How a Santa Barbara Mathematician Beat the Casinos

Dr. Eliot Jacobson Reflects on a One-of-a-Kind Career

By Tyler Hayden | July 7, 2022

For a bigtime troublemaker, Eliot Jacobson is jarringly pleasant. He volunteers at a wildlife rescue center and helps out at the Planned Parenthood book sale. Every Sunday afternoon, he and friends gather under the big tree at Alice Keck Park to play traditional Irish music. He talks lovingly of his family and he always asks you about yours.

But Jacobson certainly knows how to make enemies. 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.

Pit bosses learned to hate him. 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. During one particularly bad night, he was muscled into a Vegas backroom and threatened with violence.