Math and gambling

My favorite all time movie line is in a WC Fields movie. The Fields character is playing poker with some friends when his outraged wife pops up and demands to know if he is gambling.

"Ahhh, ... not the way I play it, no."

There is a new movie out that I have already seen the trailer for called '21' - the fictionalized account of a group of highly mathematical MIT card counters. There is a fascinating rumination of the trade of card counting on National Review Online, complete with an explanation of the origins of two crazy Czech brothers (played by Steve Martin and Dan Akroyd) from Saturday Night Live. I never realized math could be so rewarding.