Skilled card counters who gathered for the Blackjack Ball in Las Vegas have been featured in April's Men's Vogue magazine.
Michael Kaplan spent time with John Chang and Mike Aponte, two major players from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) blackjack team that has been made famous by new film 21, starring Kevin Spacey.
The Blackjack Ball is where the world's most skilled blackjack players "very discreetly convene to imbibe and talk shop, leaving Las Vegas' gaming tables unmolested for an evening", states the magazine.
Chang told the magazine that he has taken to cross-dressing in some casinos to prevent him from being recognised.
"At Taj Mahal in Atlantic City they were looking at my hands. An Asian host came over and whispered in my ear, 'We know who you are'," he told the publication.
The MIT blackjack team became the basis of Bringing Down the House, a New York Times bestseller in the mid-1990s.
Skilled card counters who gathered for the Blackjack Ball in Las Vegas have been featured in April's Men's Vogue magazine.