“I was born and raised on the academic paradigm that knowledge serves the greatest good in the public domain,” Jacobson, 64, explained over coffee last month. Then, when Jacobson started publishing all of his research and strategies to his free online blog, he induced the wrath of game creators and distributors who watched their stocks tank.

He burned bridges with many of his compatriots. Then Jacobson switched sides and became an independent consultant for the casino industry, teaching managers how to protect their games and spot “advantage players” like himself. During one particularly bad night, he was muscled into a Vegas backroom and threatened with violence.

He’s been banned from an impressive list of Las Vegas properties - the Horseshoe, the Flamingo, Circus Circus, and Mandalay Bay, among others - as well as his hometown Chumash Casino. In the late 1990s, the former professor began parlaying his PhD in mathematics into a part-time career of counting cards and cracking casino games. He talks lovingly of his family and he always asks you about yours.īut Jacobson certainly knows how to make enemies. Every Sunday afternoon, he and friends gather under the big tree at Alice Keck Park to play traditional Irish music. He volunteers at a wildlife rescue center and helps out at the Planned Parenthood book sale. For a bigtime troublemaker, Eliot Jacobson is jarringly pleasant.

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