11–20 of 93 posts
The short version: Because of the recession casinos are desperate for high-rollers. To lure them in they offer perks. Some of those perks include slight modifications to the rules and a "loss discount" -- for example: losing $500k only costs you $400k. This guy negotiated rules that changed his odds to 50/50. Then he negotiated an 80% loss discount, which meant for each $1 of upside, his downside was $0.80. So to pul…
even better poker skills He plays blackjack.
The article is a bit confusing. If I take it correctly, a few casinos offered him nearly 50:50 odds, and a discount on his losses if he lost more than ~500k. In other words, a great deal, worth ~$50k. And then he proceeded to have amazing games, winning millions by sheer luck. The article doesn't talk much about the luck this requires, and one wonders if he does have something else going on.
The short version: Because of the recession casinos are desperate for high-rollers. To lure them in they offer perks. Some of those perks include slight modifications to the rules and a "loss discount" -- for example: losing $500k only costs you $400k. This guy negotiated rules that changed his odds to 50/50. Then he negotiated an 80% loss discount, which meant for each $1 of upside, his downside was $0.80. So to pul…
Thank you for the summary. I hate when articles open with a teaser then bury the explanation.
This isn't a blog post or a new article. This is a short story. I thought it was interesting and I thought it was well written.
HN has a strong bias against anything artfully written (read: more than the bare minimum of words). I guess I shouldn't be surprised considering the crowd (mostly engineers, myself included) but it is sad to me when people do the 'TL;DR' thing.
The article is a bit confusing. If I take it correctly, a few casinos offered him nearly 50:50 odds, and a discount on his losses if he lost more than ~500k. In other words, a great deal, worth ~$50k. And then he proceeded to have amazing games, winning millions by sheer luck. The article doesn't talk much about the luck this requires, and one wonders if he does have something else going on.
Kerry Packer's gambling is pretty legendary.
There's a story about how he was in a high-roller room in Los Vegas and there was a Texan (oil?) millionaire boasting about how big his ranch was.
Packer was annoyed at how noisy he was, so he walked over.
Packer: "So how much is this property worth then?"
Texan: "'bout $20 million"
Packer (pulls out a coin): "toss you for it"
Apparently the Texan didn't like that idea much...
Packer successfully invested a lot in building casinos in Australia and Macau. His son has taken over his empire and invested even more, though not as successfully.
The article is a bit confusing. If I take it correctly, a few casinos offered him nearly 50:50 odds, and a discount on his losses if he lost more than ~500k. In other words, a great deal, worth ~$50k. And then he proceeded to have amazing games, winning millions by sheer luck. The article doesn't talk much about the luck this requires, and one wonders if he does have something else going on.
Probably his nights while he had the discount followed a normal distribution with most of them break evenish but as explained losses were cut off around 400K and winning streaks were allowed to spiral.
I don't really see luck being a major factor. In the long run he's going to have a blockbuster night and then get kicked out of each place just like he did.
This stuck out to me: Made famous in books and movies, card counting is considered cheating, at least by casinos. In most states (but not New Jersey), known practitioners are banned. The wagering of card counters assumes a clearly recognizable pattern over time, and Johnson was being watched very carefully. The verdict: card counting was not Don Johnson’s game. He had beaten the casinos fair and square. Card counting…
The short version: Because of the recession casinos are desperate for high-rollers. To lure them in they offer perks. Some of those perks include slight modifications to the rules and a "loss discount" -- for example: losing $500k only costs you $400k. This guy negotiated rules that changed his odds to 50/50. Then he negotiated an 80% loss discount, which meant for each $1 of upside, his downside was $0.80. So to pul…
The rules were generous but NOT totally even. The house still had around 0.25%, which is low, but not unheard of. Even on the Vegas strip you can find Blackjack games open to the general public under 0.50% house edge. Of course, that's with optimum general strategy, not "playing your hunches", which could easily open the house edge to 10% or more depending on how dumb you're playing.
My guess is that he was card counting, but not with a traditional system, and he wasn't using it to size his bets, just to make strategy decisions, which would be harder to detect.
The odds of beating 3 separate casinos, over a reasonable number of hands, even against a very low house edge, are quite small.
The article is a bit confusing. If I take it correctly, a few casinos offered him nearly 50:50 odds, and a discount on his losses if he lost more than ~500k. In other words, a great deal, worth ~$50k. And then he proceeded to have amazing games, winning millions by sheer luck. The article doesn't talk much about the luck this requires, and one wonders if he does have something else going on.
The negotiation on the rules of the game is key. For example the difference between a 'soft 17' and a 'hard 17' is worth a few percentage points, and those points are valuable.
The article is a bit confusing. If I take it correctly, a few casinos offered him nearly 50:50 odds, and a discount on his losses if he lost more than ~500k. In other words, a great deal, worth ~$50k. And then he proceeded to have amazing games, winning millions by sheer luck. The article doesn't talk much about the luck this requires, and one wonders if he does have something else going on.
The negotiation on the rules of the game is key. For example the difference between a 'soft 17' and a 'hard 17' is worth a few percentage points, and those points are valuable.