My Ten Rules of Gambling
1. THE PRIMARY RULE OF GAMBLING: BEFORE YOU BET IT, ASSUME THERE IS A CHANCE YOU WILL LOSE IT. Don't bet it if you need it. (In the words of Oscar Madison (from "The Odd Couple"): "There is no such thing as a 'sure thing'; that's why they call it 'gambling'.")
Never, ever, ever, ever, evereverever, ever, did I mention ever, ever, bet anything under the assumption that "I'll win it back eventually." Remember that every light, every bit of carpeting, and every one of those "free" drinks is paid for with the difference between what the losers lost and what the winners won. (Well, that and the price of tickets for whatever Cirque du Soleil show the casino is hosting.)
2. If you bet $10 at blackjack and actually get a blackjack, you are supposed to get back your $10 plus $15 more. At a table that pays 6-5 for a blackjack, you only get back your $10 plus $12 more. Stay away from any table that offers anything less than 3-2 for a blackjack. Yes, that does include every single-deck table on the Las Vegas Strip (and most of the ones downtown, as well).
3. No, you don't know how to count cards well enough to beat a 6-5 single-deck blackjack table.
3a. No, you aren't different.
4. If you are playing blackjack with a fixed system, it does not matter where you sit. If you are sitting at "third base" (the last player before the dealer), do not listen to other players who complain, "You took the dealer's bust card and caused me to lose!" You were just as likely to take a card that would have caused the others to lose and left the dealer with a bust card. If somebody really gets at you, offer to change places.
5. Unless it pays 250,000-1 for an 8-spot ticket, or 1,400,000-1 for a 9-spot, do not play Keno. I don't care how long they are taking with your food at the cafe. (Next time, try the buffet. For that matter, how many casinos still have keno displays in their cafes?)
6. Every game in the casino has one thing in common: there is no such thing as a "system" for beating that game. Some games have strategies - video poker, for example, since you have a say in which cards to discard - but none of them have a guaranteed, or even "virtually guaranteed," system.
Well, there is one system, and to have it E-mailed to you, have your credit card information ready and go to www.tenrulesof...
6a. Actually, there is "sort of" a system for slot machines, but in order to use it, first you have to buy a slot machine, then be able to figure out the pattern of the random numbers (based on the code in the chips and whatever is driving the "clock" that draws the random numbers) so you know in what order each set of three symbols will appear (so that when you see a particualr set, you know how many numbers, and thus exactly how much time, it will be before the number for the jackpot comes up), and even at then, the numbers are drawn so fast that you can't "guarantee" a win, but even reducing the odds of a jackpot to 1 in 10,000 is a significant advantage.
7. The larger the amount per play on a slot machine, the looser it tends to be. There's a reason for this; a $1 machine that has a 99% return makes $1 for the casino (on average) every 100 plays. The return rate would have to be 96% on a 25c machine and 80% on a nickel machine to make that same dollar in 100 plays.
7a. There is an exception to this: Megabucks (the slot machines, not the lottery, which is not played in Nevada).
(Maybe. Nevada releases accounts on how much money is paid out, and what percentage of the bets that is, each month, and jackpots do not seem to be reflected in the Megabucks numbers.)
8. Sticking with the slot machine theme...under Nevada law, each reel has to have its symbol determined separately from the other reels. In other words, the machine can't be set up to show two jackpot symbols on the pay line and the third one position away more often than other non-winning results.
Note, however, that some symbols on a reel can appear more times than others. A machine can be set up so that, on the last reel, the symbols next to the jackpot symbol show up more often than others. However, the machine cannot change the probability of these symbols showing up based on what appears on the first two reels. (In other words: it is allowed to have "jackpot - jackpot - the symbol just before jackpot" be 20 times as likely as "jackpot - jackpot - jackpot", as long as "Symbol X - Symbol Y - the symbol just before jackpot" is 20 times as likely as "Symbol X - Symbol Y - jackpot" for every Symbol X on the first reel and Symbol Y on the second reel. You could also have "jackpot - the symbol just past the jackpot - jackpot" be 20 times as likely as "jackpot - jackpot - jackpot" on the same machine, but in that case, "jackpot - the symbol just past the jackpot - the symbol just before the jackpot" has to be 400 times as likely as "jackpot - jackpot - jackpot", since the symbol just past the jackpot has to be 20 times as likely as the jackpot symbol on the second reel and they symbol just before the jackpot has to be 20 times as likely as the jackpot symbol on the third reel.)
