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A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

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41–50 of 142 posts

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#41
This was neat. It reminded me of a similar story in poker history - Stu Ungar. Stu was a phenomenal player who won the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event three times, in 1980, 1981, and 1997. Like Tosa, Stu had an uncanny ability to read his opponents and seemingly predict their moves.

Similar to Tosa, people questioned Ungar's poker prowess as to whether he was cheating or not (it's a pretty deep conspiracy rabbit hole that you can go down if you'd like). People wondered if he had some secret method for reading his opponents — like whether his blue glasses were letting him read marked cards, but it turned out to be like Tosa, he was a product of pretty deliberate and intense practice.

In both cases, it's a weird example of humans being exceptional at pattern matching in ways you almost can't imagine after deliberate practice.

Ungar is most famous for his WSOP win calling down with a ten high to win.

I think a fascinating aspect to all of this is the other idea in any edge based game where nearly all great players will start on a winning streak and how incredibly difficult it is to discern whether you are lucky or good (there's a small chapter in "The Signal and the Noise" about that specifically with poker players).

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting fact: As far as I am aware, it’s illegal to gamble at the casino in Monte Carlo unless you are a foreigner (I.e. it is not legal for citizens of Monaco to gamble there). Probably because the country isn’t actually bringing in any new money if locals gamble. There really is no reason to legalize gambling casinos. It is just an inefficient way of moving money around. It doesn’t actually create new value for…

"There really is no reason to legalize gambling casinos." When you make gambling illegal you just drive it underground and fund organized crime, with all the additional crime and corruption that brings with it. The arguments against making gambling illegal are similar to many of the arguments against making drugs and prostitution illegal, such as consenting adults should be free to do what they want as long as it doe…

I'd like if we could find a middle ground between gambling prohibition and ads for gambling right from your phone in every break of sports broadcasts as the situation we're quickly finding ourselves in.

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#43
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not expert on casinos, but placing a bet after the ball starts spinning just sounds wrong? Why would casinos ever allow that?

To encourage more betting, in the excitement of the moment when the wheel is spinning one way, the ball is circling the other way, and the outcome is mere seconds away... Slow things down, require all bets to be placed before the croupier spins the wheel and throws the ball, and you'll have taken away some of the mystique and the adrenaline of betting on this bouncing, glittering thing that's happening right now in f…

How can customers be assured the casino isn't using a magnet or some other cheating device?

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#44

>Tosa, Marjanovic and Pilisi returned to the Ritz at 10 that night, as promised. This time they were led to a private room where a squad from the London Metropolitan Police was waiting. An officer politely informed them they were under arrest on suspicion of “deception” and led them away to be interviewed at a nearby police station. Once the gamblers were out of earshot, Wootten urged the cops to check their shoes an…

You're assuming there's some basic aspect of "fairness" between the casino and the player. The innate unfairness of the statistical odds is obvious of course, but most people assume if someone could somehow magically overcome the odds to win consistently without breaking any rules they'd be allowed to do so. While that's a reasonable assumption, and one casinos encourage, it's not the reality. A friend of mine who worked at a high-level in casino management once told me, "There are many documented rules but they are all governed by one unwritten rule: the house must always win in the long-run."

The net effect is that if you start to win meaningful amounts on a consistent basis, 'fairly' or not, the casino will simply ban you from playing. Players misunderstand the relationship between players and the house. Casinos however are under no illusions. The role of players, in the aggregate and over time, is only to lose. If you don't fulfill your role they won't let you play. Beating the house in the long-run isn't possible because casinos have no interest in losing.

Hypothetically, if you were somehow able to consistently win meaningful amounts at casino gambling games through some kind of fictional magic or psychic ability which could not be countered, the only way you'd be able to monetize that ability would be to either: 1) Win such small amounts you remain unnoticed (probably less than a couple thousand dollars a week), or 2) Continually travel the world seeking out new casinos that haven't yet banned you. As the article shows, casinos work together and word spreads quickly so neither option is very appealing. If you had such magical powers it would be dumb to monetize playing gambling games against casinos. Much better to either play games against other players or to pursue large open markets like stocks and commodities. Even then you'd have to put up with constant investigations by the SEC suspecting insider trading. You'd also need to meticulously pay all taxes and comply with every regulation due to all the attention you'd attract. It would probably be a good idea to create your own 'explanation' by operating as a hedge fund, investing in creating a large research department and hire a bunch of quants to devise proprietary algorithms. Even then, it would be smart to never "win" too much more than the best legit hedge funds. If you're too much of an outlier for too long, some people will take increasingly extreme measures to determine your "secret."

