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Monte Carlo methods – Why it's a bad idea to go to the casino

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Re: Monte Carlo methods – Why it's a bad idea to go to the casino

#141

Post by Kurtz79 »

tasuki wrote: post #102
hef19898 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't usually gamble, when I do it is roulette. Easy rules ans I only play the probabilities. I also the approach you mentioned above, never more than say 20 bucks with maybe another 10 as hard reserve. Quit when I'm ahead by a factor of, again like you, roughly 2x. And playing smaller amounts, meaning not everything at once but reasonably high, provides enough entertainment gambling for at least an hour. So in the…

> enough entertainment gambling for at least an hour. So in the end, even if everything is lost, I had my fun. I wonder what you find entertaining/fun about this. I've been to casinos a couple of times. The only parts I found entertaining were observing people and the free drinks.

"Money won is twice as sweet as money earned."

Paul Newman - The Color of Money

Re: Monte Carlo methods – Why it's a bad idea to go to the casino

#142

Post by blunte »

dagenix wrote: post #24
blunte wrote: post #4

If you want to really know why you shouldn't gamble (for profit... gambling for fun, with discipline, can be satisfying), read this quintessential book: Scarne’s Complete Guide to Gambling What you will probably take away from this book is that the house wins when you win. And the reason they win is that they don't pay actual odds. Take the roulette wheel as a simple example. There are 37 (or 38 in the case of 0 and…

From what I've read, casinos are perfectly happy to let you count cards in blackjack. The advantage you get is so small, that even a few mistakes per hour means you'll lose a bunch of money. It's only if you count cards and win that you get kicked out.

Most casinos use multi-deck shoes (so multiple decks of cards in one stack which they deal from). Your counting advantage increases as the shoe gets smaller (more cards played, more history, more knowledge of odds of face cards remaining in the shoe).

Casinos will shuffle all the cards before you have a significant knowledge advantage. They may adjust their shuffle point based on whether they detect a counter. If there are no counters at the table, then it's more efficient (for the house - hands played per n period) to play until close to an empty shoe. But if they detect a counter, they may shuffle much earlier - half shoe even. At that point, the counter has very little advantage.

Regardless of the rules and what casinos choose to allow, they will stop a player that they believe will, over time, really hurt the house. In some cases, however, skilled players will be allowed to count and win big for a period if the house believes that player will take that money and lose it elsewhere on the property. Or if that player is influential and attracts/brings other less successful or disciplined whales, the house may ignore the cost of the one successful counter.

In the end, it's about bottom line... unless the player pisses off someone important on the property. In that case, it doesn't matter what the player does - they're gone, banned, and probably blacklisted from other quality properties.

Re: Monte Carlo methods – Why it's a bad idea to go to the casino

#143

Post by AlexandrB »

soVeryTired wrote: post #114
jaimex2 wrote: post #44

If you go to a casino play poker with other humans. Nothing else is worth your time.

Even poker in a casino probably isn't worth it unless your opponents are obviously drunk or bad players. After the rake and the dealer tip, there's a good chance your edge is zero or negative.

I read parent as saying that playing poker with others is the most entertaining way to spend your time at the casino, since he didn't mention money.

Re: Monte Carlo methods – Why it's a bad idea to go to the casino

#144

Post by dehrmann »

lanrh1836 wrote: post #16

Blackjack on the strip has become a boiling frog of sorts. Everytime I go back the rules are tweaked a little more in the house’s favor. 3:2 payouts for Blackjack were gone years ago, but more recently no even money for Blackjack if dealer shows an Ace, only split once for two Aces...not worth it at that point.

Pointing out the obvious: it's more expensive to run a modern resort casino than a Fremont St casino in the 50's, even in inflation-adjusted dollars.

Re: Monte Carlo methods – Why it's a bad idea to go to the casino

#145

Post by burnte »

55555 wrote: post #11

It's more complicated (worse) than this. That the house has a small edge only tells a small part of the story. When people go to vegas for a weekend, they might have a number in their head they are willing to gamble. If they dont, then that number is their bank account balance. Then they start flipping coins, and often they keep doing this until they go bust. They rarely cash out when up but they always lose when the…

"You can only spend so much money on drugs and sex."

I beg to differ, good sir.

Re: Monte Carlo methods – Why it's a bad idea to go to the casino

#146

Post by dmurray »

TylerE wrote: post #48
freerobby wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes -- this is what is commonly misunderstood about Martingale. What Martingale really does is change the probability distribution of outcomes to be heavily weighted toward winning a very small amount of money. You can, for a given number of plays, use Martingale to make the odds of winning greater than the odds of losing. However what you can't do, is change the expected value of that set of plays. So what you've re…

What's kind of funny is that lots of people talk about playing the Martingale, which is dumb, but no one ever talks about playing the reverse Martingale - which is also dumb and losing, but at least has what I'd argue is a more favorable outcome distribution. Basically, with a reverse Martingale you'll usually lose a moderate amount (which, I mean, is what you'd expect since...casino) but occasionally win a larger am…

Plenty of people play like this accidentally, moving up stakes when they are winning.

Re: Monte Carlo methods – Why it's a bad idea to go to the casino

#148

Post by chkas »

listenallyall wrote: post #73
screaminghawk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read it instead as an advertisement for easylang.online it's a pretty nice introduction for the language

...and if the headline was "Learn to Program in easylang.online" it never would have sniffed the front page of HN

I do not understand your criticism. The main content is Monte Carlo simulation at Roulette and that you lose in roulette games. The headline says just that. "easylang.online" is in this case just a means to transport this content. It would be much harder to do that in JavaScript and the examples would also be less comprehensible.

Re: Monte Carlo methods – Why it's a bad idea to go to the casino

#149

Post by potatote »

I do not have a lot of background on statistics. Hoping someone here could explain why in Roulette game, although the apparent chances of getting number between 0-18 (inclusive) and 19-36 (inclusive) are the same, we lose money if we keep playing more and more numbers of games.

Re: Monte Carlo methods – Why it's a bad idea to go to the casino

#150

Post by obenn »

potatote wrote: post #149

I do not have a lot of background on statistics. Hoping someone here could explain why in Roulette game, although the apparent chances of getting number between 0-18 (inclusive) and 19-36 (inclusive) are the same, we lose money if we keep playing more and more numbers of games.

The 0 does not count as a lower number. There at 18 numbers in both the groups 1-18 and 19-36. Each of these give a 18/37 chance of winning, which is lower than 50% and therefore loses in the long run when the money is being doubled on a win.
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