Craps Strategy Investment Opportunity?

Quote: MathExtremist

Quote: guido111

This law does not imply that the absolute difference between
the numbers of heads and tails should oscillate close to zero. On the contrary.
For games of chance, such as coin-tossing, it is even typical, as we shall see, that
for long time periods, either heads or tails will remain constantly in the lead,
with the absolute difference between the numbers of heads and tails tending to
become larger and larger."

That is the most critical piece to understand if you want to overcome the typical intuitive misunderstanding that is the gambler's fallacy. As the number of trials grows, the difference between heads and tails also grows, even as the percentage of heads or tails converges on 50%. In actual numbers, the distribution becomes less likely to be exactly 50/50 over time, but more likely to be "close to it." (Edit: I'm not discussing the infinite random walk theorem that says it's 100% likely to reach every point on the line.)

Not understanding this aspect of randomness and betting in a way based on its opposite has led to the ruin of a great many gamblers. 98steps may not even be the latest.

Quote: 7winner

Not a nightmare if you noticed the streaks and trends against what you were betting and just bet the don't pass. It does the same as the Pass Line.
Then you could have waited until the Pass Line could prove to you in the short run it could win as expected.
More craps players I have seen lose more money betting against losing streaks and trends. Just a fact of the game.

Quote: 98steps

Progres Update.......

Sorry for the delay in reporting.....the trials of having a 20 year old daughter are never ending. Thursday was a no action day. Wednesday was a good day. Three relatively easy sessiuons, with the table behaving exactly as it should.

10/27 11am - 2:30pm Boulder Station, Boulder Highway. Gross Earnings +154. Bankroll Low -132.
10/27 4pm - 6pm El Cortez, Downtown. Gross Earnings +151. Bankroll Low -89.
10/27 7pm - 12:30am Main Street Station, Downtown. Gross Earnings +163. Bankroll Low -211.

Quote: 98steps

Progress Update.......

Nice Easy run today. Will be one more later. Boulder is quickly becoming a comfortable place to hang out. Don't anyone try to say anything different, this is HARD WORK.

10/29 Noon - 2:30pm Boulder Station, Boulder Highway. Gross Earnings +162. Low Bankroll -173.

Quote: Mosca

Jeez, buddy. $150 a day x 5 days a week x 50 weeks a year = $37500. Give or take. Go drive a cab, sell cars, get an Amway distributorship. Become a medical transcriptionist, sell magazines over the phone. Anything has to pay better than that. With no risk of ruin.

Quote: Mosca

Jeez, buddy. $150 a day x 5 days a week x 50 weeks a year = $37500. Give or take. Go drive a cab, sell cars, get an Amway distributorship. Become a medical transcriptionist, sell magazines over the phone. Anything has to pay better than that. With no risk of ruin.

Quote: MichaelBluejay

Are you kidding? $37,500 a year is nearly $18 an hour, more than *twice* the minimum wage. And I'm going to guess that *most* jobs in Vegas pay less than $37,500 a year. Cabbies certainly make less than $18 an hour these days.

Also, 98 would probably tell you that if the system were shown to be a winner, then he would simply make larger bets (once capitalized) and increase his hourly take.

Quote: Mosca

Hehe. I know, that's why I threw in the Amway thing. But if he's going to complain about how much hard work it is, and there is the probability that he will go completely bust, then flipping burgers is a better return. Stealing money from his parents will give a better return. The $37500 would only be if his system would actually work, which it won't.

Quote: Mosca

Hehe. I know, that's why I threw in the Amway thing. But if he's going to complain about how much hard work it is, and there is the probability that he will go completely bust, then flipping burgers is a better return. Stealing money from his parents will give a better return. The $37500 would only be if his system would actually work, which it won't.

Quote: 98steps

Progress Update......

Quote: Ayecarumba

Thanks for the update 98steps. I am encouraged to hear that your family is coming before your, "work".

"table behaving exactly as it should"??? Careful... Maybe the table likes you, but the dice hate you with a passion...hehe.

Main Street seems to be good to you...

