I don't know whether i wish i had the guts to do that or if i'm happy that i don't.
Either way, more power to him, i hope he's not homeless soon.
what would be funny would be if he decided to bet that all on one hand of blackjack and then got an 11! Or two 8s...against a 5! Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
I'm glad he won. I'm not like most of the educated public. I like the idea of gambling and lottery tickets.
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:That's the single best odds in the whole casino, bar none.
Um, no. Or rather, sort of.
What matters generally isn't odds, it's expected value. That bet has an expected value of about 97 cents per dollar, which is among the worst of the table games.
The best expected value on the casino floor is blackjack. A knowledgable player in blackjack has an expected value of closer to 99 cents per dollar wagered. A card counter can actually raise that expected value to over a dollar, making it the only game in the casino where the house does not have an edge. (Not counting parimutuel style games, where the house percentage is taken off of the top and you are gambling against the other players, not against the house. You could theoretically make money at a sports book, if you are truly more knowledgeable than most.)
Now, the reason this is a good game for him to have played is because he was only going to make one play, so expected value over the long haul was not as important to him. But your post would suggest to many that roullette is a good game to play in general, when in fact it's one of the worst.
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
If there were no 0 or 00, the house's only edge would be its larger bankroll. (Which is why this guy chose the red or black bet, btw, as he had no bankroll for the stakes he was betting at).
But if there were no 0 or 00 and you bet within your bankroll, i.e., five dollar bets, say, with five hundred or a thousand bucks or so in your wallet, then I see no reason why you could not stay there pretty much forever.
Posts: 1112 | Registered: Jan 2003
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posted
Yes. The casino has more money, so even at 1 to 1 odds they are more likely to win in the long run.
*doh* other people answered first.
Might as well add some explanation.
Streaks happen. There is no change in the probabilities involved (that is, the next outcome is still unrelated to the ones before, at least in games like roulette), however just due to randomness there will be periods when one outcome comes up more than it "should" proportionally between the actual odds.
All it takes for the house to win is for one of those streaks to be long enough to wipe out a player. Even if when both you had unlimited pots you'd both win as often as you lost as the number of rounds played approached infinity, gambling with smaller pots (particularly on the size an individual player has) is a finite endeavor, and when there is a limit at zero funds, in any long enough run a "streak" will almost certainly occur which would take you as a player below that zero limit, wiping you out.
posted
What Fugu said, the key is, no matter how you play it (doubling each time, or always betting the same amount or wahtever), the house always has an edge, even with perfectly even odds.
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