Blackjack is one of the most popular casino games, if not the most popular among big name players. It has become such a household name, that Hollywood is jumping on the bandwagon train to get some inspiration from the game.

Casino games have long ago been immortalized in movies, starting from James Bond and his eternal love for baccarat and other casino games, to the big name actors such as Robert De Niro and his great role in Casino. However, documentaries linked with casino games have been a rarity in the past. At least until the last few years.

• Anyway, while I may be a verified blackjack nincompoop, the subject of the 2019 documentary Inside the Edge: A Professional Blackjack Adventure is a bonafide card shark. Now streaming on Prime.
• Directed by Chris Buddy. With John Chang, Al Francesco, James Grosjean, Tommy Hyland. The documentary film, 'Inside The Edge' is an unprecedented glimpse into the world of elite blackjack players as they take on casinos for millions.

It looks like it is time for casino documentaries, and blackjack documentaries for that matter to emerge from the shadows. We present you three blackjack documentaries, all focusing on the popular game, as well as playing. Let’s take a look at the history of blackjack online and see firsthand how some people have beaten the system in the world of card counting and blackjack.

Inside the Edge: A Professional Blackjack Adventure / 2019 / min / Documentary ⯈ Watch or download Movie rating: 7,4 Cast: Richard W. Munchkin, Max Rubin, Tommy Hyland, Arnold Snyder Country: USA Inside the Edge: A Professional Blackjack Adventure flashed Watch Download Professional Free Pushes intellectually.” walk A Movie wasted picture. Inside The Edge: A Profesional Blackjack Adventure Inside The Edge: A Profesional Blackjack Adventure, documentary, regia Chris Buddy cu John Chang, Al Francesco, James Grosjean, Tommy Hyland, Richard W. Munchkin, Max Rubin.

Breaking Vegas

The documentary was aired as a television series, starting in 2004 in the US. The background for the popular documentary was set when the book by Ben Mizrich, one of the team members, emerged in libraries. The book became a national scandal in the US, as casinos got a chance to read how they were scammed.

Breaking Vegas is a great dramatic recreation of the popular blackjack teams by MIT students. The documentary tells the whole story, but doesn’t add unnecessary dramatics. Breaking Vegas is a true documentary, following a documentary style that really suits the subject it covers.

The movie shows the method the players used, but one can be sure that it is not 100% the method the MIT team used, as players all over the world would try to copy it. That is the only downside of the documentary, as not enough substantive mathematics is explained. The team didn’t explain other strategies as well in the movie.

The Player: Secrets of a Vegas Whale

Another documentary inspired by a real life story, “The Player” tells the story of Don Johnson, one of the best gamblers in the history of Vegas. Johnson managed to walk away with $15 million in a single winning streak.

Johnson is known for beating three casinos in Vegas in a single night. In the documentary, Johnson explains his strategy, and admits he needed a little luck, but his winnings were mostly due to smart gambling.

In the documentary, the big whale player explains how he beat the system, and how he managed to turn the odds to his favor playing table games. As most veteran players know, it is almost impossible to win lot of money with table games, as odds are always stacked against you.

The theory explained in the documentary is simple, when casinos in Vegas and Atlantic City were down in popularity and money, they needed big name whales such as Johnson to play. They offered whales benefits, which Johnson used to take advantage of the system.

His system was simple, he managed to arrange a 20% refund every time he lost money, and by splitting and doubling, he managed to get up to $50,000 in free play. Using different methodologies, as well as scaring dealers into committing errors, Johnson is still ranked as one of the top 10 winners in a single night in casinos.

Inside The Edge Blackjack Documentary Star

The Hot Shoe

Unlike other documentaries on this list, The Hot Shoe offers more historic look into blackjack and playing blackjack online. The movie offers a great access to the history and system of card counting and blackjack.

The Hot Shoe features many interviews with famous blackjack players and experts, as well as people writing on the topic of card counting. An interesting twist is the addition of casino executives, lawyers and detectives, offering their insight how they manage to fight with card counting.

Naturally, there is a throwback to the MIT Blackjack team, one of the most famous blackjack teams that practically invented card counting system in blackjack. And of course, the detective that put an end to their winning streak is part of the documentary, offering his insight in an interview.

The documentary goes into details on card counting, what it means, and how to use it in casinos. Unlike other blackjack documentaries that follow a specific team, the Hot Shoe puts the focus on the card counting itself.

The documentary by filmmaker David Layton also offers a fantastic “how-to” section, and several hints and tips.

GREENWICH — At college, Chris Buddy became friends with a young man who had a rather unusual skill set.

His friend, “KC,” a math major at Tulane who later earned a degree in financial engineering from Berkeley, was very good at “counting cards” at the blackjack table, making quick mental calculations to improve his odds at winning big hands while gambling.

Buddy, a Greenwich High School graduate who has made two other documentaries and works as a video producer, was intrigued by the life lived by KC and others like him. He likes “pulling back the curtain” on interesting subcultures, Buddy says, and here was a great story — if he and his friend could avoid getting thrown out of casinos by sharp-eyed security staff who are on the lookout for gamblers like KC.

Buddy spent two years traveling around the U.S. with his college friend, examining the small tribe of professional blackjack players who use strong math skills to their advantage, and the tools used to thwart them. The documentary-maker used small “button cameras” to get the inside action that KC and other card counters use to beat the house, walking away with hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time — or losing big.

The result is a new documentary, “Inside the Edge: A Professional Blackjack Adventure,” which will be released May 21 on streaming sites such as iTunes and Amazon Prime.

“It was a thrill ride,” said Buddy, recalling some tense and hostile moments when KC was ejected for card-counting by casino security who figured out what he was up to. The practice of card-counting is not illegal, but casinos don’t like losing money to savvy players, so they ban blackjack players who are able to even the odds and refuse to open their doors to them.

That means KC and other blackjack players go to extreme lengths to disguise themselves, and the documentary explores the types of surveillance systems and facial recognition software that are used to find card-counters.

Inside The Edge Blackjack Documentary Name Kc

“It’s an extraordinary group of brilliant people who can get away with this. To win, and to make a lot of money at it, it takes real dedication,” said Buddy, who is based in Chicago.

The advantage gained from counting is around 1 percent to 2 percent, so it takes perseverance and patience to make the small advantage pay off.

The documentarian also interviewed a number of professional gamblers and casino professionals to present an overview of the most dedicated kind of risk-takers. “It’s a character study, and my goal is to profile the people who have what it takes to win,” Buddy said.

As KC says in the film, “A lot of people think it’s an easy way to make money. But it takes nerves of steel and faith in logic, and complete emotional control. It’s not easy.”

Casinos don’t want filmmakers on their properties any more than card counters, either. So Buddy had to employ his own brand of surreptitious craftsmanship to tell the story. After it was completed, the documentary was run past a team of lawyers, he said, and he has nothing to fear.

Buddy, the son of a news producer and a teacher, spent two years editing down the 900 hours of video footage. “A documentary takes so much out of you. And editing a long-format documentary is a very thorny task. No cinch,” he said.

It was a bit of a gamble for Buddy, but it paid off.