Why have win limits in your bankroll management systems?

I have been wondering why many of the bankroll management systems have win limits. Stop limits are self evident for all but Martingale believers but I don't understand win limits as way to know when to quit. If you have a system to increase your bet as you win but always maintain some of the win as profit why would you quit in the middle of a winning streak since no one can predict when it will end. The only logical time to have a win stop limit that I can understand is if you don't have the discipline to leave with the winnings you have set aside from your previous wins. I always use progressive bet increase systems at craps with great success and really hot rolls has produced 5 figure wins for me with a $5 starting bet with less than full odds and $100 to $200 loss limit per session. Of course if I guessed right and pulled my odds on the second to last roll before the 7 out I could have saved close to $2000 when I have had the 5 figure wins.

I haven't kept accurate win/loss records of my time at the craps table but expect it is close to breakeven over the 40 years I have been playing craps, likely not far from the 1.4% it should be. I welcome comments on the reasons for win limits.

Why shout [all caps is considered shouting -- see the thread title]?

My answer is pragmatic -- anything that gets a person to not play another hand when the house has an edge is a good thing.

--Dorothy

The reason is that once you get up, you want to make sure you leave with it and don't accidentally play it back.

I suppose that if you play a very strict Kelly bet and recalculate it every time on the fly so that you change your bets as you win or lose and your advantage changes that might work as long as you don't hit a nasty losing streak. Elsewise, you want to do two things:

1) Take the money

2) Run

Quote: DorothyGale

My answer is pragmatic -- anything that gets a person to not play another hand when the house has an edge is a good thing.

Any math whiz will tell you to wager your entire bankroll and then walk away, win or lose. Its just that is a bit hard to do and if you do lose its difficult to find all that much else to do for a week's vacation in Vegas if you've blown your entire bankroll on the first roll of the dice.

The pragmatism comes into play at the beginning and also at the end. A win limit forces you to do the one think that a casino never wants a player to do: walk away with his bankroll intact.

Quote: DorothyGale

Why shout [all caps is considered shouting -- see the thread title]?

Admin note: caps reduced to lowercase.

sorry about the shouting. Forgot my caps were on and didn't go back to change it.

I don't think you should have win limits in the sense that you walk away from the table while you are winning just because you are up $200 and that was your 'win limit'. Using craps as an example, if the shooter is hitting number after number and you hit your limit, you might want to take down some of your bets, or you might want to keep pressing to see how far this win streak can go. After the shooter sevens out you might want to color in right away (especially if you are at you 'win limit') or set aside a large portion of your winnings that you will keep along with your original buy in, and keep gambling with a small portion of your winnings. You might want to go back to your original betting strategy or, since you are ahead, get more aggressive, knowing that you will walk away with a win.

Regardless of what you do, you need to have a plan before you make that first bet.

And one more reason not to have a win limit. Let's say you've been at the craps table for an hour, and you have been down a couple hundred, enough to almost hit your loss limit, and finally you manage to latch onto a decent streak and when the shooter sevens out you are up $50. But your win limit is $200. What do you do? It really should be time to walk away with a profit. Find your spouse and get something to eat. Re-energize yourself for another session later.

When I'm winning I set a loss limit. Say, if I'm up $700, I'll set a limit of losing back until I'm up only $400. Then I'll cash in, go find Mrs Mosca and sit next to her at a quarter slot for a while, then maybe we'll grab lunch or dinner, then I'll start by playing with that $400 as if it was the original bankroll.

I'll also set time limits. Assuming I don't hit either my real or secondary loss limits, I'll decide when I sit down how long I'll play before going for a walk or finding the Mrs.

[
Regardless of what you do, you need to have a plan before you make that first bet.

Totally agree on the plan of action.

And one more reason not to have a win limit. Let's say you've been at the craps table for an hour, and you have been down a couple hundred, enough to almost hit your loss limit, and finally you manage to latch onto a decent streak and when the shooter sevens out you are up $50. But your win limit is $200. What do you do? It really should be time to walk away with a profit. Find your spouse and get something to eat. Re-energize yourself for another session later.

Totally agree with the leave the table for a while at that point but as you say I am well below my win limit. It seems you are agreeing with my point about not having win limits since I would be leaving the table without reaching either limit. My loss limits do include the money already won and I never press bets with my original stake only with a portion of my winnings.

Quote: Mosca

When I'm winning I set a loss limit. Say, if I'm up $700, I'll set a limit of losing back until I'm up only $400. Then I'll cash in, go find Mrs Mosca and sit next to her at a quarter slot for a while, then maybe we'll grab lunch or dinner, then I'll start by playing with that $400 as if it was the original bankroll.

I'll also set time limits. Assuming I don't hit either my real or secondary loss limits, I'll decide when I sit down how long I'll play before going for a walk or finding the Mrs.

You are even more aggresive than I am then. I will take a break and chill for a while with Mrs Kenarman at the slots with a drink but when I go back I am back down to my original session bankroll of no more than $200. Maybe thats because usually she has hit me for a few c notes at that point.

