Receiving an invitation for the Blackjack Ball translates to iconic status in the blackjack community. Join us for a peek behind the curtains of this exclusive event!

  • What happens at the Blackjack Ball?
  • Who’s on the guest list?
  • Questions from the previous years
A Glance at the Blackjack Ball
A Glance at the Blackjack Ball

The Blackjack Ball is without question one of the most exclusive events in the gambling community. Every year, professional blackjack players and card counters gather at a secret location in Las Vegas to test their knowledge and compete for the ‘World’s Best Blackjack Player’ title and the Millennium Blackjack Cup. The event is the brainchild of Max Rubin, a world renowned gambling expert, analyst, and writer.

Unfortunately, most players can only dream about mingling with this unparalleled group of players, as the event is invitation only. To receive an invitation, the candidate has to be put forward by a member of the Blackjack Hall of Fame and approved by a committee. The guest list includes gambling writers, MIT graduates, professional gamblers, and billionaires. Beside the invitation, all of them have to arrive with a bottle of premium champagne to pass the tight security check.

What happens at the Blackjack Ball?

Some might ask, “why all this secrecy?” According to Rubin, the techniques discussed and practiced inside the Ball could make a career. Also, card counters would prefer to remain anonymous, for obvious reasons. With such level of security and mystery they can be sure that the agents of the Griffin Agency, the one that keeps a database of card counters, cannot get in.

After a dinner and some dinking, the attendees test their blackjack knowledge in a 21-question trivia. The top 5 with most correct answers continue their run for the Cup. The second level is a skill contest based around advantage play. The players have to memorize card sequences and guess the number of cards in a discard tray. The winner is awarded the ‘World’s Blackjack Player’ title for a year. According to Forbes, this year’s winner is Rick Blain, a Fortune 500 executive and author of ‘Blackjack Blueprint’.

A few questions from the previous competitions

We collected a few questions from the previous Blackjack Balls so you can test your knowledge on blackjack. You’ll see that some of the questions are not blackjack related. Rubin has explained this, saying “a world-class blackjack player should know lots of stuff, because you never know when it might come in handy.”

1. True or False?
Michael Gaughan, owner of the Coast properties, filed a business model patent application two weeks ago in which he is claiming ownership of the concept of card counters calling other players into a blackjack game when the count is favorable to the player.

2. True or False?
Before Ed Thorp’s Beat the Dealer was first published, there wasn’t a legal casino in America that that dealt blackjack out of a shoe.

3. True or False?
In a standard deck of Bee playing cards, the one-eyed jacks sport mustaches and the other two jacks do not.

4. True or False?
There are more people than chickens on planet earth.

5. True or False?
According to Bob Loeb, it is a Federal felony to check into a hotel or obtain a slot club card using a fake state-issued ID.