Struck By Lightning

[Kramer]

This is a good book to read

Its about the curious world of probabilities by Jeffery Rosenthal.

Has a whole chapter in it why casinos make money in the long run
on each and every game .

Every gambler should read it.

Talks about cards also.

For example ,

On a $10 roulette bet, the average payouts are :

red/black even/odd expected loss = $0.526


Dozen = $ 0.526
Single = $0.526

They guarantee a LONG TERM profit margin of 1-3% on each and every game.

They don't care if gamblers make money in a hour , day or week..

The odds are so that in the long run , the law of averages will work
in their favor , and gamblers will lose in the long run.


ITS THE LAW OF NUMBERS !!

[Bobtheicon]

It also comes down to bankroll.
Even at 50/50 odds head to head, the casino will win because for all intents and purposes they have an unlimited bankroll. You as the player have a finite bankroll. Now throw in a slight advantage to the house and they are guaranteed a daily if not hourly (or minutely??) profit.

[Kramer]

Originally Posted by Bobtheicon

It also comes down to bankroll.
Even at 50/50 odds head to head, the casino will win because for all intents and purposes they have an unlimited bankroll. You as the player have a finite bankroll. Now throw in a slight advantage to the house and they are guaranteed a daily if not hourly (or minutely??) profit.

That is one way of lookking at it ,
but look at the whole picture :



the average expected loss on a $10 bet is minus $0.526
no matter which bet you make ...

that's why the game is there...

some people think "i'll try red or black, has a better chance than
singles or even/odds"
or dozens has better chance than singles
or todays my birthday i'll bet this number
whatever the reason,
each and every chance on the board is designed with the exact same
chance of outcome.

Another way of looking at it is like this :

He explains if you flip a coin 10 times and get heads each time it would be
surprising because the odds in that are 1 in 1,1024
(computerized by taking a factor of 1/2 for each of the 10 coins
and multiplying them alltogether).
which is less than 0.1%.

However if you spend an entire afternoon repeatedly flipping the same coin , and after several hours finally get 10 in a row it is bound to happen and isn't surprising at all.

Thus when a gambler hits a winning streak (as some of us do)
its not really surprising , but we should ask
what were the chances of the event happening out of how many ?

For another example we all hear of bad beats in poker ,

But when one of us goes all in with a pair of aces against another
and the pre flop odds of losing are 20% , and we know
2 out of 10 hands will lose ,
we really shouldn't be SURPRISED losing all in
2 out of 10 times on average should we ?
But yet those are the ones we complain about ...

[Bobtheicon]

Good info - you can certainly get lulled into a false sense of security.
I know I have had days where I can do no wrong; everything I bet on wins.
Then, as soon as I feel like I can't be beat I up the ante and BINGO - lose like 10 in a row or something....

[Kramer]

poker probabilities :

here's the basics of poker :

suppose you have determined you have a 20% chance of winning a flush hand ( it isn't necessarily true but lets assume it) .

Suppose further your bet is $ 10 .
There's already $300 in the pot.
Of course , some of that $300 is already your money (i.e. anti but none of that means nothing right now it belongs to the pot , not you).
Should you match the $10 or fold ?
If you fold , you will neither spend the extra $10 nor get the $300 in the pot
End of story.
If you stay in you must pay the $ 10 right away ,
However 20% of the time you will win the entire $300 which is $ 60

This means on AVERAGE by matching the bet you will win $ 60 .

Since $60 is more than $ 10 , it is in your interest to match the bet and stay in the game .


Of course , 80% of the time you will lose that bet . And you will get angry.
But the other 20 % of the time you will win such a large pot that overall it is worth such a large risk for you to stay in each and every time .

In the LONG RUN it is simply more profitable for you to do so than by folding
which the majority of players would do .

By contrast suppose there's only $ 30 in the pot.

In that case , on average , you will win on AVERAGE just 20% of $40 or
$8 which is less than $ 10 which it costs you to stay in , so in that case you should fold.

Its all a case of pot oods ,

Not a question of what % chance your hand has of winning !!!

If you keep track of probabilities and pot odds you will make wiser decisions and do well in poker over the long run .

In certain poker games like texas hold em and movies people will often go "all in"
betting their entire holdings feeling their entire holdings on a single hand . Some people are impressed by such large bets , feeling they show strenght and courage and confidence .

This often is trying to avoid the
long run law of averages reckon their true level of skill ...