Quote: kenarman

Quote: Mosca

When I'm winning I set a loss limit. Say, if I'm up $700, I'll set a limit of losing back until I'm up only $400. Then I'll cash in, go find Mrs Mosca and sit next to her at a quarter slot for a while, then maybe we'll grab lunch or dinner, then I'll start by playing with that $400 as if it was the original bankroll.

I'll also set time limits. Assuming I don't hit either my real or secondary loss limits, I'll decide when I sit down how long I'll play before going for a walk or finding the Mrs.

You are even more aggresive than I am then. I will take a break and chill for a while with Mrs Kenarman at the slots with a drink but when I go back I am back down to my original session bankroll of no more than $200. Maybe thats because usually she has hit me for a few c notes at that point.

Yeah, I know about sharing the wealth! In all fairness, she is sometimes the winner sharing with me.

Everything is adaptable to the situation. I usually have a session bankroll of $500, and a session is an afternoon or an evening. If I'm playing 3 Card and getting hammered, say, down $300, and with luck I get up $50, yeah, I'll walk away right there. But if I hit a straight flush and I'm up $1000, I'll play until I hit my time limit or lose back some imaginary amount; depending on how I feel that might be anything, but if I was up $1000 at 3 Card I'd lose $300 of that and then walk holding $700. But I might up my bet, and lose back $500, just to play for a streak with the new money. It depends. 2 weeks ago we were at the Sands in Bethlehem PA, all slots; we took the $50 in free slot play we had and worked it up to $100 on a penny WoF slot; then took that to a $1 WoF slot and got it up to $500; then we took that to the $5 WoF slots and lost $400 of it. So we left with $100, without ever reaching into our pockets. The fun was in those 40 free tries at spinning the Wheel of Fortune at the high stakes!

Speaking only for myself, I'm a pretty happy go lucky gambler; not foolish, not unrealistic, but aware and accepting, and there for the fun and the excitement. In the end, I consider my bankroll the amount I'm willing to lose. If I'm not done having fun, I'd rather go back into my bankroll than quit early a winner. If my goal was to make money I'd have gone to work; but my goal is to have fun, and worrying about money is not fun, for me. I don't toss the money like a senator with a stimulus package, but the chips aren't manhole covers, either. Most of the time I lose it all, and adjust the number of times I go to the casinos rather than go more often and lower the amount I believe I need to have fun.

Disclaimer: I understand that we are all different, and what is fun for me may not work for anyone else reading this. This is in no way a recommendation for how others should play, it only works for me and others like me.

I use win limits to help me recognize when my win streaks have ended. Plus, I tend to adjust my win limit on the fly as the situation dictates.

If I hit my target, I'll continue to play until I get close to going under the limit. But if I hit it, and continue to win significantly, I'll adjust my limit to minimize how much I'll give back.

I.E. If my limit is $500, and I'm up $600, I'll continue to play, but not dip below that $500. But if I continue to win and I'm up, say, $850, I'll continue, but avoid dipping below $750.

Two things I "learned" again on my most recent trip to Vegas...

1. Set a loss limit and don't chase the table. Yes, they are random rolls/spins and I can't count cards so it is random except for playing basic strategy...but there are streaks and they can eat me alive.

2. Set a win limit and AT THE VERY LEAST set a bottom. If the loss limit is $200 out of $500 but I end up ahead $200 ($700 in chips), set a new loss limit above $500. Don't let the table turn and make a losing session out of a winner. If I do this, I can play on when I am up but I can have a moving target on the bottom. The quicker I recognize a turn, the sooner I need to get out.

It's a losing game for most of us...might as well try to make the most out of the wins!! I'll have to practice these rules soon!!

Quote: DorothyGale

Why shout [all caps is considered shouting -- see the thread title]?

My answer is pragmatic -- anything that gets a person to not play another hand when the house has an edge is a good thing.

--Dorothy

The logical extension of that is never to play, isn't it?
Cheers,
Alan Shank

Quote: wildqat

The reason is that once you get up, you want to make sure you leave with it and don't accidentally play it back.

I suppose that if you play a very strict Kelly bet and recalculate it every time on the fly so that you change your bets as you win or lose and your advantage changes that might work as long as you don't hit a nasty losing streak. Elsewise, you want to do two things:

1) Take the money

2) Run

How much money? If you win your first bet, do you

1) Take the money

2) Run
?
"Quit while you are ahead" is like the trivial solution to an equation, telling one nothing.
The decision to quit playing at any time is probably based on a combination of factors, like how much one has won or lost, how long one has been playing, how tired, hungry, etc. one is.

"The girls all look prettier at closing time!"
An amount of winnings that wouldn't satisfy you after 30 minutes of play might look pretty good after three hours.

