Ken Uston, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Ken Uston

American blackjack player

Date of Birth: 12-Jan-1935

Place of Birth: New York City, New York, United States

Date of Death: 19-Sep-1987

Profession: writer

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn

Ken Uston (January 12, 1935 – September 19, 1987) was an American blackjack player, strategist and author, credited with popularizing the concept of team play at blackjack.
During the early to mid-1970s he gained widespread notoriety for perfecting techniques to do team card counting in numerous casinos worldwide, earning millions of dollars from the casinos, with some bets as high as $12,000 on a single hand. He was banned from casinos around the world and would adopt various costumes in order to conceal his identity and still be able to play.
He filed a high-profile lawsuit against these casinos and successfully received a ruling from the New Jersey courts that absent a valid New Jersey Casino Commission regulation excluding card counters, casinos could not ban someone simply for counting cards at blackjack.
In response, many casinos changed their systems, increasing the number of decks in games or changing rules to increase the house edge. In the early 1980s, Uston also authored several popular books on video games and personal computers.
He was the subject of a 1981 segment on 60 Minutes and in 2005, he was the subject of the History Channel documentary, "The Blackjack Man".