Here?s a gambling riddle for casino players. This riddle can illustrate how you understand the basic concepts related to the math behind casino games.
In the event that you understand the math and probability behind casino gambling, this riddle will be easy to solve.
If, alternatively, you don?t quite get it yet, you then?ll get the answer wrong, and you might even be confused by the riddle.
The Hypothetical Casino Player Riddle
Here?s the hypothetical situation:
Patrick and Lee are both video poker players, and they both only play 9/6 Jacks or Better with perfect strategy. Also, for reasons of their own, neither of these are prepared to join the slots club at the casino. (Patrick is really a privacy nut, and Lee just doesn?t like getting advertising in the mail.)
As you know if you?ve been reading my blog for long, 9/6 Jacks or Better played with perfect strategy comes with an expected return of 99.54%.
Patrick and Lee both live driving distance to the casino, plus they stop there for a couple of beers and some video poker after work each day. They even meet there on the weekends for the beer and video poker.
They?re also habitual to a fault.
Patrick always plays exactly 20 hands of video poker and stops for the night time. He doesn?t care if he?s winning or losing.
Lee, however, plays 20 hands of video poker, but if he?s ahead by at least nine coins?the worthiness of a complete house?he plays another nine hands. If he hits another full house during those nine hands, he plays another nine hands.
Lee keeps playing until he hits a dry spell of nine hands with out a full house, which happens quite often, by the way.
But he occasionally winds up hitting a full house two or three times in a night.
The Big Question
Here?s the question part of the riddle:
Following a year, who?s more prone to have lost more money or won more income for the entire year?s worth of play?
Is Patrick the big loser here?
Is Lee way ahead because he?s using the house?s money area of the time?
You?ll see plenty of people say that Lee is probably before Patrick for the entire year. In the end, he?s been capitalizing on it when the machines get hot. Patrick quits whether the machine is hot or not.
Video Poker Chips
But here?s the simple truth:
When you?re playing a negative expectation game, the more you play, the likelier it is that your actual results can look just like the expected results.
And since Jacks or Better is really a negative expectation game, the ball player who puts more income through the machine is more likely to have lost more income.
Basically, Patrick will come out ahead during the period of a year.
Lee will lose more money.
IMAGINE IF Patrick and Lee Were Card Counters?
Now, let?s guess that Patrick and Lee are both card counters with a 1% edge over the house.
Patrick, though, still only plays 20 hands per night?no variation regardless of how well he?s doing.
Lee, on the other hand, will occasionally keep playing past his minimum 20 hands, but only when the count is positive. He quits once the deck gets cold.
After a year, that is going to have won additional money?
Obviously, they?re both probably going to be net winners for the year.
But this time around, the edge was in their favor, so the more hands that got played, the additional money they stood to earn.
Also, notice that in this example, Lee isn?t attempting to parlay his winnings. He doesn?t keep playing because he?s hit a blackjack or simply because he?s trying to get a blackjack sometime during the next nine hands.
He keeps playing when the game conditions are good.
This is one of many hallmarks of a specialist gambler, by the way. They don?t quit because they?re ahead for the night. They also don?t quit should they?re behind for the night.
They only quit if they?re too tired to help keep making good decisions or once the game conditions change so that they?re no more profitable.
In real money blackjack, this may also mean quitting if you?re attracting an excessive amount of attention from the casino.
You might also observe that this situation can be clearly hypothetical. If you show up at a casino and count cards in blackjack every evening, you?ll be seen eventually and obtain backed off. Even with only 20 hands per night, the casino will catch to you and ask one to stick to their other games.
They might even ban you from the premises.
This All Reminds Me of John Patrick and His Slots ?Systems?
A couple of years ago, I read a book by a gambling ?expert? named John Patrick where he presented a series of increasingly complicated slot machine strategies with silly names like the ?squirrel strategy.?
All these strategies had a few things in common.
One of these brilliant was a ?naked pull? limit. In accordance with Patrick?s type of thinking, a naked pull is really a spin of the reels that results in no win at all. He suggests some kind of arbitrary limit like seven; basically, in the event that you spin the reels seven times in a row and don?t get a win of some kind, you quit that machine and move on to another machine.
In the end, that machine is obviously gone cold, right?
Video Poker
Savvy gamblers know, though, that slot machines only seem hot or cold in retrospect. What happened on the prior spin has no influence on what happens due to the next spin.
Another facet of his strategy was a loss limit. That is an amount of your session bankroll that you?re ready to lose. And once you?ve lost that amount, it?s time and energy to quit for the night time. He usually expresses this as a share, and it?s another arbitrary number. It could be 20%, or it may be 40%, nonetheless it?s important that it be considered a point of which you?re willing to quit.
