For me, this inspiration stemmed from the movie “21,” a dramatized but invigorating tale of the real-life MIT blackjack team, which applied card-counting techniques to beat casinos around the world.

Reading "Bringing Down the House," a team of MIT students who bested casinos by using counting strategies at blackjack, inspired the author to try it himself. (Photo: Mary Rauzi) My career in card ...

Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise in ‘Rain Man’. When players sit down at a table in a casino, they know that “the house always wins.” In other words, even if you hit a lucky streak, in the long run, the ...

When players sit down at a table in a casino, they know that "the house always wins." In other words, even if you hit a lucky streak, in the long run, the casino owners are invariably going to come ...