About this episode

Tim Jenkins discusses his experience of cheating at roulette using an Atari computer.

Tim Jenkins, Cheating at Roulette with an Atari Computer Tim Jenkins is the author of several humorous memoirs: "Missions Accomplished: And some funny business along the way", "More Missions Accomplished: And a lot more funny business", and "Business Missions Accomplished: Silly travel tales on the corporate dime". I wanted to talk to Tim about one chapter in his 2018 book More Missions Accomplished: the chapter is titled "Gaming the System" and it tells the tale of him trying to cheat a roulette using his Atari 800 computer. A brief excerpt from that chapter: "Las Vegas — 1989. Shortly after the dawn of the personal computer revolution, opportunity beckoned. Some people wrote software and sold it over retail counters. Others launched services that harnessed the databasing and processing power of the PC to help people find a job, a date, or other people with the same interests. I put my own Atari 800 computer to work simulating roulette. ... If you kept increasing your bet every time you lost a spin of the wheel, eventually your number would come up: The question was, would you earn back all the money you'd previously lost and make a profit? Yes. That is, you would if you did not…

People in this episode

Hosts: Randy Kindig, Kay Savetz, Brad Arnold

Guest: Tim Jenkins

Topics covered

• Atari
• roulette
• gambling
• computer simulation
• humorous memoirs

Mentioned in this episode

Products: Atari 800

Books & works: Missions Accomplished: And some funny business along the way, More Missions Accomplished: And a lot more funny business, Business Missions Accomplished: Silly travel tales on the corporate dime

Places: Las Vegas

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