Even by high-roller standards, pocketing $5.8 million at the blackjack tables is an incredible haul.
But it happened in April for one lucky gambler, the biggest single winner in the history of the Tropicana Casino and Resort in Atlantic City, N.J. Tropicana’s parent company yesterday confirmed the record win, saying it would not disclose the gambler’s name or details about the winning plays, length of the session and the limits on the winning table.
Experts said winning that much at blackjack in a casino without cheating — or by the method known as counting cards — is entirely possible and would depend on luck, the player’s skill and the maximum bet allowed. Simply by betting the maximum at a $50,000 table, it would have taken 116 winning hands to reach $5.8 million.
The big winner left the casino in good standing, a Tropicana spokesman said, and there was no suspicion he was counting cards.
The casino has been increasing its limits to lure high-stakes players, and the Tropicana’s website advertises that some tables now accept $50,000 maximum bets.
“Last month, we were just unlucky,” said Trent Dang, the company spokesman. “That’s the risk the casino takes when they have a high limit.”
Michael Aponte, a member of the famous MIT card-counting team that inspired the book “Bringing Down the House” and the movie “21,” told The Daily that a $5.8 million win without counting cards wasn’t out of the question at a table with a $50,000 maximum.
“That’s a pretty sizable win,“ Aponte said. ”I mean, it happens ... When you factor in double-downs and splits, and a lot of the high rollers like to play multiple spots, so now you’re looking at a couple hundred thousand per round that could have been in play.”
Aponte said it’s relatively easy for an experienced watcher to tell when someone is counting cards, partly because there is only one optimal play for every hand in blackjack — and most players just aren’t good enough to get it right every time. On a winning streak of these proportions, Aponte said pit bosses and the casino’s security teams would have been watching the games very closely.
“They don’t just let anybody come up and start betting $50,000,” Aponte said. “I’m sure they were scrutinizing every aspect of the game.”
“Without having seen the play, I’m going to tell you it’s entirely possible to win that many hands,” said George Joseph, co-founder of Worldwide Casino Consulting and an expert in casino surveillance and cheating. “If [the limit] was a tenth of that, if it was $5,000, he would be winning $580,000, and we wouldn’t be talking.”
Joseph pointed out that blackjack is the only casino game in which it is possible for a skilled player to have an advantage over the house.
Al Welenc, a dealer who has worked at the Tropicana in Atlantic City for 24 years, said he has watched players pocket some serious cash over the years — but never like this. Not that the dealers mind when players have a hot streak, he said.
“We always enjoy seeing people win,” Welenc said. “When the players make money, it helps our bottom line because we work for tips.”
Well, not all bottom lines. The Tropicana’s earnings from table games was down to $3.2 million in April, compared to a $7 million take in April 2010, according to data published by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. The casino’s year-to-date earnings trail last year’s by about $2 million.