"How to Take Down a Casino", also called "How to Beat a Casino" or "How to Beat the Casino", is the fourth and final special in British psychological illusionist

Derren Brown Derren Brown (born 27 February 1971) is an English mentalist, illusionist, painter, and author. He began performing in 1992, making his television debut with ''Derren Brown: Mind Control'' in 2000, and has since produced several more shows f ...

's '' The Events'' television series. The episode featured both live and pre-recorded segments, and showed Brown attempting to win £175,000 by placing money that he had taken from a member of the public on a

roulette wheel Roulette is a casino game named after the French word meaning ''little wheel'' which was likely developed from the Italian game Biribi''.'' In the game, a player may choose to place a bet on a single number, various groupings of numbers, the ...

in an undisclosed European

casino A casino is a facility for certain types of gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos are also known for hosting live entertai ...

. The special was broadcast on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

in the United Kingdom on 2 October 2009, when it received over two million viewers. It gained attention due to the stunt's failure at the end of the programme, and creator Derren Brown's apologetic posts and

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

video.

Events

Broadcasting live from a van in an undisclosed location in Europe,

tells viewers that he will bet £5000 taken from a member of the public on a single

number. He plans to win £175,000 for the person from whom he took the money. A pre-recorded segment is shown: Brown demonstrates "taking a gamble" by getting an audience member to choose from four cans of

aerosol paint Aerosol paint (commonly spray paint) is paint that comes in a sealed, pressurized container and is released in an aerosol spray when a valve button is depressed. Aerosol painting is one form of spray painting; it leaves a smooth, even coat, unlik ...

; she sprays two empty cans into the faces of Derren and another audience member, one filled with water into her own face, and a fourth, containing paint, onto a stencil predicting the order in which she would choose them. A film called "The Expert" is played, in which ''

The Real Hustle ''The Real Hustle'' is a BBC British television series created by Objective Productions, Alexis Conran and R. Paul Wilson for BBC Three. The show demonstrates confidence and magic tricks, distraction scams and proposition bets performed on ...

'' Paul Wilson demonstrates illegal sleight of hand tricks used in the

card game A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). A small number of card ga ...

blackjack and discusses the possibility of using concealed computers to calculate the ball's movements; Brown concludes that, because computers would be detected, he must perform the calculation in his head. After an advertising break, Derren speaks over a map of Europe, saying that they cannot film due to the risk of their location being recognised. In another pre-recorded segment, Brown explores the concept of

luck Luck is the phenomenon and belief that defines the experience of improbable events, especially improbably positive or negative ones. The naturalistic interpretation is that positive and negative events may happen at any time, both due to rand ...

and the notion that "lucky" people are those who take more opportunities. He plays a game involving two audience members involving two matchboxes and a £20 note: the unlucky person ends up with it, but an instruction to give it to the other person is written on the note. In a film called "Speed", Derren meets with Timothy Westwood and a member of the Sussex Police. Brown estimates the speed of cars on a busy motorway—he says that he uses triangulation; his guesses are confirmed to be exactly accurate using a speed gun. The recorded segment ends as Brown says that he is about to telephone the viewer: after a failed attempt to dial, he gets through to Ben—a camera crew outside Ben's house films through a window as Derren guides him out of his house and into a production truck. A clip is shown of Brown putting Ben into a trance and instructing him to withdraw £5000 from his bank. Another film, "Trajectory", is shown: Derren attempts to mentally calculate the

trajectory A trajectory or flight path is the path that an object with mass in motion follows through space as a function of time. In classical mechanics, a trajectory is defined by Hamiltonian mechanics via canonical coordinates; hence, a complete tra ...

of a ball thrown into a

squash Squash may refer to: Sports * Squash (sport), the high-speed racquet sport also known as squash racquets * Squash (professional wrestling), an extremely one-sided match in professional wrestling * Squash tennis, a game similar to squash but pla ...

court and predict where it lands on a numbered grid: he correctly selects the number 37 just after the ball is thrown. In a recorded clip, Brown demonstrates the method he will use to keep track of the ball by tapping his feet. He thanks viewers for watching the ''

Events Event may refer to: Gatherings of people * Ceremony, an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion * Convention (meeting), a gathering of individuals engaged in some common interest * Event management, the organization of ev ...

'' series, and passes over to a live feed inside the casino, filmed using concealed cameras. Brown bets on number eight, but the ball lands on the adjacent 30; he apologises to Ben for being "one off", and promises to return his £5000.

Broadcast and reception

The programme was first broadcast on

on 2 October 2009 at 9 pm, and later made available on the channel's catch-up service,

4oD All 4 is a video on demand service from the Channel Four Television Corporation, free of charge for most content and funded by advertising. The service is available in the UK and Ireland; viewers are not required to have a TV licence—require ...

; it ran for one hour, including three advertising breaks. According to

BARB Barb or the BARBs or ''variation'' may refer to: People * Barb (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname * Barb, a term used by fans of Nicki Minaj to refer to themselves * The Barbs, a band Places * Barb, ...

, the special was viewed by 2.18 million people. After the broadcast, Derren Brown said on his blog that he was "still reeling from tonight's escapade", but that "I called Ben as soon as I could and he doesn't hate me". Several days later, Brown posted a video on

in which he impersonated '' Family Guy''s Stewie Griffin and self-deprecatingly called the ending an "

epic fail Failure is the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success. The criteria for failure depends on context, and may be relative to a particular observer or belief system. One ...

", saying that he "fucked it up"; the ''

Mirror A mirror or looking glass is an object that reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror will show an image of whatever is in front of it, when focused through the lens of the eye or a camera. Mirrors reverse the direction of the im ...

'' newspaper called the video "bizarre". Heidi Stephens of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', however, praised the anticlimactic ending, saying that "Losing was a risky strategy, but brilliant" and calling Brown a "master of surprise".

Notes

References

External links

"Derren Brown: How to Beat the Casino"
at Channel4.com *{{IMDb episode, 1526795 2009 television specials Channel 4 original programming Derren Brown British television magic shows British television specials