Ed Thorp, a math professor, beat blackjack with card counting, then built a hidden computer in his shoe to predict roulette by measuring wheel speed and ball trajectory. He transmitted data through vibrations to an earpiece, making what may have been the first wearable computer.
And this was actually the world's first wearable. Ed Thorp, he grew up as a prodigy. He becomes a professor in mathematics and he got super interested in how he could use his theories to beat blackjack. He had this theory where if he saw the cards on the table, he could have a higher probability of getting 21 because he could count cards. Back then, Vegas was just getting going. He goes every handful of weekends and he still ends up cleaning them all out. And next he goes, well, blackjack was cool. Let's see if I can do this with roulette. He has this weird theory. If he can like quickly count how fast the wheel is going and where the ball starts and where it hits the wheel, he's able to calculate where the ball is going to land. He basically assembled a small computer. He would be at the table placing the bet and he had two people on the side and they had these little small computers in their shoes and they would tap their feet in order to keep the cadence of the wheel. And it would help him predict where the ball was going to go. And that music would go into his earpiece that he was wearing and he would make a bet. And this was actually the world's first wearable, like an iWatch is a wearable, and he killed it. He made a lot of money.