8a. Video poker, blackjack, roulette, and any other electronic game that simulates dice, cards, or wheels is different - each value must have the same chance of appearing as it would in its "real life" counterpart. (For example, in a video poker deal, each of the 52 cards (53 if there is a Joker) has an equal chance of being the first card dealt.)
8b. On a multi-line slot machine, although technically it is allowed to have different symbols have different "weights", most likely all of the symbols in a column have an equal chance of appearing on the center line; otherwise, the probablilty of winning is different on each line. (It is possible to have increased probabilities on certain stops on the first two reels where all of the visible symbols of the first two reels were different, since most of these machines require that all non-bonus wins have to start on the first reel.)
9. (Again with the slot machines, although this one applies to video poker as well.) Always play the maximum number of credits on a slot or video poker machine, unless additional coins do not activate special features (like the progressive jackpot) or raise the payouts more than proportionally to your bet (for example, the fifth coin in Video Poker raising the Royal Flush payout from 250x to 800x).
There are some exceptions to this: if more credits just mean more lines, then it is up to you to decide how many lines are too many to watch at once (there is nothing worse than to see a jackpot show up on an unpaid line, but if the lines are so jagged that you can't tell at a quick glance, the problem isn't nearly as bad). Also, if an additional credit activates a feature but does not increase any of the payouts, or increases them less than proportionally, then you have to decide whether or not this "side bet" is worth playing.
10. THE SECOND PRIMARY RULE OF GAMBLING: IF SOMETHING CAN HAPPEN, DO NOT ASSUME THAT IT WON'T. Here's an example, using roulette:
(a) Bet the minimum (I'll call it "N dollars" here) on one of the even-money bets
(b) If you win, you are ahead by N dollars; go back to (a)
(c) If you lose, double your bet; if you win, you lost N, but then won 2N, so you are ahead N dollars, and you go back to (a)
(d) Each time you lose, double your previous bet - this way, when you win, you will always be ahead N dollars from the point where you last bet N dollars, and you go back to (a)
"There's only one chance in 613 that I can lose ten spins in a row!" True, but remember that each of the 612 times that you win one before you lose ten in a row, you only profit by whatever your original bet was since your most recent win, but that 613th time, you lose 1023 times that amount. In effect, you are offering the casino 1023-1 odds on a bet that it has a 1/613 chance of winning.
"But if I bet on red ten times in a row, and lose every time, I'll just double the bet on red; after all, the chance of red losing 11 times in a row is 1 in 1165!" True - but the chance of red losing 10 times in a row and then winning is 1 in 1294. (Besides, I haven't even mentioned the problem of what happens when your next bet has to be more than the table's maximum bet.)
"I'll just go over to the ATM and 'temporarily' withdraw the money for my next mortgage payment" - looks like somebody needs to read Rule 1 again.
ONLINE BONUS RULE 11
11. If you bet online on something that is not an "outside event" (e.g. a sporting event, or who is going to win an election/award), you take the risk that it is rigged against you. You have no way of knowing whether or not those dice are loaded, that roulette wheel is rigged, or those cards are marked. Even in online poker, how do you know that (a) the deck is not rigged, (b) none of the other players are working for the casino and are communicating with each other (or are real players, for that matter), and (c) the other players can't see your hole cards?
11a. "Perhaps, but didn't Chris Moneymaker qualify for the World Series of Poker that he won through an online poker tournament?"
Yes, but keep in mind, most con games (especially Ponzi schemes) start by looking honest.
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BONUS QUESTIONS
"Why do casinos have so much heat over me using an app on my phone?"
