Las Vegas, NV - June 17, 2001 -- Las Vegas is a city that never sleeps. The lights are on round-the-clock and they're using water like there's no tomorrow. With a population of 1.8 million people, it's the fastest growing city in America - at a rate of 20,000 or more new residents per month. It doesn't cost a lot to live in this town and there's a good reason why.

This is a gambler's mecca. The cash flow that gaming generates pays for everything - the streets, the lights, the water, the schools, the police and fire services, the way of life. It also generates an intensely transient population of convention attendees who come to town to go to a few meetings and lots of casinos. It's a city of dreams.

The 38th annual Design Automation Conference is being held in Las Vegas this week. The semiconductor industry is in a bit of a slump, but EDA is doing well, so spirits are high among the 15,000 or so attendees expected to be at DAC. Most of these people are engineers and, per urban legend, it makes no difference that they're in Las Vegas because engineers never gamble. They don't gamble because they're more rational and drink less than the common man. At least that's the rumor, but honest skeptics are not convinced.

Wally Rhines of Mentor Graphics is here at DAC as well this week. He is the first to tell you about the rational, tea-totaling engineer that knows better than to dabble in foolish games of chance. But, on closer questioning, it turns out that Rhines has a more complex story to tell - a story more typical of the 'typical' engineer. He recounts that in the 1970's and 1980's, he would diligently attend Comdex here in Las Vegas. Each year, he would spend time enroute studying the tables associated with the various games of chance. He studied Monte Carlo theory and numerous other principles that govern the law of averages.

Having that information in hand, he knew which games to play and how to play them. He explains that according to Monte Carlo theory, if you toss a coin and the only two possible outcomes are heads or tails, the results over a thousand tosses is quite surprising. There will be several long streaks of heads and several long streaks of tails. Over the course of a thousand tosses, the charted results will only cross over from a long streak of heads to a long streak of tails 3 or 4 times. Although each toss is a unique event, independent of the previous event, there is a pattern to the randomness in the outcome that defies intuition, but obeys mathematical prediction.

Rhines says that comprehending the math along with rote memorization of the statistical tables of each type of game allowed him to come to Las Vegas and win every time. He says that his story is indicative of the research and development that engineers put into their preparations for coming to Las Vegas. In contrast to the urban legend, he therefore admits, engineers do gamble. But, on average, they gamble and win.

He says that when engineers are on a winning streak in a game that seems totally random, they are not be fooled. The winning streak will eventually end and engineers are wise enough to quit while they're ahead. The games in Las Vegas may seem random in their outcome, but that randomness has a pattern. The pattern means that the casinos continue to generate the cash flow needed to fund this metropolis. The pattern also means that engineers visiting Las Vegas know better than to contribute to that cash flow.

Engineers are not rational people who avoid gaming outright. They are people who study the averages, understand the risks of certain games over others, and only play when they have a high probability of winning.

So, what games does Rhines recommend? Black Jack, played intelligently, and craps - but he says he hasn't been an active participant in games of chance here in Las Vegas for over 15 years. Does he hit on soft 15? Unfortunately, for a guy who used to always leave a winner, his answer is not reassuring: "I'm pretty sure you do."