Is there anyone more broke than a college kid?  Sometimes I wonder.  I know it was a struggle for me.  And since I also teach a course in broadcasting at one of our fine local universities, I know that the story hasn’t changed too much since I went to school.  College kids are always looking to pick up a buck wherever they can.  And that certainly was the case for Al and a couple of his buddies.

            These college boys were on summer break trying desperately to raise some money for another year’s tuition.  In their search for work they found themselves in Las Vegas doing some odd jobs for some people.  Al took an interest in the games going on in the casinos - not from a gambling standpoint mind you, but from the statistical point of view.  You see, Al and his buddies were math majors.  Even more, they were math geniuses.  They watched the roulette tables and realized that the wheel was not giving the results that the odds indicated they should.

            They knew that, all things being equal, the numbers should come up randomly.  But all things weren’t equal.  The numbers didn’t exist in theory.  They existed on a wheel that somebody had built - slightly unevenly in this case.  So some numbers came up more often than others. They figured out the pattern, calculated the odds, and started placing bets.  And they started winning.  Boy, did they start winning.

            Soon they had enough money not only to pay for college, but also to buy a yacht if they wanted to.  But college was their goal, so that was that.  But you might guess that a local newspaper picked up on what had happened, interviewed the boys and printed the story.  When the casinos read the story, they quickly changed the way they did business.  They started moving roulette wheels from table to table so no one could follow the patterns.

            Yes, truth is, Al and his friends are the ones who made a huge difference in the way things are done in Vegas, and now many other places in America.  But you won’t remember him for that.  But you do know Al.  You have heard him many times. 

            You see, It’s a Little Known Fact that the man who changed the way the gambling industry does business - one of the really big money winners in Vegas - used the money to complete his education and went on to become one of our top NASA engineers in unmanned space flight.  And you have heard him, because he is also the official voice of the Voyager missions, and the first narrator of network television shows about our space program and much more:  the mathematical genius... Al Hibbs.

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