Breaking Vegas (TV 2004)

Documentary tracing the attempts of a team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology Institue students to become rich playing blackjack at casinos throughout the United States and the attempts of the casinos' management to thwart them.

Director:

Bruce David Klein

Writer:

Bruce David Klein

Stars:

Aaron Stanford, Staas Yudenko, Don Niam

Cast

Credited cast:
Aaron Stanford	...	Narrator
Staas Yudenko	...	Semyon
Don Niam	...	Frank Scoblete
Hannes Phinney	...	Mr. M
Catherine Kresge	...	Katie
Gary Lucy
Michael Bou	...	John C.
Edward F. Villaume	...	Bill (as Ed Villaume)
Bud Watson	...	Andy Anderson
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Andy Anderson	...	Himself
Joe Boyd	...	Poker Announcer
Katie Byl	...	Herself (as Katie Lilienkamp)
Semyon Dukach	...	Himself
Jon Hirschtick	...	Himself
Mr. M	...	Himself

Storyline

Documentary tracing the attempts of a team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology Institue students to become rich playing blackjack at casinos throughout the United States and the attempts of the casinos' management to thwart them.

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Plot Keywords:

casino | massachusetts institute of technology | las vegas nevada | reenactment | connecticut | 

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Genres:

Documentary | Drama

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

9 May 2004 (USA)

Also Known As:

Breaking Vegas: The True Story of the MIT Blackjack Team

Filming Locations:

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Atlas Media

Technical Specs

Runtime:

120 min 120 min

Color:

Color

User Reviews

Solid Docudrama

Really a pretty good dramatic recreation of the popular MIT blackjack team. It tells the story without adding a lot of unnecessary dramatics -- the documentary style really suits the subject matter. The actors were quite good and the pacing and editing skillful for such a limited budget film.

The shortcoming of the movie is that not enough substantive mathematics is explained. I doubt the counting method shown was the one actually used by the players, as there are much more powerful methods that are very nearly as easy to use, such as "red 7". Also, they didn't flesh out the mysterious "other techniques" used.

The comment saying that their system could be "gamed" is ignorant. The entire basis of counting cards and changing bets when the count is favorable effectively changes the odds in favor of the player. I'm not sure what "gamed" means, exactly. If it means the casinos cheated, well, I highly doubt it -- if they got caught, it would cost them many hundreds of times more than any counting team could take.