Presumably, either you're playing blackjack, and they think it's a card-counting application, or you're playing video poker, and they
think it's an application that lets you enter the cards you were dealt and it tells you which ones to discard; (There used to be a ban on cellphones near sports books - presumably to prevent one or both of (a) people calling around trying to compare odds at different books, and (b) bookies taking bets from their customers and then placing them at the sports book - but it has been repealed.)
"What makes #2 different from having a 'strategy card'?" Most strategy cards do not take special cases into account - for example,
there may be one "line" for having four to a flush, but not one where one of the four cards is an Ace and you have another Ace as well.
"I see Vegas casinos setting odds on, for example, the Oscars - where can I bet on them?"
There are plenty of places where you can bet on the Oscars - but none of them are in the USA (at least, no legal places).
According to Nevada Gaming Regulation 22.120, here is a list of events on which sports books cannot accept bets:
(a) Any non-sporting event (for example, the Academy Awards), unless it is not an election and the chairman of the gaming commission gives permission (which pretty much never happens, except maybe for something like "Will the coin toss in the Super Bowl be heads or tails?").
(b) A sporting event that does not involve either professionals or collegiate teams (so don't expect betting on high school sports any time soon; also, Olympic events are included in this, even though professionals are allowed in the Olympics (except for boxing) and some countries pay medal-winning athletes);
(c) A professional team sporting event held in, or involving one or more teams from, Nevada, if the league requests at least 30 days in advance that no bets be taken (in 2007, NBA commissioner David Stern did this to prevent betting on the 2007 NBA All-Star Game, as well as the 3-point shooting and dunk contests held with it, played in Las Vegas; expect this ban to continue if Las Vegas ever gets an NBA team).
Also, a college player or coach cannot bet on an event in which their school is involved.
Note that the definition of "sporting event" can be broad - for example, in 2012, the Wynn was offering odds on whether or not Jess's Dream (Curlin out of Rachel Alexandra) or Cozmic One (Bernardini out of Zenyatta) would start (not necessarily win) the Kentucky
Derby...in 2015. (For the record, the odds offered on each were 18-1 that the horse would start, and 1-30 that the horse would not.)
(There was a time when they could not take bets on sporting events involving either of the Universities of Nevada, which included not
being able to take "futures" bets on who would win the NCAA men's basketball championship as long as UNLV (or, once it became a
Division I school, UN-Reno) had any chance of winning, but this law has since been changed. At one point, casinos took futures bets on "which non-Nevada team would go farthest in the tournament"; now, you can also bet on UNLV or Nevada).
(The NCAA rules prohibit a college player from betting on any sport, at any level, in which the NCAA holds a championship event, even if the bet is not in the athlete's sport and/or not at a level where there is a championship (e.g.. an NCAA athlete cannot bet on an NFL game). However, this would be an NCAA rule violation, not a crime, and the worst that could happen is, the player would lose all remaining eligibility. Bet on a horse race? Fine. Bet on NASCAR? Fine. Bet on a boxing or MMA fight? Fine. Bet on who's going to win the Masters, the World Cup (soccer), or Wimbledon? Not fine; there are NCAA championships in golf, soccer, and tennis.)
"Are there rules as to what themes a slot machine can have?"
There are in Nevada; for example, you cannot have a slot machine theme based on a TV show rated Y, Y7, or G, or a movie rated G, unless the movie/show first appeared at least 21 years ago or it is a game show. (Don't expect a Regular Show slot machine any time soon. Rugrats, on the other hand, is OK, since it started in 1991 - "Angelica wants all your money...and all your cookies!")
"Why don't states (outside of Nevada, assuming there is any Tribal gaming there) allow sports books in Tribal casinos?"
Probably because Title 28, Section 3704(b) of the United States Code prohibits Tribal casinos to have them in states where non-Tribal casinos cannot have them.
RULE 12. There are expectations to most rules(plenty for the above mentioned), keep your mind open and use logic.Quote: ThatDonGuyHopefully, some of these go without saying...
1. THE PRIMARY RULE OF GAMBLING: BEFORE YOU BET IT, ASSUME THERE IS A CHANCE YOU WILL LOSE IT. Don't bet it if you need it. (In the words of Oscar Madison (from "The Odd Couple"): "There is no such thing as a 'sure thing'; that's why they call it 'gambling'.")
