We will be on campus for the first two weeks of May term, travel to Las Vegas for the third week, and then return to campus for the last week of class.
While in Vegas, we will be talking with casino managers, historians, security experts, and professional gamblers. We will be staying in the heart of Las Vegas at one of the casino and resorts on the main strip.
The course itself will center around one mathematical concept known as the Law of Large Numbers. It is this single law that guarantees Las Vegas will continually take money from its players, as long as there is a critical mass playing the games. We will look at the mathematics behind the games. We will see that every game is engineered for the House to have an advantage in the long run. This will lead us to a strategy of determining which games will allow us to play the longest, if the proper strategy is used.
We will also look into some other ideas revolving around Vegas, namely a historical perspective of the city, as well as the very important issue of gambling addiction.
300 North Broadway