MIT Blackjack Team Sets Sights On DMI

Cambridge, MA - The infamous MIT Blackjack team has reportedly stepped away from the blackjack tables and turned their attention to an online game based around a popular TV show. Dunder Mifflin Infinity, or DMI for short, is an online game based on NBC's The Office. In it, people complete various tasks to earn SchruteBucks, the currency of DMI.

The MIT blackjack team's exploits are the basis for the new Hollywood movie 21. The movie is based on the 2003 book Bringing Down The House by Ben Mezrich. Both detail how a team of students from MIT were able to use perfect strategy and teamwork to beat the casinos at blackjack, and sometimes walk away with over a hundred thousand dollars in a single weekend.

One of the team's members, who wished to remain anonymous, said, "With all the publicity from the movie we're going to have to lay low for awhile. DMI gives us the perfect opportunity to keep our minds sharp and earn some moolah on the side."

While the team was understandably mum about what strategies they were planning to use to conquer DMI, the team was not shy about discussing what effect they expected their strategies would have on DMI. One team member said, "MIT on DMI is going to be like an asteroid hitting the Earth, and MIT is the asteroid, and DMI is the Earth."

After a few boilermakers, one of the team's junior members let one of the team's secret strategies slip. He said, "First, we're all going to join the same branch. Then when a branch vote comes up we're all going to vote for the same team member's entry. Booyah! 200 SchruteBucks in the bank!"

At publication time it was not yet clear whether the MIT team understood that SchruteBucks could only be used to buy virtual items to decorate a virtual desk on one's DMI profile page, or that each SchruteBuck only has a cash value of 1/100th of a cent. DMI's current SchruteBuck leader, a person with the username dundermifflininfinity, has so far earned 9,180 SchruteBucks in the 6 months that the DMI game has been running. He has spent 4,120 SchruteBucks on virtual items for the virtual desk on his profile page, leaving him with 5,160 SchruteBucks, which are worth $0.51 US dollars.

Just as blackjack and other forms of gambling have their many critics, DMI is not without its critics, either. Critics contend that DMI is little more than a way for NBC to generate extra ad revenue with banner ads and exploit the good will, creativity, and free labor of fans of The Office to generate commercial products using their ideas without having to pay them in real dollars. The first task at DMI, create a branch logo, paid users 50 SchruteBucks (0.5 cents in US Dollars) for designing a logo for their branch, and 200 SchruteBucks (2 cents in US Dollars) if they won their branch vote for best logo. NBC later started selling various products prominently featuring the winning logos from each branch. The products sell for up to $600.00, of which the creators of the logos do not see one cent.