The final aspect that his strategies had in common was the win goal. That is some your session bankroll that you?re hoping to win. As soon as you?ve won that amount, it?s time and energy to quit for the night. That is also usually expressed as a percentage. It may be 20%, or it may be 40%.
Here?s the Thing About Arbitrary Money Management Rules
These arbitrary money management rules have their uses. The important thing to remember is that in the long run, they do nothing to improve your chances of winning. The longer you play, the closer your results will get to the mathematically expected result?period.
Actually, dividing your gambling up into multiple playing sessions is a mathematically incorrect method of looking at it. You need to think about your gambling as a lifelong session with occasional breaks. As long as you?re playing negative expectation games, you?ll probably die a net loser.
But having a loss limit and a win goal may help you enjoy your time and effort in the casino more. In the end, you?ll know when to give up either way. And sometimes, inevitably, you?re bound to leave the casino a winner.
The very best estimates say that 20% of individuals who walk into a casino on any given day leave the casino up for his or her trip. Another 80% have lost some or all of their bankroll.
A big percentage of those people lost their ENTIRE bankroll, though. At some point during their session, they were surely up at least a little bit, however they never quit.
And they do that every time they go to the casino. It?s a recipe for disaster.
Provided that money management systems enable you to have more fun while you?re at the casino, they?re harmless.
You just need to understand that they won?t assist you to win money on a poor expectation game in the long run.
Conclusion
That?s my gambling riddle for your day alongside some thoughts and analysis of the gambling concepts related to it. I hope it makes sense and convinces you to never gamble with money you can?t afford to reduce.
On a significant note, professional gamblers saw the right response to the riddle right away.
Did you?Casino promotions are those come-ons that the casino marketing departments come up with to attract more folks to their property. In this article, I want to look at a good example of a casino promotion that waded into a gray area fast.
The Sahara Video Poker Promotions
I?ve been reading a great memoir by Bob Dancer called Million Dollar Video Poker. It?s an account of how he won a million dollars playing video poker during the period of three years in NEVADA. You won?t learn to play video poker from the book, but you?ll find out more about the kind of thinking an edge player must take part in than anywhere else.
In the book, he describes a number of promotions that the Sahara once held where they might pay double for specific winning hands made through the first 10 minutes of an hour.
Among those promotions happened 1 day a week, and you also?d get $2,000 for a royal flush on Deuces Wild instead of $1,000 in the event that you hit it within the first 10 minutes of the hour. Another promotion paid out $160 for a four of a sort instead of the usual $80. It was held on a different day of the week.
This created some interesting situations.
Once the Casino Makes a Mistake in the ball player?s Favor
Just how this promotion worked was that if you hit the hand that generated the double payout, you had to light up the help button and talk to the floor manager. The device paid normally, and the excess payouts were handled via cash by the ground manager.
So, for example, if you got four of a kind through the promotion, you?d get $80 in credits on the machine, and the ground manager would pay your extra $80 on top of that in cash.
In one situation, the writer of the book accidentally got paid out $160 by the ground manager in error. He still had the $80 in credit on the device, essentially turning his double payout into a triple payout.
Online Casino
The writer kept his mouth shut and left the casino along with his money. He reasoned that the floor manager wasn?t going to get in trouble for it, and the casino is making enough money that $80 wasn?t going to cut into its profits. It?s within the breakage margin for almost any business of this size, really.
This can be a good example of a casino making a mistake in a new player?s favor.
My advice ? & most other good gambling writers? advice ? is to keep the mouth area shut about the casino?s mistake. You?re not stealing, and you also don?t need to let this kind of thing bother your sense of integrity. Casinos come in the business of taking advantage of gamblers? ignorance, and you also shouldn?t feel bad when they make a mistake in your favor.
But Other Gray Areas Come Up Too
The author describes another situation in his book about another player who hit a jackpot gambling in a casino at 5 minutes before the top of the hour. He immediately put his coat on the flashing light at the top of the machine in order that the casino wouldn?t see when he hit the jackpot.
He waited until five minutes after the house to eliminate his coat and whooped about his win. He also offered the change girl $100 to lie for him and say he hit the jackpot following the top of the hour instead of before.
Long story short, he got away with it. But this was a higher risk move that I wouldn?t recommend trying.
To begin with, he?s intentionally trying to deceive the casino and cheat the promotion. Any time someone is covering up a light that signifies his win, he?s not just taking advantage of a mistake that the casino made.
He?s Developing a mistake.
Also, if you?re bribing a casino employee, you?re carrying it out wrong. Nevada has strict anti-cheating laws. He?s lucky he didn?t get the change girl fired. He?s also lucky that the casino manager didn?t catch him in his fraud and also have him arrested. Felonies are not something anyone will need on their record.
