New Project Ideas

Quote: FleaStiff

There is no folly that is too foolish to be believed by somebody who truly wants to believe it.

Of course. Catholic priests at one time got rich selling indulgences, too. Hell, there are books on how to win at lotto.

But dice control sounds plausible. The movements of discrete objects, such as dice, can be measured in every way by well-known laws of physics. Everything about a throw, from the mass of the dice, the strenght and angle of the throw, the friction and elasticity of the felt, etc etc can be known.

Given all that, it seems plausible a mechanical engineer, as the legend told in Breaknig Vegas has it, would research the subject and discovered a way to keep the dice on axis so that, to an extent, the outcome is under control.

Against that there are the books and DVDs, which may or may not be a considerable source of income. There are the very expensive seminars, which certainly look like a good source of income. And especially the fact that the casinos don't mind dice setting as far as I know. I myself set the dice freely every throw, and saw several other people do likewise.

But the premise is still plaussible enough so that it warrants testing. I wonder if some Phd candidate at UNLV hasn't tackled dice setting for his dissertation.

I know you are going to say "no" to this, but I'll throw it out there anyway. Investing in the Stock Market is a form of gambling, if you ask me. And I am not so sure the people who have analyzed it can't get some help from a Gambling Math analyzer.

One of the things I am struggling with now is how "they" say you shouldn't look at how your Stocks are doing on a daily basis, that that's just looking at a snapshot and missing the big picture. Yet when it comes to Bonds, "they" say you shouldnt feel smug you bought when there is a certain rate if rates later go up; brother you have been slaughtered, "they" say, and you should pay attention to that! I don't get it, assuming the bonds have low risk of default, seems to me you don't worry about that snapshot either.

"they" = various internet or TV pundits, and the newsletters that come from various funds.

It may not be interesting to Vegas casino gamblers but the 'beggars' on the riverboat casinos are interesting to me, especially the ones who make a living by it. Perhaps you could write about them or some of the differences between Vegas casinos and riverboat casinos?

Quote: Nareed

But dice control sounds plausible.

No, it sounds desirable and therefore is thought to be plausible.

>I wonder if some Phd candidate at UNLV hasn't tackled dice setting for his dissertation.
Didn't the now-deceased Feinmann tackle this problem while drinking with students at an off-campus topless bar in Glendale or Pasadena?
Didn't the famous Stanford statistician Persi Diaconis address this problem to an unidentified Standford physicist and relay his comments at a lunch-lecture of some sort?

Do you think the skilled surveillance people at a casino are somehow oblivious to the problem. Their sole concern is delay of the game. If they really were worried about dice setting, there would be a little bird cage tumbler device that the player operated.

Re Dice Setting, I don't know why a trial of 10,000 is so hard to do? at least considering what's riding on it.

Quote: odiousgambit

I know you are going to say "no" to this, but I'll throw it out there anyway. Investing in the Stock Market is a form of gambling, if you ask me. And I am not so sure the people who have analyzed it can't get some help from a Gambling Math analyzer.

I've been told lots of times that I should get into analyzing options and/or derivatives. However, I wouldn't know where to start. My own investment history is also pretty lousy. I would have made out better if I had rented instead of owned, and kept my money under my mattress, my whole life.

Quote: odiousgambit

Re Dice Setting, I don't know why a trial of 10,000 is so hard to do? at least considering what's riding on it.

Assuming 30 rolls per hour, that would take 13.9 solid 24-hour days.

Quote: FleaStiff

No, it sounds desirable and therefore is thought to be plausible.

I disagree. read what I wrote more carefully. I didn't say dice control is plausible, I said it sounds plausible. Whether it is plausible or not remains to be seen.

As a counter-example, albeit a ridiculous one, suppose someone came up with dice mind control, that si the notion you can influence the dice to come up with the number you want if you concentrate no that number hard enough. That's also desirable, but it doesn't sound even remotely plausible.

Quote: Wizard

I would have made out better if I had rented instead of owned, and kept my money under my mattress, my whole life.

In more ways than one, perhaps?

Quote: Wizard

Assuming 30 rolls per hour, that would take 13.9 solid 24-hour days.

Plus how long can a dice setter throw before he gets tired? I don't think much more than an hour or two, possibly less. So there'd be breaks. All told such an experiment would take weeks.

It would take money, too. There's payment for the dice setters and maybe for the controls, renting a regulation casino craps table for several weeks (buying one is out of the question), buying regulation dice (lots of them), plus two research assistants and a grad student <wink!>

That's why I suggest it be done by someone with access to grant money, or the Mythbusters.

Hello Wizard,

I would like to make several suggestions. But before I do, I would like you to reconsider dice-setting under a different circumstance. I believe you can develop meaningful results in less than 10k trials. At MIT, I know their labs have been working on a bionic arm. This is significant because it eliminates a number of physics induced variables. Suppose you could build a rudimentary dice holder which would be the rough equivalent of setting and holding the dice. All you need is to use that holder to simulate the dice throw. That would provide you the best evidence with minimal external variables. Perhaps this might be out of your engineering background, but it's the approach I would have taken if I had the time.

Some alternative suggestions would be: using your mathematical background to analyze the stock market. Afterall, the stock market is the largest casino. You'd have to isolate a very niche topic. As a fgrmer analyst, there are some very interesting niche topics. Market movements relative to options expiry on the 3rd Friday of every month. Game theory on earnings announcements, do you buy sell or hold. Correlation or pairs trading within specific industries. Lots of interesting topics. But you'd have to find one that appeals to you. Derivative valuation is always increasingly complex. Unfortunately, this might be too long, too many variables etc.

Another alternative would be applied game theory in poker. Given the statistical probability of various distributed hands across the table, and the likelihood of someone playing a hand with a lower EV, what hands would represent a Nash Equilibrium. Or something along those lines.

Getting back to home base, how about studying the impact of trends on betting patterns in roulette. You could easily simulate a pseudo-set of random numbers that display certain patterns. And solicit volunteers who would gamble based on those patterns. This would be a cross in psychology and mathematics. I volunteered for something similar in relation to horse betting.

That leads me into my final suggestion. Handicapping for horse racing. Always fun. Break a leg Big Brown!!!!!!