The splat, or asterix is used on bare words to make globs (best to read the manual on that, my understanding is still hazy on globs and would best confuse you more than help you) and like Btrott pointed out you are missing your '$' on one of your vars.

From the looks of your code, you don't have any space between the vars and the operator, and therefore, Perl isn't quite sure what you are trying to do.

Add your $ and separate your vars and operators for readability. Cheers!