The Man Who Broke Atlantic City • Hacker News Board

Re: The Man Who Broke Atlantic City

#61

Post by corin_ » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 9:17 AM UTC

CurtMonash wrote: post #29

The article is clear on only one point, but it's not an explanation for his winning. That point is that if he loses $500K, he only has to pay $400K of it. I'm pretty sure that if you bet $100K a hand, and stop whenever you hit the first of +$500K or -$500K, and get a $100K rebate if you hit the lower number ... well, the whole plan would seem to have a positive expected value. And perhaps the same would be true even…

You're talking about this, right?

> It was the dealer’s turn. He drew a 10, so the two cards he was showing totaled 15. Johnson called the game—in essence, betting that the dealer’s down card was a seven or higher, which would push his hand over 21. This was a good bet: since all face cards are worth 10, the deck holds more high cards than low. When the dealer turned over the house’s down card, it was a 10, busting him. Johnson won all four hands.

Pretty sure that by "betting that the dealer’s down card" it means that this was the logic behind his betting on the four hands, not that there was a seperate bet on it.

"Calling the hand" most likely refers to the kind-of-tradition of cheering on what you want ("come on facecard... COME ON FACECARD!!")

Re: The Man Who Broke Atlantic City

#62

Post by lusr » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 9:22 AM UTC

Steko wrote: post #16

alpad wrote: post #10

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.

As far as the "luck" goes nothing is recounted of the nights when he didn't win big. This all took place over 4 months and while he didn't gamble every night he didn't just gamble once at each place. 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…

Good point, to summarise, nothing was said of his actual profits in applying his strategy over the duration of the events.

Re: The Man Who Broke Atlantic City

#63

Post by corin_ » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 9:24 AM UTC

dfc wrote: post #24

The description of his odds system did not make a lot of sense to me; especially in light of the statement that he does not count cards. Can anyone elaborate? "Many casinos sell laminated charts in their guest shops that reveal the optimal strategy for any situation the game presents. But these odds are calculated by simulating millions of hands, and as Johnson says, “I will never see 400 million hands.” More useful,…

Here's the simplest example I can think of. Basic strategy says to split 8s, even if the dealer is showing a face card or an ace. Statistically, you are most likely to lose this hand whether you stand, hit or split it.

By splitting them (following strategy) you give yourself the best odds of your choices, and according to probability, this makes it a better option in the long run. However, by splitting them, you are doubling the money you have risked on them, and therefor if you are only playing a single hand and then never touching blackjack again, you are basically risking twice as much money on a hand that, more often than not, you will lose.

Re: The Man Who Broke Atlantic City

#64

Post by corin_ » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 9:34 AM UTC

The line that annoyed me most in this was about card counting, saying

> "The tactic requires both great memory and superior math skills."

Not honestly true, at least about the maths skills. Memory... isn't how I'd describe it, though I suppose it's sort of right.

In my opinion, the most difficult thing is concentrating on multiple things at the same time (1. Keeping the running count 2. Counting how many cards have been played 3. Following the game itself and deciding what to do 4. Chatting with dealer / other players) - so this can perhaps be called "memory" as you have to remember these things all at the same time.

But for each thing you need to remember, it's a very simple thing on its own. Counting isn't about remembering the order of every card that's come out, it's not even about remembering what card has come out.

If you were to watch a video of a Blackjack game, i.e. you were left in peace and not doing anything yourself, few people would be incapable of counting the cards.

Re: The Man Who Broke Atlantic City

#65

Post by true_religion » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 9:42 AM UTC

dsrguru wrote: post #53

vacri wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which can happen on a winning streak - stats works that way. $2M is only a part of the $15M he took the casinos for. If he's playing on 'their money' - that is, he's already ahead, he can keep playing until the streak turns.

He wouldn't do that. He's playing to win, not to gamble. Streaks aren't a statistical phenomenon in the sense that once you start a streak, you'd be more likely to keep winning. As far as non-card counters are concerned, and as far as all players are concerned if a continuous shuffle machine is in use, each hand of blackjack is an independent event. Once this player wins the casino's money, it becomes "his money," no…

I don't really agree. He was a known player, thus he gambled previously.

It's entirely possible he'd just continue playing because he enjoys the came, and knows that for the time being he's "up".

Re: The Man Who Broke Atlantic City

#66

Post by dsrguru » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 10:37 AM UTC

true_religion wrote: post #65

dsrguru wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wouldn't do that. He's playing to win, not to gamble. Streaks aren't a statistical phenomenon in the sense that once you start a streak, you'd be more likely to keep winning. As far as non-card counters are concerned, and as far as all players are concerned if a continuous shuffle machine is in use, each hand of blackjack is an independent event. Once this player wins the casino's money, it becomes "his money," no…

I don't really agree. He was a known player, thus he gambled previously. It's entirely possible he'd just continue playing because he enjoys the came, and knows that for the time being he's "up".