Ask yourself, "How much of my winnings am I willing to lose back for the chance to win more?"
Cheers,
Alan Shank

"The Dice Doctor" (Sam Grafstein) said, "Limit your losses; never limit your winnings".

I am a retired software engineer, and I wrote a "C" program to simulate certain kinds of Craps play. It was originally based on a Basic program I found called "Risk of Ruin". I translated it into the "C" programming language and expanded it to include "progressive win goals". The win goals work like this:

the program asks the player to input a bankroll and the type of bets to make
the program asks the player to input a win goal (a net win amount) and a percentage of a win goal the player is willing to risk to win more

Suppose we start with $800, bet $5 with 3,4,5X odds, a win goal of $300 and willing to risk 20% of it to win more.

The program adds the win goal to the bankroll get a bankroll amount to shoot for. It saves that amount in a variable. The program always uses 20% of the original win goal ($60 in this case) as the amount to risk after reaching a win goal. The basic idea is, after reaching a win goal, to set aside all but the $60, play with that to try to reach a new win goal, which is the current bankroll plus half the original win goal. This is like starting a new session with just $60, of course. The idea is to get out unless you keep winning.

Here's how it might come down in a good session:

1) reached win goal of $300, bankroll now $1100, new win goal $150 more (BR $1250)
2) reached win goal of $450, bankroll now $1255, new win goal $150 more (BR $1405)
3) reached win goal of $605, bankroll now $1420, new win goal $150 more (BR $1570)

Note that you may "overshoot" a win goal on a given bet; just add the next $150 to that bankroll.
With these figures, each time you reach a win goal, you try to win another $150 with only $60 to play with. Of course, the probability of winning $150 before you lose $60 is fairly low, but we're trying to take advantage of possible unusually good luck without risking much of what we've already won.

What you find when you simulate this is that there is a "spike" in the graph at the win goal minus the $60, or whatever the amount risked is, then decreasingly large spikes at further such amounts.

Of course, plug in whatever specific figures you like; this is just a basic idea of how you can have a win GOAL that isn't a win LIMIT.
Cheers,
Alan Shank

Quote: goatcabin

How much money?

Whatever you set as your stop win.

Quote: Mosca

2 weeks ago we were at the Sands in Bethlehem PA, all slots; we took the $50 in free slot play we had and worked it up to $100 on a penny WoF slot; then took that to a $1 WoF slot and got it up to $500; then we took that to the $5 WoF slots and lost $400 of it. So we left with $100, without ever reaching into our pockets. The fun was in those 40 free tries at spinning the Wheel of Fortune at the high stakes!

Careful, there. You don't want to get into that mode of thinking. Those were not "free" spins. You had $500 and could have walked out of there with all of it. If you had walked out of there with the $500, and came in the next day, or week, or month and played the $1 WOF, I don't think you would think of those spins as free.

I'm sure you already knew this stuff but just wanted guard against that word "free."

I disagree, as in my opinion it doesnt become your money until you leave the casino. I similarly will upgrade free play wins to higher denomination machines, or play on different games, after setting aside an amount i would be happy to leave the casino with, which is usually what I walked in with.

So to me it would be "free" money, as it wouldnt have cost me anything for the entertainment.

Although I do understand your point about having $500 and spending it, until I left the casino I wouldnt classify it as mine. A dangerous mindset, I know.

Its sort of a "you don't count your money when your sitting at the table, there will be time for counting when the dealings done" situation.

Legally, its your money. That is why the dealer fists the table near your bet when there is a push, it signifies you may legally take that money back if you want to. Its the same way with winnings, you can pick them up and walk out with them. And you risked a loss to get that money so in effect you have already "paid" for your winnings. They are indeed yours.

Its just that its hard to leave the festive atmosphere, the free booze, the pretty girls, the excitement, etc. You are gambling, you are having fun, you are winning ... its real hard to get up and walk away.

The win limits are a psychological crutch to force you to abandon the pleasurable behavior and protect the winnings that you have already paid for.

Sure its fun to "play with their money" but in reality its not their money, but it has a high potential to become their money again if you are too cavalier.

Quote: teddys

I'm sure you already knew this stuff but just wanted guard against that word "free."

Yeah, you're right. I guess a better way would be to call it netted out thrills, or something. You know what I mean, we would have never run $400 through a $5 slot if we hadn't won it first. I'm missing the right word. We probably should have taken 4 pulls at the $100 machine, but that was too much even for us!

The one time that a win limit actually made me a lot of money was playing a $5 slot with friends. When we go with a group of friends we always have a group play on a $5 slot. This particular trip we had 4 couples and each couple put $100 in the pot. We decided to either go broke or leave with $800. We played for well over an hour without doing either at it was getting into the wee small hours of the morning. We finally decided to take what we had (still close to our original $400) and play a $25 slot in order to get to bed since we were leaving early in the morning. We managed to hit $12,500 on the $25 slot and quit. In this case the win limit was good but not because it caused us to quit but that it kept us playing while still at the $5 slot.

Nice story!