Blackjack Hall of Fame: Keith Taft
The Wizard of Blackjack Gadgets
Not all Blackjack Hall-of-Famers were great blackjack players. Some wrote groundbreaking blackjack books, others developed brilliant blackjack computer programs. Keith Taft—The Wizard of Blackjack Gadgets—is another non-playing blackjack hero who may not be known to the public at large but still made a big enough impact on the game to be inducted into the Blackjack Hall of Fame in 2004.
Keith Taft Was the Father of Blackjack Inventions
What Keith Taft did to deserve this honor is to develop equipment to beat the system. Taft was a computer and electronics genius who also loved the game of blackjack and he spent a good part of his life inventing computers, cameras, and other electronic devices that would help blackjack players win at the tables. These computers were not exactly legal but they worked, and Keith Taft's name will always brings a smile to a professional blackjack player's lips.
Blackjack Players Were Lucky to Have Taft in Their Corner
Taft's first computer, which was named George and weighed in at a hefty 15 pounds, was created in 1972. Within a few years, however, technology advanced and so did Taft's work; four years after his first computer, Taft and his son Marty introduced David, a light-as-a-feather computer that was the size of a small pocket calculator.
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The accompanying keyboard, which was the size of a credit card, was taped to the player's leg and operated through a hole in his pocket. In less than a second, this device could compute the odds based on the cards showing on the table; human error was replaced with artificial intelligence and it was phenomenal. It was not until 1985 — when Keith's brother, Ted, was nabbed with one of Keith's inventions — that Las Vegas casinos banned these types of devices from use at the blackjack tables. |
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The Taft device that Ted was carrying was a mini-video camera that was built into his belt buckle. This camera was able to read the dealer's down card and an image was relayed through satellite and a series of accomplices back to Ted who was actually playing and betting at the table. It's hard to imagine that Keith, Marty, and Ted thought they could get away with an outrageous electronic system like this, but they did and they were able to win at blackjack time after time until they were caught and their systems deemed illegal. Keith Taft died in August of 2006, a few years after his election to the Blackjack Hall of Fame. Another blackjack giant was laid to rest but the legend lives on.
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