Joe Pane - Professional Blackjack Player

Joe Pane is a Brooklyn man; born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He went on to become a police officer for the City of New York, a job he served with pride and distinction till the age of 36 years when he would retire from service due to a serious injury. It was after this injury that he took up blackjack, a move that turned his life on its head, catapulting him from a regular guy to a blackjack celebrity.

Joe Pane comes across as a colorful personality. His personality, in his own words, is typically ‘New York style.’ That, he says, can be a deterrent when it comes to gambling, because it helps more to be under the radar than on it when you are playing blackjack. Maintaining a low profile personality can be a big help when playing blackjack and that is where things get slightly difficult for him as it isn’t hard for someone like him to alter his personality so drastically.

Joe Pane and Blackjack

Despite having a colorful personality, Joe Pane has made significant strides in the world of blackjack. He has been successful enough to be barred by a number of casinos from playing at their tables. The story goes that one of the major casinos even barred him from their buffet. He is, however, allowed to play games like video poker, where his skill as a card counter is not an advantage to him. It is unfortunate that Joe Pane, and other blackjack greats like him, is not allowed to play blackjack at casinos, because there is a world of difference between someone who cheats and someone who uses the technique of card counting to alter the odds.

Joe Pane is different from many of his contemporaries in that card counting is just one of the skills he employs when playing the game. This is apparent from the fact that he had already won two tournaments before picking up his first book on gambling. According to him, most of his blackjack education comes not from the books but from his interactions with other blackjack players, i.e. the blackjack community as a whole.

There was one incident that, while being serious, finally worked out in his favor when it came to competing in blackjack tournaments. He suffered a head injury as a result of an altercation with casino staff in one of the casinos when his wife complained of having money stolen on the craps table. The injury causes him to suffer from loss of memory and hearing to an extent even to this day, and he has used this as a good way of elbowing his way into tournaments. A lot of casinos use the fact that he takes a long time to make his move in a game as an excuse to bar him from playing. However, that has changed now as casinos cannot use that excuse against a person with a record of a head injury.

Joe Pane – Significant Achievement and More

Joe Pane has played in over 500 blackjack tournaments, and has earned $500,000 in winnings during his career as a blackjack professional. He was a participant in the second season of the popular blackjack TV event, The World Series of Blackjack, facing off against competitors like Katya Underhill, Kevin Blackwood, Hollywood Dave Stann, and Rene Angelil. He also writes for the blackjack website Blackjack Insider and also hosts a radio show with Kenny Einiger, the winner of the World Series of Blackjack event of 2005.

Joe Pane has also made news with his lawsuit against the Green Valley Ranch Station Casino. In the lawsuit, he claimed that he had been banned from playing at tournaments as well as other casinos because he had been portrayed as a cheat on a gambling reality show, American Casino, which aired on the Discovery Channel. Ever since that particular episode went on air, Pane had actually been barred from playing at the casinos in Las Vegas, where he currently lives, and also refused entry into some of the blackjack tournaments there.

*Disclaimer - The players in our bios have not authorized the material on this website. The articles were written based on research. If any of the information you see on this site is incorrect please contact us at info@gamesblackjack.org and we will correct any errors immediately.