Jim Karol grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania as "James Jonathon Karol". He attended a local college there, then ended up working at the local steel mill, like the Billy Joel song "Living Here in Allentown". It wasn't until the early 80's that Karol began his career in entertainment. He began as a magician, and word soon spread about this "madman of magic". Before he knew it, Jim found himself on the front pages of newspapers across the country for correctly predicting the Pennsylvania Lottery. He was asked to appear on several television shows, and his popularity began to grow.
Karol quickly became a huge hit at colleges and universities throughout the Northeast, and was even invited to perform at the White House. He was then asked to tour the country with Guinness to promote their Millennium Edition Guinness book, which Karol is featured in. The United States Playing Card Company then began sponsoring him, and together they developed a product called "Cool Card Tricks" that sold countless units throughout the world. He then released his own book called "50 Ways to Hustle Your Friends", more as a novelty for his fans.
It wasn't until a few years ago that he began to dabble with memory techniques and other feats of the mind, which then led him to realize that he had finally found his niche. With in just a few months he memorized 75,000 zip codes, every country and capital, the Scrabble dictionary, and thousands of sports facts. Karol actually became addicted to memorizing things. He's a real life combination of "Rocky Balboa" and "Rainman".