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The story of how one hedge fund manager scored a blockbuster payday afterhours at the SALT Conference in Las Vegas. "We're going to need more chips over here!"
Michael Geismar (Photo by David Deal for AR in 2009)
Michael Geismar's blackjack run ended just after six o'clock on Friday morning with $410,000 in manila envelopes in cash sitting on a table at Cafe Bellagio in the namesake Las Vegas luxury hotel, right next to the plates of steak and eggs and glasses of ice water.
The co-founder and president of $4.6 billion managed futures firm Quantitative Investment Management couldn't put the bundled $100 bills in his room upstairs because the safe was already full with about $300,000 in winnings from two nights before. Geismar had a few hours to sleep before taking a private jet home to Charlottesville, Virginia on the final day of the SkyBridge Alternatives Conference. But he made time in the early hours of May 11 to celebrate with the four SALT attendees--marketers from SAC Capital Advisors and G2 Investment Group and two hedge fund consultants-who happened to join Geismar that night for a long, lucky and very lucrative run at the blackjack table.
AR reported earlier this month on a mysterious SALT attendee who was said to have won more than $400,000 in a single night playing blackjack. Rumors were rampant on Thursday in between panel discussions on the mutualization of hedge funds, charitable planning strategies and other conference events. AR released the incomplete story early that Friday, wondering if it was even possible to turn $300 or even $10,000 into so much money in one sitting.
But conversations with witnesses and others with knowledge of the events revealed that not only was the story true, but that it understated the windfall by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Geismar, who declined to comment, returned to SALT after enjoying the conference in 2011, this time bringing along QIM's business development chief, Ned Parrish. The speakers and networking were good, but Geismar also liked the event for the opportunity it gave him to gamble.
According to a person who knows him well, 41-year-old Geismar has played blackjack since college, but never more than a few times a year. While not a card...