Question: When Cole Williams catches Ben counting, him and his assistant drag him down a hotel's basement. He mentions that Micky Rosa stole seven figures from his casino. The most from a counter in just one night, At the time, he was attending his father's funeral in Barlow. Now with all those cameras (probably way before facial recognition but still real humans watching those tables) in his casino, how could Micky Rosa get away with that much money?
Question: When Prof. Rosa asks Ben to answer a "quiz-question" in college about 3 doors of which only one has a brand new car behind it, he explains he has a chance of 33.3% of choosing the correct door. However, when Prof. Rosa opens one door and leaves Ben a new chance to choose he claims that his chances of choosing correctly have increased from 33.3% to 66.7%, but as he already knows what is behind one of the doors, the car must be behind one of the other doors. Shouldn't his chances now be 50% in stead of 66.7%?
Question: If the 21 game is still played in casinos, there could be hundreds of geniuses who can count and cheat the system as shown in the film. Is this a possibility, or have casinos adopted extra security measures or something?
Answer: Casinos have always looked out for people counting cards, even before the real events that inspired this movie.
Answer: Yes, most casinos have now upgraded to the automated card shufflers, which constantly shuffle the cards after each deal, so there is no way that counting cards would be possible.
Question: How do the players beat the house?
Answer: In addition to counting cards, their surreptitious or conniving behavior - in other words, their "underhanded" techniques (pun intended).
Question: I was under the impression, although I may be wrong, that winnings in Vegas are taxed over a certain amount, and that this is done in the casino when cashing out. At the end of the film, Lawrence Fishburn says that the IRS will be wanting to speak to Kevin Spacey, but how were they able to cash out the amounts they won whilst using fake id's? It doesn't mention it in the book either - I know for the purposes of the film this is soemthing they can gloss over, but I was wondering if it would be possible to win the amounts they are talking about and simply walk out with the cash? I know in one part they cash it in in smaller amounts, but surely the casino would be aware of a huge win on one of the tables, and would be expecting a big cash out?
Answer: Gambling winnings are taxable, but using fake IDs was one way of getting around the IRS. It was also mentioned in the book that the team would keep chips until their next Vegas trip to avoid cashing out. They would also exchange money with each other so everyone would come under the $10K limit before the casino had to file a Currency Transaction Report. Also, there is no reason not to assume they would place some of their winnings as "credit" for their next visit.
Chosen answer: No, the 66.7% (2/3) chance, while counter-intuitive, is correct. See here for a much more detailed and thorough explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem.
Guy