Please make sure everywhere rates your play. You owe it to your "investors" to reduce your overhead with comps for Room and Board.

Quote: guido111

Nice

#	Date/Time/Location	Day	Session Hours	Result
1	October 21. 7:45pm - 11:30pm. El Cortez Casino, Downtown. Gross Earnings $162	Thurs	3.75	$162
2	October 22. 9:30am - 4:15pm. Eastside Cannery, Boulder Highway. Gross Earnings $60.	Fri	6.75	$60
3	October 23. 1:30pm - 4:30pm. Eastside Cannery, Boulder Highway. Gross Earnings $153.	Sat	3	$153
4	October 23. 5:45pm - 5:30am. Boulder Station, Boulder Highway. Gross Earnings $175.	Sat	11.75	$175
5	October 25: 11am-11:30am. Main Street Station, Downtown. Gross Earnings +156	Mon	0.5	$156
6	October 25: 12:30pm - 2:15pm. Golden Gate Casino, Downtown. Gross Earnings +152	Mon	1.75	$152
7	October 25: 4pm - 2am. Stratosphere, STRIP, LOSS -2316	Mon	10	($2,316)
8	10/27 11am - 2:30pm Boulder Station, Boulder Highway. Gross Earnings +154. Bankroll Low -132.	Wed	3.5	$154
9	10/27 4pm - 6pm El Cortez, Downtown. Gross Earnings +151. Bankroll Low -89.	Wed	2	$151
10	10/27 7pm - 12:30am Main Street Station, Downtown. Gross Earnings +163. Bankroll Low -211.	Wed	5.5	$163
11	10/29 7pm - 12:30am. Eastside Cannery, Boulder Highway. Gross Earnings +158. Low Bankroll -162.	Fri	5.5	$158
12	10/30 5:30am - 7:15am. Boulder Station, Boulder Highway. Gross Earnings +153. Bankroll Low EVEN.	Sat	1.75	$153
	.	Totals	55.75	($679)

Quote: guido111

Now the real bankroll, bets and fun can begin.

Quote: superrick

The one thing I found out a long time ago is you need the buy-in to make the money.
Small buy-ins just hurts your chances of winnings.

Quote: mkl654321

On the other hand, a small buyin reduces the size of your potential loss (assuming that if you lose your buyin, you're done), but your possible win is still infinite.

What matters is not how much you buy in for, but the total amount of your bets. The more you bet, the more you will lose (odds bets excluded).

Quote: goatcabin

Once again, this is NOT true. The more you bet (odds excluded) the more is your EXPECTED loss. The ev is not RESULTS. The ev does not determine the shape of the graph, nor does it determine one's chance of winning.

Actually, the biggest determinant of whether a bettor will reach some win goal for a session is the degree of variance in the bet strategy.
Cheers,
Alan Shank
Woodland, CA

Quote: mkl654321

That's mere semantics. In the long run, actual results approach expected results. The more you bet, the greater your expected loss. The greater your expected loss, the more you will lose. This, of course, refers to the long run--but the long run is all that is meaningful in evaluating a betting strategy.

Quote: mkl654321

In point of fact, EV IS results, in the larger scheme of things. Casinos structure their games on the basis of EV, and they expect their results to average to EV, because they book so many decisions.

Quote: goatcabin

But no player is in it for the long run; no one can bet that long or that much.
You seem to have blinders on when it comes to variance and skew, although you understand the terms. It is virtually certain that some players will be lifetime winners, not because they have figured out some way to defeat the house edge, but just due to positive variance (luck).
Cheers,
Alan Shank
Woodland, Ca

Quote: mkl654321

T I realize, of course, that the Law of Large Numbers means that the graph of results will be asymptotic--nearing, but never touching, expected results.

Quote: goatcabin

But no player is in it for the long run; no one can bet that long or that much.

Quote:

That is true for the casino, and it's true for the players, taken as an aggregate, but it is NOT true for any given player, and you know that.

