Casino is an epic crime drama from Martin Scorsese that depicts the seedy underbelly of Vegas. It is the story of money, power and corruption that weaves its way through the mob, Teamsters unions and Midwest mafia factions. The film is a riveting watch that never loses steam or lags in the middle. Casino is one of the longest movies that Scorsese has ever made, but he manages to keep it lean and mean till the end.
Beneath the varnish of flashing lights and free cocktails, casinos are mathematically engineered to slowly bleed their patrons’ cash. For years mathematically inclined minds have tried to turn the tables, using their knowledge of probability and game theory to exploit weaknesses in a rigged system. But while physicists can’t beat the house, they can teach us a few things about how to gamble smarter.
To understand how casinos work, it helps to think about them as machines that take in bets and pay out winnings. Each machine has a fixed mathematical expectation of profit, which can be calculated by knowing the house edge and variance. To maximize their profit, casinos keep track of these numbers minute by minute, and use computers to monitor games that require human dealers such as blackjack and roulette to spot any statistical anomalies. These data are then analyzed by gaming mathematicians and computer programmers to create a mathematical model of the game. This allows them to estimate the expected payouts and bet sizes for each game.