Jeff Ma joined the GOLF Subpar podcast and discussed playing blackjack in Las Vegas as an MIT student (and the book and movie it inspired).
GOLF.com
One of Troon Golf’s newest members has one of the coolest stories you’ll ever hear. And chances are you are HAVE you heard him – you just didn’t know his role.
Troon, the world’s largest golf management company, recently launched a new loyalty program, Troon Digitaland Jeff Ma directs it as its chief digital officer.
Ma held a handful of jobs before arriving with Troon — he also currently co-hosts a golf gambling podcast — but it’s what he’s best known for that he did while attending college at MIT . Ma was a member of the MIT blackjack team who mastered card counting and took trips to Las Vegas to win money at the casinos. That MIT team was the inspiration for the book.”Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions“and the movie”21” in which the main character was based on Ma’s experience.
The book spent 63 weeks in New York Times Bestseller list and the film grossed $160 million (almost five times its budget). Those MIT students who made the trips to Vegas did pretty well for themselves, too.
“We made more than half a million in our biggest weekend ever,” Ma said, “but our biggest loss ever, I think we lost a few hundred.”
I recently joined GOLF’s Subpar Podcast and discussed how he got into golf and his gig in Troon, but most of the conversation focused on his time at MIT, his trips to Las Vegas, and how accurate the film was in depicting their history and his life.
It’s a great listen for anyone who is a fan of blackjack or this specific book or movie. You can check it out below.
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