Have you ever tried to explain the mathematics of gambling to...

Quote: clarkacal

11:10 BJ ?! I didn't realize it had gotten that bad. Disgraceful.

I believe in my lifetime I will see a natural 21 pay even money be the new standard, or the disappearance of the game, by the time I am 80 (if I am unlucky enough to live that long) I foresee all games having a house advantage of 5% or more!

I used to put epidurals in laboring women. There is one risk, a severe headache, that occurs in a reported 2% of women due to inadvertently puuting the needle in slightly too far. Having done thousands, I estimated my personal rate was about 1%. When getting informed consent I would tell the patient that my patients have this 1% chance of getting a headache. I would then also mention that I have not had one in my last 99 consecutive patients! What do you think the initial reactions to my string of success were?

From an accounting standpoint, you must attempt to figure out the value of the note, or the betting slip, and you had better have an explanation to the value of that note in a note to your financial statements.

Since you know that the vig is $10, you can reasonably record that as an temporary expense. Your accounting entry would look like:

DR $100 Gambling note (asset) -
DR $10 Betting Expense (expense)
CR $110 Cash

When resolved, if you win:

DR $200 cash
CR $190 gambling Wins
CR $10 betting expense

If you lose,

CR $100 Gambling note
DR $100 Gambling Losses

From the IRS standpoint, it doesn't care about your betting expense on the VIG. That would be like having accounting for the house advantage. It would care however about the value of unresolved bets you have at the end of the year (such as super bowl bets) and I think would accept the "vig" as the best way to record the expense (if you are using accrual accounting).

Quote: SOOPOO

I used to put epidurals in laboring women.
...
What do you think the initial reactions to my string of success were?

Any chance the answer lies in the phrase "used to" ?

Quote: DJTeddyBear

Any chance the answer lies in the phrase "used to" ?

LOL!!! I moved to a hospital that doesn't do obstetrics. But, touche!!!

Quote: mkl654321

Trying to explain why the fact that the dealer turned out to have a stiff hand (with a 10 up) didn't make the decision to hit hard 15 "wrong". Casual girlfriend (in the midst of a weekend trip to Tahoe); kind of sort of successful, but I don't think she was really convinced.

I have had some success with this. My wife and I were playing at a table with some college kids who had no idea how to play. "Should I split every pair?" "Why did you hit that 16?" So they were impressionable learners.

Losing by busting *feels* very bad, especially at 1st base. You're out of the game early. You lose based on your decision, not the "random chance" of what cards the dealer gets. A player may feel like an idiot, "why did I do that? I could have won!" I admit, despite knowing the math, that losing by busting *feels* worse to me as well.

But if you stand a 15 and the dealer gets a 17, you've lost the exact same amount of money. The mathematical outcome is what matters, not the psychological chill you get as the cards turn over.

Actually, the feeling does matter. It's what makes gambling fun. But you'll be gambling a lot longer with basic strategy.

Quote: dudestupid

But if you stand a 15 and the dealer gets a 17, you've lost the exact same amount of money. The mathematical outcome is what matters, not the psychological chill you get as the cards turn over.

Actually, the feeling does matter. It's what makes gambling fun. But you'll be gambling a lot longer with basic strategy.

I have just the opposite feeling in such a situation, that with a hard 15 and the dealer showing a 10, she probably already has a made hand, in which case not hitting would be like taking a called third strike. I know I'll probably lose if I hit, but the pitch is probably in the strike zone, so I'm dead if I don't swing.

Quote: SOOPOO

I used to put epidurals in laboring women. There is one risk, a severe headache, that occurs in a reported 2% of women due to inadvertently puuting the needle in slightly too far. Having done thousands, I estimated my personal rate was about 1%. When getting informed consent I would tell the patient that my patients have this 1% chance of getting a headache. I would then also mention that I have not had one in my last 99 consecutive patients! What do you think the initial reactions to my string of success were?

I don't know what the mathematics are to precisely quantify this, but my sense is that you were extremely lucky to fade 99 1-in-100 chances in a row. But if that 1% chance was constant, then there was no significance to your winning streak for any given patient: the chance of a headache was 1%. Quite possibly your streak was due to the fact that the real chance of your screwing up was much less than 1%.

Parenthetically, I wonder if telling the patient that she might get a headache increases the chance that she would indeed get one.

Quote: SOOPOO

I used to put epidurals in laboring women.

Would you mind if I PMd you a question on topical anesthetics?

Quote: SOOPOO

I used to put epidurals in laboring women. There is one risk, a severe headache, that occurs in a reported 2% of women due to inadvertently puuting the needle in slightly too far. Having done thousands, I estimated my personal rate was about 1%. When getting informed consent I would tell the patient that my patients have this 1% chance of getting a headache. I would then also mention that I have not had one in my last 99 consecutive patients! What do you think the initial reactions to my string of success were?

no doubt in my mind they said "oh no, you're due and I'm it!" most of the time