Blackjack Movie "21" Brings Casino Thrills

It may seem that casinos would shudder at the thought of can't-miss schemes being revealed; but it is far more likely that gambling houses love the movie concept.

The movie version of the story about a group of MIT students who plundered Las Vegas blackjack tables is coming out next month, and casinos everywhere can't wait. "21" is the screenplay based on the book "Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions."

Ben Mezrich, author of the book, thinks the story plays fine on the big screen. "Don't get me wrong - I love 'Ocean's Eleven.' But if you're a 21-year-old kid interested in Vegas, this is the movie." 

The tale involves a plan by mathematically-inclined Massachusetts Institute of Technology students to communicate via signals at blackjack tables, allowing them to bring in ringers whose heavy betting doesn't alert house security watching for unusual betting patterns by cardcounters. Based on a true story, the plotters figure out ways to count cards until the deck is rich, or unusually heavy in bust cards, and then send in a new player who starts out many units higher in bets than the counter. 

The movie opens March 21st and stars Kevin Spacey and Kate Bosworth in a film hopefully more interesting than their dull collaboration on "Superman Returns."

It may seem that casinos would shudder at the thought of can't-miss schemes being revealed; but it is far more likely that gambling houses love the movie concept. The theory used by the MIT kids was extremely complex, and casinos have to figure amateurs trying to count and signal will just get confused and make more mistakes than normal. Plus, a whole new wave of gamblers will search for that pie-in-the-sky, the sure thing, and bring millions of dollars to tables in their attempt to find the magic formula.