The Last Casino

Yesterday I watched a tv movie called The Last Casino. It’s a Canadian tv movie so it’s highly unlikely you’ve heard of it. It’s about a professor of mathematics who trains a team of 3 university students to win at blackjack by counting cards. I thought it was a fairly well-done film. I liked the pace, the character development and most of the plot. The “investor” didn’t warm me over at all.

Looking at the credits I notice that the person who played George was also in Bulletproof Monk which I discussed in an earlier posting this week. George is a computer engineering student at the university and he plays a painfully stereotypical character. He doesn’t dress all that well, he’s a virgin and when he starts winning money he spends it on an XBox. When told to have some fun he eats alone in his hotel room. I guess I take more offense at this portrayal because I’ve had to deal with this perception of engineers and computer engineers in particular often socially. I remember when I lived in Mississauga back in the summer of 2001 and my roommate was absolutely shocked that I went out socially with other people. She was an engineer too! I suppose it comes with the territory.

Anyway, back to the film. I really liked the scenes in the casino and the training sessions. It reminded me a lot of the time I went to Las Vegas 2 years ago (pictures here). Mat, Sandy, Steve and I sat up quite late discussing different ways to win at blackjack (we played a lot of blackjack that weekend). We had a very good strategy that didn’t include counting and ended up winning quite a lot from one table. Man that was a fun trip. Marcy and I are thinking of going to Las Vegas during March Break next year. That would be a lot of fun too. I’m looking forward to taking trips with her.

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