Troon Golf’s Jeff Ma and the true story of MIT’s blackjack team

One of the newest members of Troon Golf has one of the most interesting back stories you’ll ever hear. And chances are you have heard it — you just didn’t know his role.

Troon, the world’s largest golf management company, recently launched a new loyalty program, Troon Digital, and Jeff Ma runs it as its chief digital officer.

Ma’s held a handful of jobs before he landed with Troon — he also currently co-hosts a golf gambling podcast — but it’s what he did while attending college at MIT that he’s most well-known for. Ma was a member of the MIT blackjack team that mastered counting cards and took trips to Las Vegas to cash in at the casinos. That MIT crew was the inspiration for the book “Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions” and the movie “21” in which the main character was based off Ma’s experience.

The book spent 63 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List, and the movie made $160 million (nearly five-times more than its budget). Those MIT students making the trips to Vegas did pretty well for themselves, too.

“Our biggest weekend ever we won over half a million,” Ma said, “but our biggest loss ever I think we lost a couple hundred.”

Ma recently joined GOLF’s Subpar podcast and discussed how he got into golf and his gig at Troon, but much of the conversation focused on his time at MIT, his trips to Las Vegas and how accurate the movie was to depicting their story 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.