Reading a Paperback Novel and Waiting Patiently
The author then discusses how he'd occasionally get four cards to a royal flush right a couple of minutes before the the surface of the hour. His strategy was to read a paperback novel while he await the very best of the hour to make his draw.
That is a smart move, if you believe about it. After all, there?s an enormous difference between a $1,000 payout and a $2,000 payout for a royal flush. If this means getting in slightly fewer hands each hour maybe once or twice here and there, it?s worth doing.
In fact, more often than not, you?re likely to miss the royal flush anyway.
However the shift manager noticed what he was doing one night and explained to him that he may as well finish playing his hand. He said that when he hit the royal flush, he wasn?t likely to honor the double pay.
Once the author asked him why, the shift manager said it was because he was abusing the promotion and ignoring the ?spirit? of the guidelines. This is an expression I hear often when people discuss online casino bonuses, incidentally. With online casinos, it looks like any success at all inhibits the ?spirit? of the rules, but that?s another discussion for later in this article.
How Hard IN THE EVENT YOU Fight for Your ?Rights? in times Like This?
Casinos invariably have some sort of ?management reserves all rights? sign posted somewhere within. This clause can be found in an online casino?s conditions and terms. This means that the casino?s interpretation of the guidelines and their administration is entirely around them.
The author could have argued with the shift manager within the last example situation, but he knew that he wouldn?t get anywhere with him. He might have gone over his check out the casino manager, but that probably wouldn?t have accomplished anything either.
He could even have taken his complaint to the Gaming Control Board for Nevada to try to get satisfaction.
But chances are, they wouldn?t side with him either.
It?s better to stay on the nice side of the casino in times like this.
And as it proved, he didn?t hit the royal flush anyway, so that it was a moot point.
Online Casino Bonuses and the Spirit of the Rules
If you?ve spent much time playing at online casinos, you know that the most common promotion is a signup bonus. You deposit $100, for example, and the casino offers you $200 in bonus money to play with. This appears like free money and, in a way, it is.
But such offers come with strings attached.
These strings are called wagering requirements.
Before being permitted to cash out at real cash online casinos, you must wager your deposit and your bonus a specific amount of times beforehand. That is called your wagering requirement. In the event that you don?t meet this wagering requirement, you invalidate your withdrawal request.
For example, you may have a bankroll of $300 after your bonus and have wagering requirements of 25x your deposit plus bonus.
This implies you?d need to make $7,500 in wagers before cashing out.
Money
It might initially seem like you?re guaranteed a loss with that kind of action, but keep in mind that you?re going to win a few of these bets. You?re not likely to lose $7,500 just because without a doubt $7,500.
You could estimate how much of that $7,500 you?re going to lose using the house edge for the overall game, though. In fact, you could choose a game with a minimal house edge and almost guarantee a profit, right?
Let?s say you choose to play the blackjack game with perfect basic strategy. The house edge for these game conditions might be 0.5%. 0.5% of $7,500 is $37.50.
$300 ? $37.50 is $263.50, which is an expected profit of $163.50. (Another $100 can be your deposit.)
But guess what?
The casino also offers specific games that don?t count toward your wagering requirements. Blackjack is always one of them.
What If You STICK TO the Slot Machines?
All online casino sites prefer that you wager through their slot machine games. Let?s assume that you do this and the home edge is 7%.
7% of $7,500 is $525. Since you started with $300, you?re probably going to be a loser.
But let?s say you got lucky and won a $1,000 jackpot on your own first spin.
Now, it would make sense to carefully monitor the amount of play so that you will quit once you hit your $7,500 wagering requirement. In the event that you lose the $500 roughly that you likely to lose, you?re still up $500, so you have $800 in your account.
You?d be inside your rights to cash out, here, right?
In the end, you?ve fulfilled the wagering requirements that the casino set.
But here?s what could happen?
Once the casino reviews your play, they observe that you quit immediately after hitting your wagering requirements. They label you a bonus abuser and say that you?re violating the ?spirit? of the rules.
Even though you beat the odds, they invalidate your withdrawal request.
What should you do?
In this situation, I think the best move would be to keep playing even after you?ve hit your wagering requirements and soon you?ve lost 20% of one's profit. It?s extremely difficult to say that you?re an additional benefit abuser if you keep playing once you?ve hit your wagering requirements.
Conclusion
Casino promotions aren?t always black and white even though they could seem to be. This applies equally to promotions at traditional brick and mortar casinos and online casinos. Actually, it might even become more true of online casinos.
The important thing to remember is that you don?t stand to win in a conflict with casino management. Try to get along with them so that they?re more likely to be a little flexible with you.
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