What's luck got to do with it? The math of gambling • Hacker News Board

Re: What's luck got to do with it? The math of gambling

#11

Post by cschneid » Mon, Sep 21, 2009, 4:12 PM UTC

kmano8 wrote: post #8

Aren't the 0 and 00 (green spaces in roulette) responsible for giving the house its edge? It's definitely not a 50:50 for black:red.

Correct (although some wheels only have 0, no 00). With both, it's a 5 point something house edge. Also, the martingale (doubling) strategy falls apart with table limits, even if you have the bankroll.

Re: What's luck got to do with it? The math of gambling

#12

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 21, 2009, 6:20 PM UTC

cschneid wrote: post #11

kmano8 wrote: post #8

Aren't the 0 and 00 (green spaces in roulette) responsible for giving the house its edge? It's definitely not a 50:50 for black:red.

Correct (although some wheels only have 0, no 00). With both, it's a 5 point something house edge. Also, the martingale (doubling) strategy falls apart with table limits, even if you have the bankroll.

[deleted]

Re: What's luck got to do with it? The math of gambling

#13

Post by zandorg » Mon, Sep 21, 2009, 6:43 PM UTC

cschneid wrote: post #11

kmano8 wrote: post #8

Aren't the 0 and 00 (green spaces in roulette) responsible for giving the house its edge? It's definitely not a 50:50 for black:red.

Correct (although some wheels only have 0, no 00). With both, it's a 5 point something house edge. Also, the martingale (doubling) strategy falls apart with table limits, even if you have the bankroll.

I once figured out it might be possible to 'fold' a martingale so it occurs in less spins. I think the basic idea was making full use of the table limit from the first bet (eg, table limit is 100, normally you'd bet 2 to double the loss of 1, so bet 64), and making full use of the table limit 'bandwidth' before you reach the limit (possibly starting with 64 and halving thereafter to 32, 16, etc).

Re: What's luck got to do with it? The math of gambling

#14

Post by zandorg » Mon, Sep 21, 2009, 6:52 PM UTC

There is a way to test the 'advantage' of a gambling method. Take the bankroll (eg, how much money you have now, starting at 0), and the amount bet EVER (on whatever number the bets were), and divide the amount bet by the bankroll. So we've bet 100 dollars, and won 100 - the advantage is 1 (or 100 per cent).

If the advantage over 1000s of spins is < 1.3% (or 2.6%, or 5.2%), you won't beat a roulette wheel.

Re: What's luck got to do with it? The math of gambling

#15

Post by garzulo » Tue, Sep 22, 2009, 8:09 PM UTC

There´s a probability gap explained in one of those "make money" in http://en.exposedcasinos.com they say they´ve found a gap in the limits of some roulettes to make the math work. I´ve tested it and it worked at least yesterday and today. About 300 spins.