5 ms·

Technically no if the gambler can keep placing bets which increase in size. A winning strategy is to just keep increasing your bet until you recoup your winning

by slaymaker1907 6y ago

Technically no if the gambler can keep placing bets which increase in size. A winning strategy is to just keep increasing your bet until you recoup your winnings plus some delta gain.

tromp 6y ago
That only works if you start with unbounded money.
- DJBunnies 6y ago
  And no limit tables.
- gexla 6y ago
  Correct, it's called the Martingale strategy. Anyone who doesn't know the name of that strategy and why I doesn't work, shouldn't be gambling. And yet, if they knew that information, then they wouldn't be gambling. I guess nobody should be gambling, but the people who do are the people who don't do the math.
  - DJBunnies 6y ago
    I think you are missing a key element of the equation. It’s not about making money. This isn’t a job replacement, it’s recreation. It’s fun and exciting, it costs money, and we know that.
    - ed_elliott_asc 6y ago
      This is what I think, I gamble - do I care if I win? No. Do I care if I lose? No. Is it nice if I win? Yes Will I replace my salary gambling? No Has it crossed my mind that I can replace my salary gambling? Yes Has it also crossed my mind to do lots of other careers? Yes
      - kgwgk 6y ago
        > Has it crossed my mind that I can replace my salary gambling? Yes It also depends on what you mean by gambling. Can you replace your salary playing poker? Maybe. Can you replace your salary playing slots? No.
- hntrader 6y ago
  Does it even work then? I know that a Weiner process will visit all points on the real line with probability 1, but house edge is like a drift term which biases the process to go down. I'd be interested to see some results on this. Clearly, at the limit (house edge = 100% chance of winning), the probability of ever being positive is 0, but what about when the house edge is 1-epsilon?
  - tromp 6y ago
    It only works when the house has no edge. An unbiased random walk expects to cross the original infinitely many times, but a biased walk only finitely many times, as it tends to drift ever further away.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - kgwgk 6y ago
    Never mind, I misunderstood the question. [Even if the game is fair and the house has no edge you may run out of chips before getting ahead. There is no certain way to win in a fair game. If you were certain to win and the opponent certain to lose it wouldn't be fair!]
    - hntrader 6y ago
      Well I was talking about tromp's assumption of unbounded money. Of course with finite money the strategy makes no sense.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- slaymaker1907 6y ago
  That's why I said technically and only if the gambler can keep placing bets of increasing size. Obviously this won't work in the real world since the amount a gambler can bet is limited both by how much the other party is willing to wager as well as the amount of money available to the gambler. If you have an unbounded amount of money to gamble with, why bother gambling?
  - gexla 6y ago
    This isn't a theoretical exercise. I have demonstrated to friends how the Martingale strategy doesn't work in online casinos. The strategy is alluring because the strategy can (but won't always) "work" for hours of play, then then you eventually get hit with an event which wipes you out. Give someone an hour where it works, and they're convinced.
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SuoDuanDao 6y ago
I had that idea and ran the numbers - I'm pretty sure the casino having deeper pockets is part of what gives casinos the edge.
pif 6y ago
You lost me at "until". There's no "until" without "if ever".
- slaymaker1907 6y ago
  This isn't a practical strategy, and I do mean "until". The gambler must also be willing to play an unbounded number of games. This is not nearly as big an assumption as the unbounded money assumption since in practice we rely on probablistic processes that may run forever all the time. There is no guaranteed algorithm for generating a number between 1-7 uniformly random using coin flips; all such algorithms can keep generating bad data which can't be mapped to 1-7 (it's just increasingly unlikely).

Technically no if the gambler can keep placing bets which increase in size. A winning strategy is to just keep increasing your bet until you recoup your winnings plus some delta gain.

tromp 6y ago

That only works if you start with unbounded money.

DJBunnies 6y ago
And no limit tables.
gexla 6y ago
Correct, it's called the Martingale strategy. Anyone who doesn't know the name of that strategy and why I doesn't work, shouldn't be gambling. And yet, if they knew that information, then they wouldn't be gambling. I guess nobody should be gambling, but the people who do are the people who don't do the math.
- DJBunnies 6y ago
  I think you are missing a key element of the equation. It’s not about making money. This isn’t a job replacement, it’s recreation. It’s fun and exciting, it costs money, and we know that.
  - ed_elliott_asc 6y ago
    This is what I think, I gamble - do I care if I win? No. Do I care if I lose? No. Is it nice if I win? Yes Will I replace my salary gambling? No Has it crossed my mind that I can replace my salary gambling? Yes Has it also crossed my mind to do lots of other careers? Yes
    - kgwgk 6y ago
      > Has it crossed my mind that I can replace my salary gambling? Yes It also depends on what you mean by gambling. Can you replace your salary playing poker? Maybe. Can you replace your salary playing slots? No.
hntrader 6y ago
Does it even work then? I know that a Weiner process will visit all points on the real line with probability 1, but house edge is like a drift term which biases the process to go down. I'd be interested to see some results on this. Clearly, at the limit (house edge = 100% chance of winning), the probability of ever being positive is 0, but what about when the house edge is 1-epsilon?
- tromp 6y ago
  It only works when the house has no edge. An unbiased random walk expects to cross the original infinitely many times, but a biased walk only finitely many times, as it tends to drift ever further away.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- kgwgk 6y ago
  Never mind, I misunderstood the question. [Even if the game is fair and the house has no edge you may run out of chips before getting ahead. There is no certain way to win in a fair game. If you were certain to win and the opponent certain to lose it wouldn't be fair!]
  - hntrader 6y ago
    Well I was talking about tromp's assumption of unbounded money. Of course with finite money the strategy makes no sense.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
slaymaker1907 6y ago
That's why I said technically and only if the gambler can keep placing bets of increasing size. Obviously this won't work in the real world since the amount a gambler can bet is limited both by how much the other party is willing to wager as well as the amount of money available to the gambler. If you have an unbounded amount of money to gamble with, why bother gambling?
- gexla 6y ago
  This isn't a theoretical exercise. I have demonstrated to friends how the Martingale strategy doesn't work in online casinos. The strategy is alluring because the strategy can (but won't always) "work" for hours of play, then then you eventually get hit with an event which wipes you out. Give someone an hour where it works, and they're convinced.

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SuoDuanDao 6y ago

I had that idea and ran the numbers - I'm pretty sure the casino having deeper pockets is part of what gives casinos the edge.

pif 6y ago

You lost me at "until". There's no "until" without "if ever".

slaymaker1907 6y ago
This isn't a practical strategy, and I do mean "until". The gambler must also be willing to play an unbounded number of games. This is not nearly as big an assumption as the unbounded money assumption since in practice we rely on probablistic processes that may run forever all the time. There is no guaranteed algorithm for generating a number between 1-7 uniformly random using coin flips; all such algorithms can keep generating bad data which can't be mapped to 1-7 (it's just increasingly unlikely).