In 1961, Thorp co-created the first wearable computer with MIT mathematician Claude Shannon. “I had learned a lot of physics in the seven years I was out of high school,” he says, “and I realized you could beat gambling games – some of them anyway – if you thought about it hard enough.” When he began his research on blackjack at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he had already proven that another gambling game – roulette – was not merely a matter of chance, but one of mathematical probability and physics. “It’s no more of a gamble for me than it is for the casino when an ordinary player comes in,” he says.Ī former professor of mathematics and finance at UC Irvine, Thorp is an expert on how to beat the system, although he insists his card-counting theory was never about the money as much as it was about challenging the conventions of a so-called unbeatable game. When asked if he considers playing blackjack a gamble, Thorp simply laughs. Today he’s known as the father of card counting. In the 1960s, he took the gambling industry by storm and challenged the way people played blackjack by using his own devised methods on mathematical probability.

He says that over the years he’s been kicked out of casinos and that casinos have tried to deprive him of his winnings after he beat them at their own game. Share on X (Twitter) Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn Share on EmailĮdward Thorp knows his way around a deck of cards.

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