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MIT Blackjack King Takes SMTP Public

An anonymous reader writes "Semyon Dukach is at it again. Thumbing his nose at the establishment, that is. Dukach, a former leader of the MIT blackjack team, has taken his small company, SMTP, public today in the hopes of overturning the field of e-mail delivery and management. SMTP might sound boring, but it's the latest vehicle in Dukach's quest to 'make a couple billion and then try to help the world' (without the aid of venture capitalists or investment bankers). Given his track record, people might not want to bet against him."

2 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Blackjack team? by slodan · · Score: 4, Informative
  2. Re:Blackjack team? by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wired had a nice bit on it: Hacking Las Vegas (Written by Ben Mezrich, I think it may be an excerpt from his book).

    Or if you want a Hollywood Bastardization (Based on the True Story) there's 21

    At the time, the casinos made it easy to stay liquid. This was before the era of the CTR — the cash transaction report — which obligates the casinos to report any transaction greater than $10,000. "In the old days," Tay explains, "you'd win a quarter-million dollars, and they'd give it to you in cash. On New Year's 1996, I walked from the Mirage to the MGM Grand with a paper New Year's hat filled with $180,000." Back in Boston, Lewis and his friends kept the money in cash, declaring the winnings in the "other" category on their IRS forms. "You'd find $100 bills all over my apartment. Dig in my laundry, there would be $100,000 under my socks."