Roulette Wheel vs. Powerball
January 31st, 2011 at 7:01:41 PM
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I have a interesting question about odds relation to a bet limit:
Me and a friend were arguing what is a better proposition if your goal is 1 million or bust Powerball or Roulette wheel.
PowrBall odds are posted and well known.
I also know that If you could double you money ever bet the probability of winning a million on roulette wheel would be roughly (47/100) ^ 19 (1 in 1,324,849), which is way better then Powerball.
Where it gets hairy is that 20,000 is usually the betting limit.
So the problem is more like a gambler's ruin problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_ruin#Unfair_coin_flipping) where the probability is (.47) and on guy starts with one betting unit (20K) and the other with 50 units. Running that formula gets one a VERY small probability of success -- 100 times less then PowerBall odds.
This seems intuitively wrong to me. Why does the betting limit influences the overall odds?
Or am i missing something?
Any help would be appreciated.
Me and a friend were arguing what is a better proposition if your goal is 1 million or bust Powerball or Roulette wheel.
PowrBall odds are posted and well known.
I also know that If you could double you money ever bet the probability of winning a million on roulette wheel would be roughly (47/100) ^ 19 (1 in 1,324,849), which is way better then Powerball.
Where it gets hairy is that 20,000 is usually the betting limit.
So the problem is more like a gambler's ruin problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_ruin#Unfair_coin_flipping) where the probability is (.47) and on guy starts with one betting unit (20K) and the other with 50 units. Running that formula gets one a VERY small probability of success -- 100 times less then PowerBall odds.
This seems intuitively wrong to me. Why does the betting limit influences the overall odds?
Or am i missing something?
Any help would be appreciated.
