  I read urlLink Bringing Down the House yesterday on the way back from my first trip to Las Vegas (a four day mini-vacation with my girlfriend and her parents). It's the story of six MIT students who - with the help of some silent backers - won millions of dollars playing blackjack between 1995 and 1999 using an intricate, team-based system of counting cards. As you can imagine, the casinos were not exactly thrilled about this; most of them now employ techniques for catching people who use the MIT method. However, I still think it might work if you played low limit tables and didn't draw too much attention to yourself with huge bets. My girlfriend and her dad are big blackjack players, so maybe next time we're going to Vegas I'll practice counting for a few months and give it a shot with their help. If nothing else, getting barred from a casino would be an interesting story. Vegas, by the way, is a great deal of fun. I had been to Atlantic City before and wasn't all that impressed, so I have to admit that I was a wee bit skeptical about this trip.
It didn't take Vegas long to win me over, though. There's so much stuff to do even if you're not into gambling - just walking through the casinos and taking in all the extravagance ( urlLink a 54-foot exploding volcano outside of the Mirage , urlLink The Fountains of Bellagio , urlLink Siegfried and Roy's "Secret Garden" , etc.
) is enough to keep you occupied for days. I, however, am into gambling. I ended up $70 down after a disastrous run of baccarat at The Barbary Coast on the last day of the trip, but up to that point I had broken even playing blackjack and spanish 21 and had won $150 at the roulette wheel by employing the risky urlLink Martingale betting technique (which is basically all psychological - roulette isn't subject to continuous probability so even after eight reds, the probability of another red hitting is still .474). Oh well - as long as you come expecting to lose, casino gambling is a lot of fun. 
