Math guys??: Mathematics of streaks

Roulette is beatable. But, it's seriously difficult and has nothing to do with betting patterns. It's also not related to biased wheels. (Problem with biased wheels is you have to analyze the wheel, which will take time, and major casinos regularly rotate the wheels between tables to avoid such an opportunity.) You must look for some unique characteristic of a game to find its weakness. The weakness in Roulette is that it is the only game where you get to place a bet after the game has been put in motion. Think of what that would mean at the track, or so many other games.

If we observe a string of 1000 coin flips of a fair coin. And we then pick out any/all sequence of 4 flips that has 1 or more heads in the first 3 spots ex.HHHT or THHT or HHTT or TTHH or HTTH or THHH etc..

Would you bet that the next coin after any observed head, is more or less (or equally) likely to be a head?

In any coin flip string of 1000 flips (or 100 or 10000 or 100000 etc) circle all that have any of the above patterns? What's the odds that the coin "X" after these specific patterns, will be another head.

For example, H H H "X". Do you think X=Heads = 50%? Why or why not?

50%. I'll not bother to explain something that has been known for centuries anymore than I will try to explain why 1+1=2 (in a non-binary system).

Quote: QFIT

Roulette is beatable. But, it's seriously difficult and has nothing to do with betting patterns. It's also not related to biased wheels. (Problem with biased wheels is you have to analyze the wheel, which will take time, and major casinos regularly rotate the wheels between tables to avoid such an opportunity.) You must look for some unique characteristic of a game to find its weakness. The weakness in Roulette is that it is the only game where you get to place a bet after the game has been put in motion. Think of what that would mean at the track, or so many other games.

You're talking about wheel clocking, I believe. The subject has been talked about here before, so I'm not sure how much you need to beat around the bush aside from specific instructions maybe.

I believe it's possible if you can get your bet in late enough. But from my research on the subject, most newer wheels have changed the design of the ball slots which makes it much more difficult.

Similar to dice control (if possible), there is so much skill and human variables involved that it would be very difficult to mathematically prove an edge.

I think the implication is that there are patterns that happen. And thus those patterns have different probability than the 50/50 outcome of each individual bet. But I agree; pattern betting isn't how roulette can be beat. I just that these hot hand article was interesting. Maybe others disagree but I wouldn't just call math professors idiots. Also I'd think repeated recurrence of improbable patterns may suggest something "off" on a wheel. Either way I'm not a "roulette" player but do know a few who have done quite well.

I'm talking about Scott's aural techniques, which involve more than clocking as you must also evaluate the consistency of the dealer in both spinning and throwing. Clocking, in and of itself, is useless. And yes, the new pocket designs may have destroyed this opportunity where they exist. (Although there was an opportunity in the UK some years back.)

OTOH, I give no credence whatsoever to dice control.

Quote: bazooooka

Maybe others disagree but I wouldn't just call math professors idiots.

The authors are economists, not mathematicians. Economists are famously prone to bad pattern calls.

Quote: QFIT

I'm talking about Scott's aural techniques, which involve more than clocking as you must also evaluate the consistency of the dealer in both spinning and throwing. Clocking, in and of itself, is useless. And yes, the new pocket designs may have destroyed this opportunity where they exist. (Although there was an opportunity in the UK some years back.)

OTOH, I give no credence whatsoever to dice control.

Right, I've studied the technique but concluded the learning curve is too high, or outright impossible with new style wheels.

I think dice control is largely crap, but maybe has a chance if you can find a casino that is lenient about hitting the back wall.

Once you restrict the patterns to heads in any of the first 3 spots of a 4 flip sequence the 50/50 will not hold for what follows next. In fact the restricted patterns already have more heads than tails thus we'd expect tails to occur more often, around 60% after a head. I'm sure some excel types can prove this.

Even doing it by hand over 100 or 1000 flips and then circling the patterns and tracking will show you there is more tails than heads once you restrict it to picks that have one one or more heads in the first 3 spots of a 4 flip sequence

1. HHHH
2. HHHT
3. HHTH
4. HTHH
5. HHTT
6. HTTH
7. HTHT
8. HTTT
9. THHH
10.THHT
11.THTH
12.THTT
13.TTHH
14.TTHT

Quote: QFIT

50%. I'll not bother to explain something that has been known for centuries anymore than I will try to explain why 1+1=2 (in a non-binary system).

Quote: bazooooka

Once you restrict the patterns to heads in any of the first 3 spots of a 4 flip sequence the 50/50 will not hold for what follows next. In fact the restricted patterns already have more heads than tails thus we'd expect tails to occur more often, around 60% after a head. I'm sure some excel types can prove this.

Even doing it by hand over 100 or 1000 flips and then circling the patterns and tracking will show you there is more tails than heads once you restrict it to picks that have one one or more heads in the first 3 spots of a 4 flip sequence

1. HHHH...... one heads zero tails......................................... counting the very last toss in the sequence
2. HHHT...... one heads one tails
3. HHTH...... two heads one tails
4. HTHH...... three heads one tails
5. HHTT...... three heads two tails
6. HTTH...... four heads two tails
7. HTHT...... four heads three tails
8. HTTT...... four heads four tails
9. THHH...... five heads four tails
10.THHT...... five heads five tails
11.THTH...... six heads five tails
12.THTT....... six heads six tails
13.TTHH....... seven heads six tails
14.TTHT.............seven heads seven tails...................................................results: 7 heads and 7 tails

.......
say whaaaaat?



quote from Christopher Hitchens:


............."that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."


.....................................class dismissed