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Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

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Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#91

Post by mattmaroon »

lordnacho wrote: post #80

The casino operators need to think about the law of large numbers. If you have an edge, what you want is for a bunch of little guys to bet against you. Your certainty of winning against a million little bets is enormous, if you have an edge. And you do, because those games are made that way. What you don't want to do is bet a few big bets. You might be smarter than me at guessing the outcome of an election, or a coin…

The casinos more than understand this. They can tell you the break down between whales and average gamblers.

The problem is there's a really uneven distribution. They probably get 50% of the wagers from 1% of the gamblers. But they still have enough whales that they rarely have a losing day.

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#92

Post by mattmaroon »

harryh wrote: post #89
lordnacho wrote: post #80

The casino operators need to think about the law of large numbers. If you have an edge, what you want is for a bunch of little guys to bet against you. Your certainty of winning against a million little bets is enormous, if you have an edge. And you do, because those games are made that way. What you don't want to do is bet a few big bets. You might be smarter than me at guessing the outcome of an election, or a coin…

You significantly underestimate the sophistication of the casino operators. Those few huge fish aren't each making a single bet. They're making many many bets. Enough that the house edge is extremely likely to manifest itself except in cases like this one where the house edge had been manipulated.

And they aren't that few. I've stayed in the rooms they comp to whales. There are a lot of them and they're all full all the time.

They're a low percentage, but those casinos have thousands of rooms so if even 5% of people are whales it's a sizable number.

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#93

Post by harryh »

mattmaroon wrote: post #92
harryh wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You significantly underestimate the sophistication of the casino operators. Those few huge fish aren't each making a single bet. They're making many many bets. Enough that the house edge is extremely likely to manifest itself except in cases like this one where the house edge had been manipulated.

And they aren't that few. I've stayed in the rooms they comp to whales. There are a lot of them and they're all full all the time. They're a low percentage, but those casinos have thousands of rooms so if even 5% of people are whales it's a sizable number.

Ya, that too.

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#94

Post by ascagnel_ »

emodendroket wrote: post #81
TheGrumpyBrit wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual quote from the judgment is "allowing a player to unilaterally adjust the odds of a casino game in his favor – to any degree - would violate the essential purpose of legalized gambling." - which presumably refers to N.J.S.A 5:12-1(4) [1], which says that legalized gambling is a "tool of urban redevelopment" to "facilitate the redevelopment of existing blighted areas and the refurbishing and expansion of exi…

I'd question whether that is actually what happens when you open casinos, but I suppose it's beside the point, legally speaking.

Considering that this is in Atlantic City, it hasn't really happened.

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#95

Post by ascagnel_ »

dm3730 wrote: post #7

The judge had a very odd interpretation of the contract and "maneuvered", it appears one sided to me. " “By using cards they caused to be maneuvered in order to identify their value only to them,” the judge wrote, “Ivey and Sun adjusted the odds of Baccarat in their favor. This is in complete contravention of the fundamental purpose of legalized gambling as set forth by [New Jersey’s Casino Control Commission.] Ivey…

> By this judge's reckoning, you have to just be a robot that sits passively and accepts all the hand exactly as dealt and not use any strategy to play the game to your advantage.

That's baccarat -- the only interactivity is adjusting your bet.

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#96

Post by lolc »

jlebrech wrote: post #65

you could exploit max bet if they allowed it. you start at $1 and if you lose you double your bet, and when you win you reset your bet back to $1.

This strategy plays constant small wins against the occasional big loss. If you start your runs with one dollar, you can only win one dollar in any given run, but you can lose your entire budget on any run.

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#98

Post by jlebrech »

sleepychu wrote: post #83
jlebrech wrote: post #65

you could exploit max bet if they allowed it. you start at $1 and if you lose you double your bet, and when you win you reset your bet back to $1.

This works but you don't need to lose all that many hands in a row before your stake is huge compared to what you stand to recover. By the 20th hand you're over $1M for the single bet and you've invested ~$500K to get this far, all to eventually win $1 per hand if you have the bank to cover it.

yep, that's a downside.

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#99

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

imagist wrote: post #72
failrate wrote: post #11

As a game designer, I find casino "games" frustrating, because they are designed to not only mitigate skill, but also luck, in favor of the house. The fact that the casinos have roped in John Law to steal back their winnings after they were taken fair and square is especially galling. If they were grown-ups, they would take their beating, ban Ivey and Sun for life, and change their processes to avoid being beaten aga…

Corporations are by nature amoral, only caring about money.

I disagree.

That's only really a modern American take on corporations, and even then, you have things like social purpose corporations.

Re: Famed poker pro with ‘remarkable’ $9.6M scheme has to pay it back

#100

Post by pc86 »

mcherm wrote: post #57
failrate wrote: post #11

As a game designer, I find casino "games" frustrating, because they are designed to not only mitigate skill, but also luck, in favor of the house. The fact that the casinos have roped in John Law to steal back their winnings after they were taken fair and square is especially galling. If they were grown-ups, they would take their beating, ban Ivey and Sun for life, and change their processes to avoid being beaten aga…

If they were smart grown-ups they would be advertising the hell out of this: there's a lot more than $10 million to be made by allowing players to believe that a sufficiently smart "system" can beat the house. A really smart marketer would realize that a court case like this gets printed up in the newspapers and shared on websites (meta!) and might intentionally try to lose the case in a spectacular fashion.

Yes, then the casino owners would finally be successful! They seem to be doing pretty well for themselves.
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