Never, ever, ever, ever, evereverever, ever, did I mention ever, ever, bet anything under the assumption that "I'll win it back eventually." Remember that every light, every bit of carpeting, and every one of those "free" drinks is paid for with the difference between what the losers lost and what the winners won. (Well, that and the price of tickets for whatever Cirque du Soleil show the casino is hosting.)
2. If you bet $10 at blackjack and actually get a blackjack, you are supposed to get back your $10 plus $15 more. At a table that pays 6-5 for a blackjack, you only get back your $10 plus $12 more. Stay away from any table that offers anything less than 3-2 for a blackjack. Yes, that does include every single-deck table on the Las Vegas Strip (and most of the ones downtown, as well).
3. No, you don't know how to count cards well enough to beat a 6-5 single-deck blackjack table.
3a. No, you aren't different.
4. If you are playing blackjack with a fixed system, it does not matter where you sit. If you are sitting at "third base" (the last player before the dealer), do not listen to other players who complain, "You took the dealer's bust card and caused me to lose!" You were just as likely to take a card that would have caused the others to lose and left the dealer with a bust card. If somebody really gets at you, offer to change places.
5. Unless it pays 250,000-1 for an 8-spot ticket, or 1,400,000-1 for a 9-spot, do not play Keno. I don't care how long they are taking with your food at the cafe. (Next time, try the buffet. For that matter, how many casinos still have keno displays in their cafes?)
6. Every game in the casino has one thing in common: there is no such thing as a "system" for beating that game. Some games have strategies - video poker, for example, since you have a say in which cards to discard - but none of them have a guaranteed, or even "virtually guaranteed," system.
Well, there is one system, and to have it E-mailed to you, have your credit card information ready and go to www.tenrulesof...
6a. Actually, there is "sort of" a system for slot machines, but in order to use it, first you have to buy a slot machine, then be able to figure out the pattern of the random numbers (based on the code in the chips and whatever is driving the "clock" that draws the random numbers) so you know in what order each set of three symbols will appear (so that when you see a particualr set, you know how many numbers, and thus exactly how much time, it will be before the number for the jackpot comes up), and even at then, the numbers are drawn so fast that you can't "guarantee" a win, but even reducing the odds of a jackpot to 1 in 10,000 is a significant advantage.
7. The larger the amount per play on a slot machine, the looser it tends to be. There's a reason for this; a $1 machine that has a 99% return makes $1 for the casino (on average) every 100 plays. The return rate would have to be 96% on a 25c machine and 80% on a nickel machine to make that same dollar in 100 plays.
7a. There is an exception to this: Megabucks (the slot machines, not the lottery, which is not played in Nevada).
(Maybe. Nevada releases accounts on how much money is paid out, and what percentage of the bets that is, each month, and jackpots do not seem to be reflected in the Megabucks numbers.)
8. Sticking with the slot machine theme...under Nevada law, each reel has to have its symbol determined separately from the other reels. In other words, the machine can't be set up to show two jackpot symbols on the pay line and the third one position away more often than other non-winning results.
Note, however, that some symbols on a reel can appear more times than others. A machine can be set up so that, on the last reel, the symbols next to the jackpot symbol show up more often than others. However, the machine cannot change the probability of these symbols showing up based on what appears on the first two reels. (In other words: it is allowed to have "jackpot - jackpot - the symbol just before jackpot" be 20 times as likely as "jackpot - jackpot - jackpot", as long as "Symbol X - Symbol Y - the symbol just before jackpot" is 20 times as likely as "Symbol X - Symbol Y - jackpot" for every Symbol X on the first reel and Symbol Y on the second reel. You could also have "jackpot - the symbol just past the jackpot - jackpot" be 20 times as likely as "jackpot - jackpot - jackpot" on the same machine, but in that case, "jackpot - the symbol just past the jackpot - the symbol just before the jackpot" has to be 400 times as likely as "jackpot - jackpot - jackpot", since the symbol just past the jackpot has to be 20 times as likely as the jackpot symbol on the second reel and they symbol just before the jackpot has to be 20 times as likely as the jackpot symbol on the third reel.)
