2. EDWARD THORP
Many people who think of Ed Thorp think of a man who was the father of card counting. This strictly speaking isn’t accurate at all as there were many players who were reported to have been card counters or who exhibited the behaviour of card counters before Thorp. But Edward Thorp was one of the early pioneers who actually analysed the game both mathematically and scientifically.
Thorp was an American professor of mathematics who also later turned his attention to the stock market and has amassed great wealth since then. In fact the hedge fund that he has run has averaged around 20% per year for nearly 30 years which is a feat rarely matched and even more rarely bettered.
I wouldn’t classify Thorp as your average gambler, I really do not think that the man gambles at all. He analyses situations in a scientific and mathematical way and finds ways to make money through that analysis. In the style of a Chess Grandmaster, all of his game preparation is done away from the board and the rest is just an execution of that work and knowledge.
I have Ed Thorp to thank for my own limited blackjack career because it was after reading his classic work “Beat The Dealer” that I became fascinated with blackjack . But Thorp used his own expertise to identify and then exploit pricing errors with securities markets in later years and although now approaching 80yrs of age, is still known to be active.
Indeed much of Thorps work led to the Las Vegas casinos actually changing the rules of their blackjack game. But to design a way of beating blackjack and then the stock market really is a formidable achievement and we also have to remember that Thorp helped to pioneer one of the worlds first ever computers to clock roulette wheels…….a true gambling great.
