If you haven’t heard of Ed Thorp, here’s a quick TLDR: math professor at MIT who beat Vegas at its own game and went on to start a successful hedge fund.
Back in 1961, Ed found an early strategy to beat the dealer at blackjack. He shared his winning formula in an article called ‘A Favorable Strategy For Twenty-One’.
Here’s the intro:
“It has long been an open question as to whether those of the standard gambling games which are not repeated independent trials admit strategies favorable to the player. There have been numerous implications that favorable strategies do not exist. In this note, we settle the issue by showing that there is a markedly favorable mathematical strategy for one of the most widely-played games, twenty-one, or blackjack.”
First, Ed sets the scene. He calls out how people have wondered about strategies to tip gambling odds in their favor. Something we’ve all thought about at some point.
Then, he mentions how most claim this strategy just doesn’t exist—the consensus among researchers, gamblers, and mathematicians at the time.
Finally, the edited hook:
“...we settle the issue by showing that there is a favorable strategy for blackjack.”
Whether or not you’re a gambler, Ed has captured your attention. You NEED to know how to beat the dealer.
Shortly after publishing this article, Ed went viral like a Toosie Slide TikTok video. He recalls this virality in his book: “I was besieged by strangers all wanting a piece of me. This kind of ‘fame’ I didn’t need.”
These days, we’re obsessed with virality. I’ve been guilty of trying to write hooks on Twitter that have the chance to go viral—and I’m sure you can relate.
Reading Ed’s book got me thinking... what was it that made him go from a no-name professor to rapidly grabbing everyone’s attention?
Virality is pretty simple, but not easy. To go viral, you need to make people feel something. It has to come from within.
Imagine you’re scrolling through Instagram. You come across two videos:
A video of a guy throwing a water balloon at his wife as she walks through the door.
A picture of your friend’s Christmas dinner.
Which of these are you more likely to share in your group chat?
Number one makes you laugh out loud. The reaction comes from within.
It’s the exact same thing with Ed Thorp’s blackjack article. It makes you say “no fucking way… how do I win money at the casino?”
Check out this absolute banger of a tweet:
Val flawlessly executes the tried-and-true copywriting framework: AIDA.
“$1B in sales using ONE strategy” grabs your attention in a sea of stupid tweets.
“In every recession” makes you interested. We all know we’re headed for (or in) a recession right now. Knowing this strategy worked for him in previous recessions makes you interested in learning more.
“Never shared it publicly” makes you feel like an insider. Heightening your desire to find out the secret.
“Make you a millionaire” is the icing on the cake. Everyone wants to be rich. How can you not take action by clicking into the tweet?
Of course, the tweet went wild, with over 10,000 likes & 2,000 re-tweets. People had to know the secret.
Whether it's 1961 or 2023, humans are the same. We’re intrigued by the same things. Social media hasn’t manufactured virality—it’s just helped it scale. Virality happens faster now than ever before.
So, if you want to get more eyeballs on your work, remember the key ingredient: emotion.
Focus on ONE person.
Make them laugh. Make them cry. Blow their mind.
Make it impossible for them not to act.
Shout out to Brandi Alexandra on Unsplash for the cover photo.
I actually fear virality, in keeping with Ed's sentiment about the kind of fame he didn't need. I'm hoping for a long, slow burn, building a trusted audience over time that is just big enough to make a living from.