8a. Video poker, blackjack, roulette, and any other electronic game that simulates dice, cards, or wheels is different - each value must have the same chance of appearing as it would in its "real life" counterpart. (For example, in a video poker deal, each of the 52 cards (53 if there is a Joker) has an equal chance of being the first card dealt.)
8b. On a multi-line slot machine, although technically it is allowed to have different symbols have different "weights", most likely all of the symbols in a column have an equal chance of appearing on the center line; otherwise, the probablilty of winning is different on each line. (It is possible to have increased probabilities on certain stops on the first two reels where all of the visible symbols of the first two reels were different, since most of these machines require that all non-bonus wins have to start on the first reel.)
9. (Again with the slot machines, although this one applies to video poker as well.) Always play the maximum number of credits on a slot or video poker machine, unless additional coins do not activate special features (like the progressive jackpot) or raise the payouts more than proportionally to your bet (for example, the fifth coin in Video Poker raising the Royal Flush payout from 250x to 800x).
There are some exceptions to this: if more credits just mean more lines, then it is up to you to decide how many lines are too many to watch at once (there is nothing worse than to see a jackpot show up on an unpaid line, but if the lines are so jagged that you can't tell at a quick glance, the problem isn't nearly as bad). Also, if an additional credit activates a feature but does not increase any of the payouts, or increases them less than proportionally, then you have to decide whether or not this "side bet" is worth playing.
10. THE SECOND PRIMARY RULE OF GAMBLING: IF SOMETHING CAN HAPPEN, DO NOT ASSUME THAT IT WON'T. Here's an example, using roulette:
(a) Bet the minimum (I'll call it "N dollars" here) on one of the even-money bets
(b) If you win, you are ahead by N dollars; go back to (a)
(c) If you lose, double your bet; if you win, you lost N, but then won 2N, so you are ahead N dollars, and you go back to (a)
(d) Each time you lose, double your previous bet - this way, when you win, you will always be ahead N dollars from the point where you last bet N dollars, and you go back to (a)
"There's only one chance in 613 that I can lose ten spins in a row!" True, but remember that each of the 612 times that you win one before you lose ten in a row, you only profit by whatever your original bet was since your most recent win, but that 613th time, you lose 1023 times that amount. In effect, you are offering the casino 1023-1 odds on a bet that it has a 1/613 chance of winning.
"But if I bet on red ten times in a row, and lose every time, I'll just double the bet on red; after all, the chance of red losing 11 times in a row is 1 in 1165!" True - but the chance of red losing 10 times in a row and then winning is 1 in 1294. (Besides, I haven't even mentioned the problem of what happens when your next bet has to be more than the table's maximum bet.)
"I'll just go over to the ATM and 'temporarily' withdraw the money for my next mortgage payment" - looks like somebody needs to read Rule 1 again.
ONLINE BONUS RULE 11
11. If you bet online on something that is not an "outside event" (e.g. a sporting event, or who is going to win an election/award), you take the risk that it is rigged against you. You have no way of knowing whether or not those dice are loaded, that roulette wheel is rigged, or those cards are marked. Even in online poker, how do you know that (a) the deck is not rigged, (b) none of the other players are working for the casino and are communicating with each other (or are real players, for that matter), and (c) the other players can't see your hole cards?
11a. "Perhaps, but didn't Chris Moneymaker qualify for the World Series of Poker that he won through an online poker tournament?"
Yes, but keep in mind, most con games (especially Ponzi schemes) start by looking honest.
==================================================
BONUS QUESTIONS
"Why do casinos have so much heat over me using an app on my phone?"
Presumably, either you're playing blackjack, and they think it's a card-counting application, or you're playing video poker, and they
think it's an application that lets you enter the cards you were dealt and it tells you which ones to discard; (There used to be a ban on cellphones near sports books - presumably to prevent one or both of (a) people calling around trying to compare odds at different books, and (b) bookies taking bets from their customers and then placing them at the sports book - but it has been repealed.)
