>\n
\tMa has founded four companies that have been purchased by major corporations, including tenXer, an analytics tool designed to optimize employee performance that was recently acquired by Twitter.<\/p>\n
\tThe trip for G2E was quick. He flew into Las Vegas on Tuesday morning and left shortly after his speech. He commented that he\u2019s not \u201carrested when he lands at McCarran International Airport,\u201d but he isn\u2019t allowed to frequent blackjack tables at casinos.<\/p>\n
\tHis skill at blackjack brought him some celebrity interaction. He played undetected by Bellagio authorities during the casino\u2019s opening in 1998, playing at a table next to actor Kevin Costner. Ma won but as Costner lost he overheard the actors\u2019 entourage comment that this was \u201cgoing as well\u201d as Costner\u2019s box office flop, \u201cWaterworld.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tDuring the filming of \u201c21,\u201d actress Kate Bosworth, one of the film\u2019s stars, encouraged Ma to accompany her to the Palms to play blackjack. Palms officials stopped Ma from playing and told him he \u201ccouldn\u2019t be within 20 feet of the table\u201d while Bosworth gambled.<\/p>\n
\tMa said counting cards at blackjack utilizes analytics. It\u2019s not about actually counting cards, but knowing if more high cards are left in the deck, which is better for the player. It much better to \u201cgo with data rather than your gut.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe same holds true in business, Ma told the gaming crowd. He said business people often make decisions to avert a loss, rather than take a risk. Knowing the data and analytics helps improve the odds.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe idea of losing scares us,\u201d Ma said. \u201cBut if you study the data and history, it gives you a little bit of an edge.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tMa was one of two \u201cnew age\u201d speakers being highlighted at G2E. Rahul Sood, CEO of Unikrn, a Seattle-based gaming company focused on eSports, will speak at G2E on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\tOn Wednesday, Scientific Games CEO Gavin Isaacs, Caesars Entertainment CEO Mark Frissora and Rush Street Gaming CEO Greg Carlin will participate in a keynote roundtable.<\/p>\n
No replies were posted for this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Howard Stutz, Las Vegas Review-Journal \u00b7 September 29, 2015 at 4:37 pm The opening address of the gaming industry\u2019s largest trade show and conference was an unusual place for a noted card counter to give a lesson on how to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}