Matt Page

Although I was unable to go to the movies with the class, I was able to see the film on my own time and found it to be quite interesting. Being a math major and taking many probability classes specifically centered on gambling, I was quite interested to see how math would be employed in the movie. I though the film did a good job of displaying how the scheme was carried out since it was based on a true story. I had heard stories of how MIT and other universities have put teams like this together in order to try and “take down Vegas”, and know that these groups were also red flagged from all casinos. The main problem with this scheme today is that casinos have employed a new tactic to rid users from counting cards. The boot, or what the cards are dispensed from first contained four decks, which would make it difficult to count, but not impossible. They later increased that number to eight decks in hopes of eliminating anyone from counting cards. In today’s time, casino’s have increased this boot size to twelve decks, which when computed mathematically, gives you an extremely large number of combinations possible. However, I’m sure there will be some group that will find some way around this tactic that will allow them to beat the house, but as we all know…the house always wins!!