Vegas Myths Debunked: Casinos Use Coolers to Stop Hot Streaks

Posted: January 10, 2025, 07:07 pm.

Last updated: January 9, 2025, 11:38 pm.

editor's Note: “Vegas Myths Busted” is published every Monday with a bonus Flashback Friday edition. Today's entry in our ongoing series originally ran on August 14, 2023.

The Oscar-nominated 2003 film “The Cooler” stars William H. Macy as a Las Vegas casino employee whose job is to reverse winning streaks. Bernie Lutz – Get It, lose? – He has exceptionally bad luck, all he has to do is sit next to a guest and experience good luck and it stops.

“A job like this could not exist in Las Vegas today,” said Anthony F. Lucas, professor of casino management at UNLV and former gaming industry operations analyst. Casino.org. “A number of in-house procedures and external rules are in place to ensure that randomness is present in the production of all game results.”

Hiring someone to alter the random process of data would qualify as fraud.

“Players will not patronize a casino that is known, or even rumored, to be cheating,” Lucas said. “And if caught, there are consequences like hefty fines, possible loss of gaming license, and catastrophic PR consequences. “Will be likely to happen.”

Plus, Lucas said, casinos need big winners, because “they provide valuable marketing.”

However, most importantly, There is no such thing as good luck or bad luck.

“What a lot of people don't understand about randomness is that it includes both hot and cold streaks,” Lucas said. “Therefore, there is no need to bring in someone to influence the game – even if someone could – because it will take care of itself.”

were cooler Sometimes A real thing?

Before casinos fully understood and believed in the mathematics of house advantage, some of their operators were as superstitious as their customers. For example, it was not unheard of for pit bosses to pick up rabbit's feet, cross their fingers during a stressful craps roll, or wear their lucky shirt to work to ensure a profitable home run.

In this environment, the concept of casino cooler certainly seem Commendable.

However, an extensive search of newspaper articles and books about Las Vegas from the '50s through the '80s did not find a single reference to anyone employed by a casino to inflict bad luck on the live gaming floor.

There was a concept called “casino cooler”. However, it does refer to rigged decks of cards (aka cold decks) that cheaters will attempt to introduce into play in order to tilt the table game odds in their favor.

cooler heads prevail

The basis of “The Cooler” was taken by screenwriters Wayne Kramer and Frank Hannah from one of the many false beliefs of some of the heaviest casino gamblers of yesteryear.

“Heavy gamblers are often very superstitious,” Lucas explained. “So if they're winning when someone else joins the table or a dealer goes out, they're tempted to interpret these random events as the casino trying to mess with their luck. “

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