In the world of gambling MIT is surely best known for the antics of a professor and his students, who found a way (card counting in casinos) to eliminate the house edge in blackjack. This of course led to the best blackjack casino performance seen in years. They raked in millions, but as it turns out this isn’t only time that students at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology have used their IQ to their financial advantage.

Several years ago a group of industrious MIT students decided to analyse the local lottery game, ‘Massachusetts’ Cash WinFall’ because of how the jackpot was broken down when there wasn’t a main prize winner. The brainboxes discovered that if they bought $100,000 of Cash WinFall tickets on those days it would virtually guarantee success. In fact, buying $600,000 worth of tickets raked in a 15%–20% return.

So successful were the group in implementing this system, that many of them quit their day jobs and they brought in investors to maximise their profits. Others eventually got wind of how to exploit this loophole, but all in all the group benefited to the tune of over $8 million. Over time they fine tuned their approach yet further to further enhance their gains.

It was later revealed that the Massachusetts Lottery actually knew that the students were engaged in this scheme, but as it didn’t impact them directly they did nothing about it for years. In fact the inspector general’s report stated that officials  intentionally allowed the group to buy hundreds of thousands of lottery tickets, as it increased revenues and made the lottery more successful. The game was eventually stopped, but no action was taken against anyone. It was fun while it lasted I’m sure!

Most newbie players have one huge issue once coming for the first time into a casino. Choosing which game to play might be an issue, and going with what your friends tell you is rarely a good choice. You will need to choose and adapt the casino game you’re playing to your character.

There are, in general, three things to look for:

1. Level of Control

2. Competitiveness

3. Budget

Each casino game will have some mixture of these three and offer different excitements to different people. Some really like competing with other players for the winning pool, while others prefer going solo and relaxing while the machine does its thing.

Even when the games are pushed away from brick and mortar buildings and to a digital setting of an online casino, the deal is still the same. You will simply have more fun with one set of rules and goals over the other.

It should be Fun, not Stressful

With much of modern existence, we have forgotten that some things don’t need to be stressful. If you resent sitting at the poker table, just leave and find something else that will be fun. Unless you are the croupier, it is not your job to sit there.

Also, some people focus too much on how playing something will appear to others over how it makes them feel. This is the same trap as leasing a car you can’t afford, much more trouble than it is worth.

Thankfully, with the push towards online games, this type of peer pressure is dialing down. Still, you need to be mindful that it is your game and that you always deserve to have fun.

#1 Poker

Short for trivia competitions that some casinos like to host, poker is the least luck-based game you can play. Even with the random number generator (RNG) component, that is the cards, the win is most often with the experience.

The cards you are using are just a tool and even a dud of a hand can win if you make your opponents think it will. Similarly, a royal flush can sometimes only bring you the small buy-in pool and nothing else.

If you like to have control and are competitive by nature, poker is the game for you. The budget might be an issue, because good players look for high stakes, but there are penny-chip games where you can slowly develop your skills.

#2 Blackjack

Although tales about card counting are fairly common in the gambling community, and each is more fantastical than the last, they are but stories. Even real card-counting is still very reliant on chances and will only give you a bit of an edge.

That being said, there is a significant skill component when it comes to blackjack. You need to have a general idea when to hold, when to hit, and when to split, which is not something a new player will be familiar with right from the get-go.

Also, there is no competitiveness. There is no point in raising your blood-pressure when playing against the house, as you know that they always have the upper hand, otherwise you won’t be allowed to play.

Still, for those who want to have some control but prefer staying cool and employing their mind, blackjack is the place to be. It is not too intense, but can still get you riled up at times.

#3 Slots

While online slots are for the most part pure RNG, they employ a lot more strategy than they do tactics. There is also zero competitiveness, especially when it comes to online casino games.

The biggest advantage of online slots is the lightness on the budget. For the same price as ten blackjack hands, you can play online slots for hours, even if you have the utmost worst of luck.

And if you are just a bit luckier than the average you will leave with more money than you came in with. That has everything to do with slots high RTP, or ‘Return to Player’. Going through the best payout online slots, you’ll see that for some this number is as high as 99%.

If you are not competitive and want to have fun on a budget, slots are definitely for you. And unlike regular games, there are a lot of variations online, all with their own way to spice things up a bit.

#4 Roulette

Roulette is, in many ways, the opposite of poker. While it seems that there is a skill-based component in the game, there really isn’t. There is no way to know where the ball will land and you will always have the same chances for the same bet.

But, for those who really want to test their luck and are willing to splurge on predicting where the little ball will stop, roulette is the best game ever.

Also, even though you are playing only against the house, the number of players at the table will give an illusion of competitiveness, because someone will always be right and others will be wrong. And there are those who thrive on that fact.

#5 Wheel of Fortune

Depending on the casino or online operator, the wheel of fortune might just be a simplified version of online slots. There is no component of strategy or much skill to speak off. Someone with a very confident hand might try to gauge the turn, but that is unspeakably hard.

