The Perfect Bet: How Science and Math Are Taking the Luck Out of Gambling

Overview: There is one thing about gambling that everyone knows: the house always wins. Lotteries are set up to guarantee profits, to the state. A craps game is a sure thing, but only if you own the table. Sometimes, however, everyone is wrong. After all, the reason that casinos ban card counters is that counting cards works. Indeed, for the past 500 years, gamblers??led by mathematicians and scientists??have been trying to figure out how to turn the tables on the house and pull the rug out from under Lady Luck.