I really approve of these designs; they’re not only true, but they look great. Let me break down the ideology behind this shirt for all you who didn’t get it.

Gamblers are notoriously poor statisticians; they don’t realize that gambling is governed by the laws of chance, but instead believe in the narrative fallacy of “hot streaks.” Thus, if a gambler wins big at a slot machine, he or she thinks that they’re on a “hot streak” and will win subsequent turns of the arm. However, this is completely false; it’s like saying that when flipping a coin, if you got 3 heads in a row, that there’s a higher chance that one would get tails on the fourth flip. Chances work in isolation!

Anyways, the idea is that the gambler would lose all his or her money while pumping his or her winnings into a gambling device, believing they were more statistically likely to win during this mythical “hot streak.” Ideally, all the winnings earned in gambling is thus fed back into the system, and this is why casinos have the money to construct replica pyramids, Eiffel Towers, and all that jazz. Thanks to compulsive gamblers, this is all possible.

I, therefore, think the spirit of this custom designed t-shirt is lovely. However, the design is noteworthy as well… at least the placement is.

The winning is clearly placed in the dead center of the front of the shirt on the front, and the winnings staying in Vegas are in the dead center of the shirt on the back. The sizing of the text and the images are fine, too. I am concerned, however, that the coloring could be done in a more economical manner, as the number of colors involved in this shirt would demand a digital print. As the link states, digital printing is more expensive per shirt than its cousin screen printing, because it is like using a color printer to create the image. However, screen prints for many different colors are quite expensive themselves, so digital printing is the way to go if one has a plethora of different colors necessary for their design.

However, if the creator of this shirt wanted to make a screen print, (and therefore save a lot of money,) only minor changes would be needed, and the spirit and design of the shirt would be left intact.

First, the “what happens in Vegas” and “stays in Vegas” are slightly different colors of blue. If they were standardized to the the same, this would reduce the color count. Additionally, why is the slot machine’s display and the dollar sign on the cash a different shade of green! Standardize again!

This would reduce the colors used to 4… perhaps change the text color to conform with the outline of the dollar sack, or change the outline of the dollar sack to blue to further reduce the number of colors used to 3. I suppose I would say that it would be smartest to compare prices and see how many shirts you’re ordering, and whether changing colors really matters.

However, I can see many applications to this shirt. If you were part of a statistics department at a university, I could see you wearing this shirt. If you worked with chance at all, I could see you wearing this shirt. Additionally, I could see you wearing this shirt if you were a math-y kid who wanted to shock some people, after seeing the barrage of Vegas commercials on TV. So I would assume that the volume ordered would be large, a screen print would be in order, and my color editing would be warranted.

In closing, though, nice shirt! Not only is the message good, and the design good, but the colors gave me something to talk about.