Quote: weaselman

If a hundred thousand players make a hundred thousand bets, that's your "long run".
What you are missing is that your "long run" does not have to be constructed only of bets, made by you. If that large devastating loss is supposed to happen "in the long run" when you use martingale, there is no reason it won't happen to you on your very first bet.

Quote: weaselman

A given player may get lucky for some period of time. Or he may get unlucky. There is no way to tell for sure which way your luck will swing, but because it is a -EV game, the distribution is shifted to the left, meaning it is more likely, that you'll get unlucky than that you'll get lucky.

Quote: weaselman

The simple truth is that, long run or not, you are more likely to lose than to win, and the longer you play the more likely you are to lose, and the larger bets you are making, the more is the amount you are likely to lose.

Quote: weaselman

Not that it matters much for anything, but it's not assymptotic. It fluctuates around the expected value, crossing it many times back and forth. As the number of experiments grows, the amplitude of fluctuations becomes lower.

Quote: mkl654321

Oddly enough, YOU seem to have blinders on when I talk about the "long term", even though I'm sure you understand the term. Long term does not mean a billion billion outcomes. It means enough outcomes to smooth out the effects of variance, with the goal of approaching expected value.

Quote: mkl654321

For me, that may mean 1000 hours, or 800,000 hands, of video poker. When I say I regard only the long term as meaningful, it means I will NOT stop and assess my results before I reach that long term perspective--I will not Singerize, and stop and assess my results every 400 hands.

Quote: mkl654321

I'm sure there's a mathematical expression of the long term, in that an increasing number of trials causes results to converge on the mean to such an extent that the mean is, for all intents and purposes, reached--it's not unlike the sum of an infinite series approaching 1. Of course I understand that those results are virtually certain to not fall ON the mean, but as a practical matter, for casinos and APs, close is good enough.

Quote: goatcabin

I am not advocating progress-on-a-loss betting, by any means. And I have pointed out exactly that same fact -- that the big loss can occur at any time.

Quote:

That's not true -- a player is just as likely to experience positive variance as negative variance; it's just that the mean of the distribution is on the losing side of the zero point. So, for any given degree of variance, the losses are greater than the wins.

Quote:

That's the simple truth, all right, but it is too simple for my tastes. It needs to be supplemented with more information about likely outcomes.

Quote:

There is no specific definition of "long run", but we can define different degrees of likelihood that a player will be ahead after different numbers of bets.

Quote: weaselman

What's your point then?

Quote: weaselman

What's "not true"? You said the same thing I did.
A small correction is that the losses are not only greater than the wins, but also more frequent, since you are correct that "positive variance" is as likely as "negative variance", but some of the former is still a loss, because EV is negative.

Quote: weaselman

Well, the EV of the game gives you that information, yet you keep objecting to it being looked at.

Quote: weaselman

Yes, and the more bets you make, the less that likelihood is. That's exactly mkl's point..

Quote: goatcabin

... I equate "getting lucky" with "experiencing positive variance", not necessarily with being ahead..

Quote: Doc

That just might be a key point of disagreement. Do you often hear people say, " I was really lucky in the casino today; I (a) lost money, (b) lost less than I expected to, (c) lost less than I did yesterday." I suspect most people would describe that session as just not being as unlucky as it might have been.

I tend to agree that positive deviation from expectation is an indication of better than normal luck, even if a loss is involved, but I think this may be a point of disagreement in many cases.

As a side matter, I see that you use an expression that I formerly used and decided was incorrect: "experiencing positive variance". Isn't variance by definition a positive number? I now try to refer to positive deviation -- is there an issue of correctness here? I'm not really sure.

Quote: goatcabin

I am objecting to mkl's assertion that "you will lose". Here is his statement: "The more you bet, the more you will lose (odds bets excluded)."
That is clearly incorrect.

Quote:

No, I didn't say the same thing. Again, quoting will clarify: "There is no way to tell for sure which way your luck will swing, but because it is a -EV game, the distribution is shifted to the left, meaning it is more likely, that you'll get unlucky than that you'll get lucky."

You now say yourself that positive variance is just as likely as negative variance, and that was my point. I equate "getting lucky" with "experiencing positive variance", not necessarily with being ahead.

