RSSKen Uston – The Man Who Changed How Blackjack Was Played
Background
Kenneth Senzo Usui, also know as Ken Uston is one of the most popular blackjack players in the world, he has won millions at blackjack tables in unique ways. Ken Uston had born in the city of New York and when he was sixteen he began to attend Yale University and after completing his graduation at Yale he got and MBA from Harvard University. Post MBA, he worked regular jobs till he moved out to San Francisco where he was selected as VP at the Pacific Stock Exchange. Along with his VP job he used to spend most of his weekends in the casinos playing blackjack.
Early Career
While spending weekends playing blackjack at the casino, Ken Uston was in love with the blackjack game. He made many contacts and one of them was Al Francesco who was a professional gambler and ran a blackjack team. Soon Uston joined the team and began playing blackjack for the team and sharing profits with everyone. The team managed to make around 40K on the first weekend, however Ken received only $2K of the profits. The strategy the team had was they would count the cards and as the table gets favorable for the team, the big player will join the table and place big bets. Due to which the team will be able to bet big without drawing any attention on them since it would be a new comer making the bets at the table.
Team Play
In 1978 Ken Uston shifted to Atlantic City because of the new casinos and he also started his own blackjack team. Uston was not allowed to step in the casinos as he was caught onto his schemes, however in turn Uston filed a case against the casino that had done it. The courts declared Ustone to be correct, and said that casinos cannot ban someone into the casino due to the skills the person has. During the legal procedure Ken had lost the team that he had made and he was on his own again.
Since Uston was all by himself, he began to play blackjack by himself by using different disguises. Uston was considered to be the master of making disguises for himself, this helped him win millions of dollars from the casinos throughout the years he played blackjack. Ken Uston is also an author of various books which includes “The Big Player and “Million Dollar Blackjack”.
In 1987 due to a heart failure, Ken Uston passed away, however all the years that he played blackjack he had made a mark on the blackjack world that people talk about today as well. His books on blackjack are known to be the best ones every written. Uston was a arcade game enthusiastic, he would be often seen at the Easy Street Pub, south from the Playboy Casino in Atlantic City and playing Las Vegas Blackjack. He used to compete with other customers of the pub in Pacman and was pretty good player who won various competitions playing Pacman.