"What makes #2 different from having a 'strategy card'?" Most strategy cards do not take special cases into account - for example,
there may be one "line" for having four to a flush, but not one where one of the four cards is an Ace and you have another Ace as well.
"I see Vegas casinos setting odds on, for example, the Oscars - where can I bet on them?"
There are plenty of places where you can bet on the Oscars - but none of them are in the USA (at least, no legal places).
According to Nevada Gaming Regulation 22.120, here is a list of events on which sports books cannot accept bets:
(a) Any non-sporting event (for example, the Academy Awards), unless it is not an election and the chairman of the gaming commission gives permission (which pretty much never happens, except maybe for something like "Will the coin toss in the Super Bowl be heads or tails?").
(b) A sporting event that does not involve either professionals or collegiate teams (so don't expect betting on high school sports any time soon; also, Olympic events are included in this, even though professionals are allowed in the Olympics (except for boxing) and some countries pay medal-winning athletes);
(c) A professional team sporting event held in, or involving one or more teams from, Nevada, if the league requests at least 30 days in advance that no bets be taken (in 2007, NBA commissioner David Stern did this to prevent betting on the 2007 NBA All-Star Game, as well as the 3-point shooting and dunk contests held with it, played in Las Vegas; expect this ban to continue if Las Vegas ever gets an NBA team).
Also, a college player or coach cannot bet on an event in which their school is involved.
Note that the definition of "sporting event" can be broad - for example, in 2012, the Wynn was offering odds on whether or not Jess's Dream (Curlin out of Rachel Alexandra) or Cozmic One (Bernardini out of Zenyatta) would start (not necessarily win) the Kentucky
Derby...in 2015. (For the record, the odds offered on each were 18-1 that the horse would start, and 1-30 that the horse would not.)
(There was a time when they could not take bets on sporting events involving either of the Universities of Nevada, which included not
being able to take "futures" bets on who would win the NCAA men's basketball championship as long as UNLV (or, once it became a
Division I school, UN-Reno) had any chance of winning, but this law has since been changed. At one point, casinos took futures bets on "which non-Nevada team would go farthest in the tournament"; now, you can also bet on UNLV or Nevada).
(The NCAA rules prohibit a college player from betting on any sport, at any level, in which the NCAA holds a championship event, even if the bet is not in the athlete's sport and/or not at a level where there is a championship (e.g.. an NCAA athlete cannot bet on an NFL game). However, this would be an NCAA rule violation, not a crime, and the worst that could happen is, the player would lose all remaining eligibility. Bet on a horse race? Fine. Bet on NASCAR? Fine. Bet on a boxing or MMA fight? Fine. Bet on who's going to win the Masters, the World Cup (soccer), or Wimbledon? Not fine; there are NCAA championships in golf, soccer, and tennis.)
"Are there rules as to what themes a slot machine can have?"
There are in Nevada; for example, you cannot have a slot machine theme based on a TV show rated Y, Y7, or G, or a movie rated G, unless the movie/show first appeared at least 21 years ago or it is a game show. (Don't expect a Regular Show slot machine any time soon. Rugrats, on the other hand, is OK, since it started in 1991 - "Angelica wants all your money...and all your cookies!")
"Why don't states (outside of Nevada, assuming there is any Tribal gaming there) allow sports books in Tribal casinos?"
Probably because Title 28, Section 3704(b) of the United States Code prohibits Tribal casinos to have them in states where non-Tribal casinos cannot have them.
I also didn't know about the kids themed slot rule. Had any of those actually come out? I could think of some g rated things right now, but not tv-y or y7 right now.
He took the time to write it I felt It would be a dishonor to not do so. Or I was lazy.Quote: tringlomaneAxel why did you quote that whole thing? :-/
I also didn't know about the kids themed slot rule. Had any of those actually come out? I could think of some g rated things right now, but not tv-y or y7 right now.
From what I can tell he is very smart with math and analyzing things. I don't think he is an AP however.
PS as to your question I didn't read that far. I will believe him on it.
