Eamonn's Software: Casino

<BODY BGCOLOR=#ffffff> <CENTER><H2> BlakTrack Shuffle-Tracker<P> and<P> Punto Banco Cracker<P> </H2></CENTER> At college in 1992 I met Nick, an electronics hobbyist, who introduced me to an acquaintance of his we called X. X was an American mathematics lecturer who was planning to write a book about a casino game called Punto Banco. Being a little technophobic, he wanted to enlist a programmer to help with his research. We began working immediately and over the next few months X divulged the secrets of probability theory to me while I wrote programs to perform the calculations and plot the graphs.<P> I then met another of Nick's friends with an interest in probability who wanted to take this research a step further. Together we conceived, designed and constructed a small electronic computer system based around the 8051, an 8-bit single-chip microcontroller, to calculate probabilities in real-time. My job was to produce the software for the device and these programs are the result.<P> The device was composed of three physical parts; the pocket-sized 8051 system itself; a one-handed, 4-button keypad for input; and a wafer-thin micro-speaker for output. The code is in C and was tested on a PC simulation (using Turbo C) before being compiled (using Micro-C) for burning into the 8051 EPROM.<P> <STRONG>Note:</STRONG> I have never at any time used these systems myself, or been aware of their use by others, for any purposes other than research into mathematical probability. <dl> <dt><A HREF="blaktrak.html">BlakTrak User Guide</A> <dd>The BlakTrak program assumes that the cards in a deck are not perfectly randomized when shuffled by the dealer at the end of a shoe. The cards are recorded in the order in which the dealer discards them and at the end of the shoe the program has a model of the deck. The dealer then shuffles the cards but afterwards the new deck still contains sequences of cards from the previous one. During the next shoe the program identifies these sequences and can thus make predictions for the next hand.<br> <dt><A HREF="punto.html">Punto Banco Cracker User Guide</A> <dd>The Punto Banco program records cards as they are dealt and then calculates the probable winner of the next deal based on the remaining cards. The principle is to calculate who (player or banker) would win the most out of all of the possible combinations of these cards. The program uses three different mathematical methods to calculate probabilities. </dl> A by-product of this work with the 8051 was my <A HREF="asm51.html"> 8051 Assembler/Linker</A>.<p> <HR> <strong>Go To: <A HREF="index.html">Eamonn's Software</A></strong>