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#45

>Tosa, Marjanovic and Pilisi returned to the Ritz at 10 that night, as promised. This time they were led to a private room where a squad from the London Metropolitan Police was waiting. An officer politely informed them they were under arrest on suspicion of “deception” and led them away to be interviewed at a nearby police station. Once the gamblers were out of earshot, Wootten urged the cops to check their shoes an…

The article says they generally bet "neighbors" bets which cover 5 out of 37 numbers. It also says they had win streaks of as many as 13 in a row. The odds of that happening randomly are (5/37)^13, or 5 in 1 trillion. Casino security was certainly correct that this was not normal play.

I don't know why they made so many small bets. They should have come in, made like 3 huge bets, and walked out.

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I oppose efforts to legalize gambling not because I dislike gambling but I oppose the theft that we call legalized gambling.

Interesting fact: As far as I am aware, it’s illegal to gamble at the casino in Monte Carlo unless you are a foreigner (I.e. it is not legal for citizens of Monaco to gamble there). Probably because the country isn’t actually bringing in any new money if locals gamble. There really is no reason to legalize gambling casinos. It is just an inefficient way of moving money around. It doesn’t actually create new value for…

Lots of places have such rules, either officially or unofficially.

In Korea, by law you have to prove you're a foreigner. In the Bahamas it is legal for the locals to bet, but the casinos kick them out. They've had enough experiences of a guy coming in on payday, losing his money, then his wife coming in the next day with a baseball bat to destroy the machine that took the money. Don't want any more.

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#47

>Tosa, Marjanovic and Pilisi returned to the Ritz at 10 that night, as promised. This time they were led to a private room where a squad from the London Metropolitan Police was waiting. An officer politely informed them they were under arrest on suspicion of “deception” and led them away to be interviewed at a nearby police station. Once the gamblers were out of earshot, Wootten urged the cops to check their shoes an…

Casinos are pretty pathetic. They claim to run an honest game, and if you lose, they are totally fine with keeping your money. But, if you consistently win, and it looks even slightly statistically improbable, the casino turns into a crybaby health insurance adjuster, going over the rules/law with a magnifying glass to find something, anything that lets them avoid payment. At worst, the ones run by less savory organi…

They do it with online sports betting as well. If you consistently win, you get blacklisted or limited in wager size.

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#48
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There really is no reason to legalize gambling casinos." When you make gambling illegal you just drive it underground and fund organized crime, with all the additional crime and corruption that brings with it. The arguments against making gambling illegal are similar to many of the arguments against making drugs and prostitution illegal, such as consenting adults should be free to do what they want as long as it doe…

I'd like if we could find a middle ground between gambling prohibition and ads for gambling right from your phone in every break of sports broadcasts as the situation we're quickly finding ourselves in.

Slightly off topic, but the profusion of weird prop bets on sports is a path toward quiet match fixing that we may never be able to roll back. I'm seeing this in e-sports already, where players can still try hard to win but also "accommodate" gamblers who are betting on odd metrics like over/under on total kills, etc.

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#49
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To encourage more betting, in the excitement of the moment when the wheel is spinning one way, the ball is circling the other way, and the outcome is mere seconds away... Slow things down, require all bets to be placed before the croupier spins the wheel and throws the ball, and you'll have taken away some of the mystique and the adrenaline of betting on this bouncing, glittering thing that's happening right now in f…

How can customers be assured the casino isn't using a magnet or some other cheating device?

Gambling regulations and board certify / audit these machines / tables, etc?

Re: A Gambler Who Beat Roulette

#50
post #24
post #15

if these are the people i think they are, they practiced a ton to train themselves to be able to identify the underlying physical aspects, in effect memorizing how to do everything the computer would nominally do. if you know wheel rpm plus an estimate of the speed the croupier throws the ball, you can get a pretty good physics sim of where the ball lands.

There's a similar urban legend about craps. That with enough practice, you can get good enough at throwing the dice at the exact right place to get, again, not a visible advantage, but a just ever so slightly higher statistical advantage. Sounds impossible, but looking at the level of skill a world class athlete has encourages me to believe in this urban legend.

this is why the dice have to hit the back wall and bounce back, to help edge it back in the house's favor with skilled throws. House always finds a way to get back their advantage but once you figure something out, you get cut off.
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