You might be right. Apparently he "would not divulge his betting strategy" (http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/meet-the-bl...), which means we won't be able to even know if he is an advantage player or just got really, really lucky. Nevertheless, the article I just linked to says that $100,000 per hand is the highest maximum Johnson has ever heard of, so assuming he is in fact the only person betting this much, and since he claims to have bet that much only because he's using a mathematical strategy that puts the odds in his favor, a liberally applied combination of Occam's Razor and Bayes' Theorem suggests that the positive outcome is likely more than just luck but that the odds really are in his favor.

Re: The Man Who Broke Atlantic City

#67

Post by hudibras » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 11:11 AM UTC

pellias wrote: post #49

shareme wrote: post #36

What is surprising is how easy it is to compute the odds..its just permutations and combinations..not that hard its a 100 level math course in most colleges. What makes it different is that we needed two things to leverage the $1 million he put up per Casino and the Casino management being fool-hardy enough to believe that they computed the odds on the change in rules and discounts correctly. It would be like say oh…

How does hand shuffling six decks in the shoe give the player an edge compared to the normal machine shuffling of the same six decks ?

There is some debate about this (to say the least) but the theory is that "hot sections" of the deck are propagated between shuffles of the decks when hand-shuffled. So if you run into a streak of good cards at the beginning of one shoe of cards, then that means you'll have another streak of good cards mid-way through the next shoe (or whatever). Then you can plan your bets accordingly by placing small bets to minimize your losses during the cold sections and then upping your bets during the period of hot cards.

Re: The Man Who Broke Atlantic City

#68

Post by dalke » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 11:44 AM UTC

lotharbot wrote: post #39

krschultz wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you probably shouldn't click through to anything published by The Atlantic. (Or for that matter, the New Yorker, the New York Times, etc). 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…

> "it is sad to me when people do the 'TL;DR' thing" HN has a strong bias toward allowing people to allocate their time based on their preferences. The tl;dr convention is tremendously useful because it allows people to make an informed decision as to whether or not to read the article, based on a summary which is (typically) more accurate than the headline. In particular, if someone thought the article might have so…

The premise of "tl" - "too long" - is a negative. While a convention, it's also dismissive, and that's what makes me sad. It reminds me of Emperor Joseph II telling Mozart there are "too many notes" in The Marriage of Figaro.

I would prefer people said "summary" or "precis" instead of "tl;dr".

In any case, it's only one of many conventions. Another convention is that "The Atlantic", "New Yorker", etc. write high-quality short stories and don't dive into technical details. It's sad that people feel that other readers here are ignorant enough of history to need additional clues about a 150+ year old magazine.

Re: The Man Who Broke Atlantic City

#69

Post by bmelton » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 11:46 AM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #5

po wrote: post #2

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…

I thought card counting was legal, and according to wikipedia it is( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_counting ) As of January 2012, there are no federal, state or local laws which prohibit card counting in the United States as long as no external card counting device or person assists the player in counting cards. BUT: In all parts of the United States, with Atlantic City being the sole exception, casinos may ban a…

Allowing casinos to kick out anybody who shows winning potential is pretty much guaranteeing that the odds are always in their favor. It eliminates the 'jackpot' style story like present here.

Also of note though, is that while Atlantic City casinos can't eject people for winning, they can hamstring them in a variety of other ways. Usually they just change the table stakes from "$100,000 max bet" to "$0.25 max bet" on whatever table the winner is on, severely limiting his winning potential.

Re: The Man Who Broke Atlantic City

#70

Post by vacri » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 1:17 PM UTC

dsrguru wrote: post #53

vacri wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which can happen on a winning streak - stats works that way. $2M is only a part of the $15M he took the casinos for. If he's playing on 'their money' - that is, he's already ahead, he can keep playing until the streak turns.

He wouldn't do that. He's playing to win, not to gamble. Streaks aren't a statistical phenomenon in the sense that once you start a streak, you'd be more likely to keep winning. As far as non-card counters are concerned, and as far as all players are concerned if a continuous shuffle machine is in use, each hand of blackjack is an independent event. Once this player wins the casino's money, it becomes "his money," no…

Note that I am not calling it a lucky streak, it is a winning streak, where a series of hands has left him with more money won than lost - he keeps on going because he's up on the day. The statistics of probability quite happily support this - all I am saying is that a winning streak is feasible, not that it is probable.