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If you ever plan on going to Vegas, chances are you won’t win big.
This is simply cold, hard math, according to Professor Robert Hannum’s class “Probability: The Mathematics of Gambling.”
Statistics, probability and other “dry math-based material” are transformed using the world and culture of gambling as a center reference.
Hannum taught the course during the 2009 winter interterm, which allowed students to take their knowledge of gambling and the math behind it to the casino tables of Las Vegas.
In addition to trying their luck at the card tables, students also listen to professional card counters, casino attorneys, casino executives and experts, all of whose professions lie in the gambling and casino industry.
For this course, not only was gambling allowed, it was stressed.
The interterm was so successful that it was turned into a course that is now offered winter quarter on Tuesdays and Thursday from 2-3:50 p.m.
In Hannum’s class, game playing is both permitted and a part of the course grade. After going through all of the mathematics, probabilities and statistics, students spend the remainder of the course going through casino games.
The application aspect of the class is highly stressed, and presentation is key.
Poker chips, card decks and table felts are the “props” to make the classroom experience as realistic as possible.
However, if you take this class solely to learn how to count cards to follow in the footsteps of the MIT students in the movie “21,” you’ll be sorely disappointed.
In addition to learning the ins and outs of the gambling industry, the course also teaches about house odds and casino surveillance.
Odds are that the house, or casino professional players, will beat you, and the casino surveillance will be watching you get beat.
The aspect of surveillance in the casino industry is what Hannum finds to be most interesting. Casino surveillance uses this same knowledge base to determine whether the amount of earnings by a gambler is mathematically feasible without cheating.
Surveillance in casinos consists of many different features, including body language detectors to those using the same math formulas the cheaters are using to try to “win it big” in Vegas.
Surveillance professionals are responsible for figuring the odds and determining the probabilities, and they tend to be comprised of former card counters who know exactly how to win.
What is most fascinating, according to Hannum, is that underneath the card and “gaming” aspect is an industry that is completely math based and logical. In other words, gambling becomes more than just luck.
So, while the odds of winning lots of money in Vegas to help pay those student loans is completely against you, the odds of having the opportunity to take a class that focuses on learning the math, the mystery, and the marvel of the gaming industry are very high.
Hannum will also teach Statistics I on Mondays and Wednesdays during the winter quarter in two sections: 2-3:50 p.m. and 4-5:50 p.m.
