The transformations of the Strip—from the fake Wild West to neon signs twenty stories high to “starchitecture”—and how they mirror America itself.

The Las Vegas Strip has impersonated the Wild West, with saloon doors and wagon wheels; it has decked itself out in midcentury modern sleekness. It has illuminated itself with twenty-story-high neon signs, then junked them. After that came Disney-like theme parks featuring castles and pirates, followed by replicas of Venetian canals, New York skyscrapers, and the Eiffel Tower. (It might be noted that forty-two million people visited Las Vegas in 2015—ten million more than visited the real Paris.) More recently, the Strip decided to get classy, with casinos designed by famous architects and zillion-dollar collections of art. Las Vegas became the “implosion capital of the world” as developers, driven by competition, got rid of the old to make way for the new—offering a non-metaphorical definition of “creative destruction.” In The Strip, Stefan Al examines the many transformations of the Las Vegas Strip, arguing that they mirror transformations in America itself. The Strip is not, as popularly supposed, a display of architectural freaks but representative of architectural trends and a record of social, cultural, and economic change.

Al tells two parallel stories. He describes the feverish competition of Las Vegas developers to build the snazziest, most tourist-grabbing casinos and resorts—with a cast of characters including the mobster Bugsy Siegel, the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes, and the would-be political kingmaker Sheldon Adelson. And he views the Strip in a larger social context, showing that it has not only reflected trends but also magnified them and sometimes even initiated them. Generously illustrated with stunning color images throughout, The Strip traces the many metamorphoses of a city that offers a vivid projection of the American dream.

The book's main character is Kevin Lewis, an MIT graduate who was invited to join the MIT Blackjack Team in 1993. Lewis was recruited by two of the team's top players, Jason Fisher and Andre Martinez. The team was financed by a colorful character named Micky Rosa, who had organized at least one other team to play the Vegas strip.

Related

• MIT students scammed Massachusetts State Lottery for $8 million: report NY Daily News
• Lottery officials knew about Cash WinFall’s flaws, IG saysBoston Globe

Maybe Uncle Ben was right: With great power comes great responsibility. While most students at the famed Massachusetts Institute of Technology use their powers for good — for example, creating drugs that can fight any virus — others are busily using their prodigious math skills to game the state of Massachusetts’ lottery system, earning millions of dollars in the process.

Several years ago, while doing research for a school project, a group of MIT students realized that, for a few days every three months or so, the most reliably lucrative lottery game in the country was Massachusetts’ Cash WinFall, because of a quirk in the way a jackpot was broken down into smaller prizes if there was no big winner. The math whizzes quickly discovered that buying about $100,000 in Cash WinFall tickets on those days would virtually guarantee success. Buying $600,000 worth of tickets would bring a 15%–20% return on investment, according to the New York Daily News.

(MORE: When Good Things Happen to Good People: 8 Heartwarming Lottery Wins)

When the jackpot rose to $2 million, the students bought in, dividing the prize money among group members. But they didn’t stop there; they were so successful in their caper that they were eventually able to quit their day jobs and bring in investors to front the money they needed to purchase the requisite number of lottery tickets. Several other syndicates sprang up to capitalize on the Cash WinFall loopholes, but the MIT group remained one of the most successful and innovative. By 2005, the group had earned almost $8 million with its system, according to an investigation by the Boston Globe. By 2010, it had figured out how to win the entire jackpot in a single drawing.

• Teacher Account Joined 2 years ago United States. What I'm working on. What I've been doing. Classes (10) View all. 2nd - 3rd, 2019-2020 4th 2020-2021 4th, 2019-2020 4th, 2019-2020 1st. 2019-'20 5th, 2019-2020 5th 2019-2020 2nd, 2019-2020.
• His life took a dramatic turn when the leader of a small group of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who had dabbled with card counting overheard him discussing his Vegas.
• Visit Vegas.com to get the best rate on Las Vegas hotels guaranteed, find deals and save on Las Vegas show tickets, tours, clubs, attractions & more.
• Vegas, a Studio on Scratch. Updated 14 Sep 2016. Neon is my most sucessful OC!

A recent report by the state’s inspector general reveals more details about the scheme, including the fact that the Massachusetts Lottery knew of the students’ ploy and for years did nothing to stop it. The inspector general’s report claims that lottery officials actually bent rules to allow the group to buy hundreds of thousands of the $2 tickets, because doing so increased revenues and made the lottery even more successful. While the students’ actions are not illegal, state treasurer Steven Grossman, who oversees the lottery, finally stopped the game this year.

Mit Vegas Card Counting

The inspector general concluded that because lottery officials received no personal benefit from the syndicates’ manipulations of the game, no further action was necessary.

Mit Vegas Movie

This isn’t the first time that MIT has been involved in a gambling controversy. Ten years ago, students and a professor were involved in a massive card-counting scandal in Las Vegas casinos.