The Newtonian Casino is a book that tells Farmer's story. It is fascinating and I've read it twice: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Newtonian-Casino-Thomas-Bass/dp/...
It has interesting insights about gambling, and roulette, (some croupiers can learn the physics of their wheels and can learn to hit a number on a spin) and the details of how they go about building the shoe computers is fascinating.
I don't know if anyone has built an equivalent computer with modern tech. I'd be interested to see how small it could be built.
Now there's an app for Google Glass! (news just in: casinos ban patrons from wearing Google Glass on the premises).
From the linked pdf paper there's this:
"...apparently been using a laser scanner and their mobile phones to predict the likely resting place of the ball." Would love to hear how they did it.
I'm really interesting in roulette. I wrote a Python script that plays online roulette (mainly to learn Python, don't actually expect it to make money.)
Card counting would get a lot easier with them, for example.
The main thing I took from it was that if they had put all that effort and dedication into something which directly improved people's lives, they probably would have made a lot more money. :-)
One person choosing a path that has a non-obvious net effect does not mean that there is none, it could be negative or it could be positive. We just don't know.
Take the development of the computer, a good part of it was a bunch of guys attempting to get it to play chess, what direct improvement to people's lives could have come from that?
http://www.chessville.com/billwall/EarlyComputerChessProgram...
Indirect effects can launch whole industries and make lots of money, possibly not for the people that start it but still, it makes you wonder what's the best way to spend your time.