Quote: mkl654321

As an absolute number, I meant, since whether it is positive or negative in relation to the mean at any one point is irrelevant.

Quote: goatcabin

I am objecting to mkl's assertion that "you will lose". Here is his statement: "The more you bet, the more you will lose (odds bets excluded)."
That is clearly incorrect.

Quote:

No, I didn't say the same thing. Again, quoting will clarify "There is no way to tell for sure which way your luck will swing, but because it is a -EV game, the distribution is shifted to the left, meaning it is more likely, that you'll get unlucky than that you'll get lucky."

You now say yourself that positive variance is just as likely as negative variance, and that was my point. I equate "getting lucky" with "experiencing positive variance", not necessarily with being ahead.

Quote:

Not at all. It is an important piece of information, but it is not the only one. The variance (standard deviation) is equally important in determining what chance a player has of coming out ahead for any given number of bets.

Quote:

It's the ratio of ev/SD that tells you how lucky you have to be (i.e. what degree of positive variance you have to experience) in order to overcome the expected loss.

Quote: Doc

Isn't variance by definition a positive number? I now try to refer to positive deviation -- is there an issue of correctness here? I'm not really sure.

Quote: weaselman

Deviation is a positive number too :)

Quote: goatcabin

I am objecting to mkl's assertion that "you will lose". Here is his statement: "The more you bet, the more you will lose (odds bets excluded)."
That is clearly incorrect.

Quote: goatcabin

Why not? How would that hurt you?

Quote: Doc

I didn't think that was necessarily so. If I am considering numbers within a distribution of mean µ, then an individual observation x would have a deviation from the mean equal to x-µ, which could be either positive or negative. In computing variance and standard deviation, these individual deviations are squared before they are added, so that both variance and standard deviation are positive numbers, but not individual deviations necessarily. Positive deviation implies an observation higher than the mean, which in the context of a gambling session suggests winning money or losing less money than expected on average.

Quote: weaselman

so, if he added "likely" after "will", you would agree then?

Quote: weaselman

That's simple misunderstanding then. I used "get lucky" as a synonym to "win". If I lose, I don't consider myself lucky even if I lost less than EV.
With this correction, do you agree that we are saying the same thing now?

Quote: weaselman

Not really. If the distribution is symmetric, increasing SD raises your chances of winning as much (actually, slightly less) as your chances of loosing. Yes with a huge SD you can win a lot, but you can lose a lot as well, so on average, it's the same.

Quote: weaselman

It's misleading though for the reason I mentioned above. If SD is large, you may not need as much "luck" to win, but at the same time it doesn't take much "lack of luck" to go bankrupt either. If you consider both possibilities, you'll have to conclude that you need about the same total amount of luck.

Quote: weaselman

Put it another way, consider a single bet with extremely large SD. You can win a lot with relatively higher probability, that's correct. But at the same time, you can lose even more with even higher probability. And, if that happens, you are going to need to make many more subsequent bets to dig you out of the hole (again, risking to lose even more on each of them). You may need only a little bit of luck to win one bet, but overall you need a lot of it to come out ahead.

Quote: mkl654321

Semantics again, Alan. As you approach certainty, there becomes no meaningful distinction between absolute (mathematical) certainty and practical certainty. A 99.99999% chance of winning (or losing) is good enough for me.

Quote: goatcabin

The amount of luck you need to come out ahead, as I've stated over and over, is a function of ev/SD

Quote: weaselman

Well, I just have to say it again, that you seem to have a very unconventional definition of luck.


Suppose you bet $100 on a number in roulette. You expectation is about -$5.26, and SD is ~$576.
By your definition, the "amount of luck" you need to win is 0.00913.

Now consider betting $100 on black. The expectation is still -$5.26, but the SD is only $100. By your definition, this bet requires 0.0526 of luck to get ahead - almost 6 times more than the other one!

Yet, as we all know, you will (yes, will :) ) win a lot more often betting on red, then on a number (about 18 times more often to be precise - 47% of time vs. 2.6%).