If you are just there for luck and don’t care to think about it a lot, this is the game for you. And it is generally not expensive to play, costing similar to slots.

Your chances of winning big are slimmer, but there is always that glimmer of hope that the big prize will be there with your next try

‘The Color of Money’, released by Touchstone Pictures in 1986, was the sequel to ‘The Hustler’ and, once again starred Paul Newman, reprising his role as ‘Fast’ Eddie Felson, 25 years after his final showdown with Minnesota Fats in the original film. Minnesota Fats does not appear in ‘The Color of Money’, but Tom Cruise co-stars as Vincent Lauria, a talented protégé, not unlike Felson in his early years.

Together Felson, Lauria and his manipulative girlfriend, Carmen (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) embark on a tour of less-than-salubrious pool halls across the Midwest from Chicago to Atlantic City, where the professional ‘Nine-ball Classic’ tournament is their ultimate objective. Felson tells Lauria, ‘Pool excellence is not excellent pool’, but Lauria has difficulty coming to terms with his words of wisdom and insists on flaunting his talent at every opportunity, including, on one occasion,

to the accompaniment of ‘Werewolves in London’ by Warren Zevon, much to the dismay of his mentor. Felson and Lauria fall out and part company, at which point Felson comes out of retirement and resumes his previous career as a pool hustler.

Inevitably, their paths cross again when they come face-to-face in Atlantic City. Felson wins their match, only to learn that Lauria ‘dumped’, or intentionally lost, as part of a betting scam. Lauria gives $8,000 out of his winnings, but Felson forfeits his next match and returns the money. Felson requests a private rematch, in which, just before breaking off, he looks Lauria in the eye and tells him, ‘I’m back!’

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Though we all like to create a narrative where we’re in control of our lives and destiny, so much in life is down to chance. Somebody is no doubt at this very minute getting blindsided by a out of control rickshaw or  clobbered in the head by a for sale sign, due to an ill-timed gust of wind. If you can imagine it happening, it probably has, and though some misfortune is self inflicted, Darwin Award style, often it’s a case of ‘nobody saw it coming. The same of course applies to good fortune. Fate hands some a free pass in life and endless riches without much of a struggle along the way. Tonda Dickerson’s news story stands out on account that she experienced both the best and worst of what fortune can offer.

Dickerson’s life was as ordinary as can be, divorced and in her late 20s she was just going through the motions of everyday life. By day, she worked as a waitress at the Grand Bay Waffle House in Alabama and any one day resembled the next. That was until the day that Edward Seward walked in, ate a hearty breakfast and then handed her a lottery ticket as a tip. This simple task was a set a chain of events into motion that she could have never in her wildest dreams or nightmares anticipated. The date was Sunday, March 7th, 1999. The lottery took place on the following Saturday. She won that lottery.

Suddenly in possession of a winning lottery ticket worth $10 million, Dickerson’s fortunes looked to suddenly be massively on the up as she accepted $375,000 over the next 30 years rather than the lump sum payout.

Fate however had other ideas. She soon found herself embroiled in multiple legal battles, with both her work mates (who deemed that the lottery ticket tip should be split between them all), the IRS and even the man who gave her the ticket in the first place!  Though Dickerson stated that she didn’t agree to split the winnings, it took a jury took just 45 minutes to decide against her. She had turned down a settlement that would’ve allowed her to keep a cool $3 million of the Florida jackpot.

Not willing to let her millions evaporate into thins air, Dickerson took the case to the Alabama Supreme Court, which reversed the Circuit Court decision in 2002. Two years later she was taken to fend off a case by Seward, who had stated that Dickerson offered to buy him a stuck if the ticket was a winner. Her respite didn’t last long though, as the very same week her ex-husband who she divorced in 1997 was shot after attempting to kidnap her! He had taken her to a remote area and threatened to kill her, but while pleading with him to let her answer her ringing phone on account that people would be looking for her, she pulled a .22-caliber handgun out, shooting him in the chest.

Anticipating that possibly she’d experienced her last bit of bad (or rather harrowing) luck, her troubles were not over yet. She spend the next decade battling with the IRS, as they argued about how much she owed them. In March 2012 though her attorneys successfully argued that the IRS was wrong to demand $1 million in gift tax  after Dickerson gave most of her winnings away to her family business.

Finally past these challenges (but without any money), Dickerson has not been heard of much since, though the fact that she now works as a poker dealer at the Golden Nugget casino in Biloxi, perhaps is a strange yet fitting endless to her ‘run in’ with ‘good fortune’.

Of course this isn’t the first rags, to riches, then back to rags again type story of huge lottery wins. How about  Ronnie Music Jr, the Waycross, Georgia man who won $3 million then had the bright idea of using it to invest in a meth ring. or Urooj Khan, poisoned with cyanide a day after a $1 millon win. Sometimes getting everything you’ve ever dreamed of is just the beginning of the story, rather than the end.