The Early Years of Stanford Wong
Stanford Wong was born in San Francisco in 1943. He is known as the Blackjack Guru and has dedicated his life to playing Blackjack and writing books about Blackjack.
One would think that given his surname of Wong, he would be of Asian origin. However, his real name is actually John Ferguson. His pseudonym is Stanford Wong which he chose to add some Asian mystic to the name.
In 1964 Wong started teaching courses in Finance at the University of San Francisco. It was here that he started to play Blackjack regularly.
He didn’t enjoy teaching very much, so he decided to pursue his career in Gambling and published his first Blackjack book in 1975. It was called “Professional Blackjack”.
Blackjack Books and Computer Program
In addition to writing and publishing Blackjack and other games books, Wong also owned a publishing company that used to publish books written by other gamblers.
In the 1980s Wong designed a computer programme called Blackjack Analyzer which was a blackjack odds analysing software.
He also wrote a book which was called “Wong on Dice”. This book was about how to throw the dice to beat the odds at Craps tables.
Wonging
Blackjack players may have heard of the term “wonging” or “wong”. This term referred to a specific technique in Blackjack where a player sits out the hand and watches the cards in play until the deck becomes advantageous. This is the reason why many casinos do not allow mid shoe entry at their blackjack tables.
Stanford Wong has dedicated his life to Blackjack and is an esteemed author and consultant to other Blackjack players.
Where is he now?
He currently lives in California with his wife and two adult children. His publishing company is based in Las Vegas, Nevada.