In the Oscar-nominated 2003 movie “The Cooler,” William H. Macy portrays a downtown Las Vegas casino employee whose job is to reverse winning streaks. Bernie Lootz — get it, lose? — has such extraordinary bad luck, all he needs to do is sit next to a guest experiencing good luck and it stops.

“No job like this can exist today in Las Vegas,” Anthony F. Lucas, a professor of casino management at UNLV and former gaming industry operations analyst, told Casino.org. “Many in-house procedures and external regulations are in place to ensure randomness is present in the production of the outcomes on all games.”

Hiring an individual to manipulate the statistical random process would be considered cheating.

"Players would not patronize a casino that is known, or even rumored, to cheat,” Lucas said. “And if caught, consequences such as heavy fines, possible loss of the gaming license, and catastrophic PR fallout would all be likely.”

Moreover, Lucas stated that casinos require significant winners, as “they offer important promotion.” 

However, the most crucial point is that good luck and bad luck do not exist. 

“What many people don’t understand about randomness is that it includes both hot and cold streaks,” Lucas said. “Therefore, there is no need to bring in someone to affect the game — even if someone could — since it will recover on its own.”

Were Coolers Ever a Real Thing?

Prior to casinos fully grasping and trusting the math behind the house edge, certain operators were just as superstitious as their patrons. For instance, it was common for pit bosses to carry rabbit’s feet, cross their fingers during high-stakes craps rolls, or don their lucky shirts at work to guarantee a successful house operation. 

In this setting, the idea of a casino cooler definitely appears believable. 

Nonetheless, a thorough investigation of newspaper articles and books regarding Las Vegas from the '50s to the '80s revealed no mention of anyone hired by a casino to bring misfortune on a live gaming floor. 

There existed an idea referred to as a "casino cooler." Nevertheless, it pertained to a manipulated deck of cards (also known as a cold deck) that swindlers would try to bring into play to tilt the odds of a table game in their advantage. 

Calmer Minds Win 

The concept of "The Cooler" was taken by screenwriters Wayne Kramer and Frank Hannah from one of the numerous misconceptions believed by some of the most serious casino gamblers of the past. 

Although it is indeed possible for a casino staff member with a disconcerting appearance or behavior to be positioned next to a victor in order to disrupt their mindset and adversely affect their performance, all such accounts are, at best, very questionable. 

“Heavy gamblers are often very superstitious,” Lucas explained. “So if they’re winning when someone else happens to join the table or a dealer switches out, they are tempted to interpret these random events as the casino trying to mess with their luck.”