They used their brain power to make a clean sweep of some of the casinos in the US and they did it successfully. In one weekend, a group of math students of the world-famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) had pickings of $4,00,000.

The brainy students knew that blackjack was the only beatable game in casino gambling and they studied hard and made good money. In the 1990s, they made regular trips to Las Vegas and were winning big.

Gordon Adams, a casino security investigator, said these students used their math expertise — and advanced computer models — to hone their skills to a devastatingly effective science. They wrote computer programmes to devise the best strategy for specific situations, then updated their data with real-life experience. Eventually, the casinos realised how they were breaking into their business and banned the MIT student members.