10 ms·

>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 Metropo

>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 and clothes for hidden devices. I haven't finished the whole article yet but this part stood out to me. The casino had no real evidence they were cheating, just a vague suspicion that since they were winning at roulette the only possible explanation was that they were using some electronic device to cheat. With that vague suspicion they had the gamblers arrested and all of their electronic devices searched. After nothing was found their winnings were seized and payouts from the casino frozen. Again, at this point there is no evidence that they cheated.

ryandrake 4y ago
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 organizations resort to threats and violence.
- javajosh 4y ago
  The pillars of society are based on the ordinary. When something extraordinary happens, it shakes those pillars and there will be a reaction whether or not it is just. And yes, casino operators are known for a level of self-restraint, basic decency and fairness roughly equivalent to pawn brokers and payday loan operators. Business is predatory when satisfying "customer demand" damages the person, you end up doing business with a bunch of damaged people, which justifies treating them harshly. It's the circle of life, where life is suffering.
  - mjklin 4y ago
    “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices” - Adam Smith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracies_against_the_laity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracies_against_the_laity
- willcipriano 4y ago
  I oppose efforts to legalize gambling not because I dislike gambling but I oppose the theft that we call legalized gambling.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    The same theft is present in the lotteries and those are more often than not national affairs with the common pot as the beneficiary. Have you ever seen a wealthy person play the lottery?
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Lotteries don't even have the semblance of legitimacy that allowing church bingo parlors does; they're exclusively an optional tax on the poorest members of society. Then again, so many of our sin taxes are.
      - IncRnd 4y ago
        From "Who is buying Powerball and Mega Millions tickets?" [1] > The general belief is that poorer Americans buy lottery tickets more often than wealthier ones. But that's not quite true. > The survey showed the most frequent lottery players earn between $36,000 and $89,999. About 56% of that group bought tickets in the last year. Fewer of those making under $36,000 bought tickets, only 40%. About 53% who make above $90,000 bought a ticket. [1] https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/06/news/powerball-mega-millions-who-buys/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/06/news/powerball-mega-million...
        bombcar 4y ago
        Keep reading: >But other studies have shown that when lower income players do buy tickets, they spend far more money on lottery tickets than wealthier players. A study published in the Journal of Gambling Studies found that those in the bottom fifth of income spent the most on lottery tickets, and more than twice as much as the richest lottery players - $433 a year vs. $193 a year. Most everyone buys a Powerball ticket when it hits a cool billion or whatever it is; but that's not the vast majority of lottery enjoyers.
- eloisant 4y ago
  More concerning is that the police and judges will follow on the casino's requests.
  - paulryanrogers 4y ago
    Sad because they know who pays their bills, however indirectly, yet it's the little people getting hurt who need protection of the courts the most.
  - dfxm12 4y ago
    Siding with capital is par for the course for LE and courts though.
  - listenallyall 4y ago
    Is it "concerning" that police "follow up" investigating store robberies? And judges who convict the theives? How about passing bad checks? Eat-and-runs? A lot of criminal activity is perpetrated against corporations, they should be allowed recourse.
    - rufus_foreman 4y ago
      Winning at roulette is not a crime. There might be a crime involved when someone wins at roulette, there might be negligence by the casino in maintaining their games. There might be luck. Some people do win hundreds of millions of dollars on a $2 lottery ticket. The police where I live do not follow up investigating store robberies, they do not follow up on people who pass bad checks, and they definitely do not follow up on eat and runs. More often than not they will answer the phone when someone calls 911, but not much more often than not. So yes, the idea that the police seem to be at the beck and call of the casinos to detain people with no hard evidence that any crime at all has actually been committed is concerning. At least let us know what phone number they are calling that the police actually pay attention to.
      - listenallyall 4y ago
        > There might be a crime involved when someone wins at roulette Exactly. And so, the police investigated. When they determined there wasn't a crime (or at least had no proof or evidence of one), they released the accused and required the casino to pay them their full winnings.
- koolba 4y ago
  They do it with online sports betting as well. If you consistently win, you get blacklisted or limited in wager size.
- bastardoperator 4y ago
  Casinos have never claimed to run an honest game. It's common knowledge that the odds are always in favor of the house with the exception of maybe blackjack where the odds can theoretically be equal. I played roulette for hours at the Venetian with family a few weeks ago and we basically walked away with a ton of money, we got lucky, but they didn't say a word to us, in fact they were friendly to us and took care of us the entire time. Maybe play at a better Casino?
  - reducesuffering 4y ago
    > exception of maybe blackjack where the odds can theoretically be equal Better than equal. Most Blackjack is -0.6% EV playing basic strategy, but with counting, each true count is an extra ~0.5% of EV, leading to big betting on high count hands with EV of 1-3%. Of course, that's why casinos kick out counters. They're literally "too good" at the game, and they don't want that.
    - joshyeetbox 4y ago
      I thought casinsos started using multiple decks (like 6) and auto shuffled between games now so that counting was pretty much impossible?
      - reducesuffering 4y ago
        Multiple decks, like 6, is what I mean by "most blackjack." Yes, the 6-deck shoe is shuffled after about 75% of those decks are played. There are certain casinos that have "continuous shuffling machines" that shuffle every hand. Those are impossible to count, but rare. 6 decks, as opposed to 1 or 2, does make counting less accurate. But ultimately everything I said previously applies. Those stats are based on the current common game of 3-2 Blackjack, H17, 6-deck shoe, no continuous shuffle, and double after split.
      - vikingerik 4y ago
        Counting works fine with 6 decks. And they don't shuffle after each hand - that would slow down the game so that not as many hands will get played. Counting works but the way to profit from it is easily detected. You have to bet big when the count is favorable, and a casino will see that and stop you. The MIT Blackjack Team beat this, with the strategy to have one player at the table who would bet small while counting cards, incurring the expected slight losses to the house edge, and signal a teammate to jump in and bet big (like $5k per hand) when the count was favorable. Casinos now know to stop this - if you walk up to a table and want to bet big, they will require you to wait for the next reshuffle (or just reshuffle immediately.)
jacquesm 4y ago
That jumped out at me too. You could lose 500K in a casino and nobody would bat an eye but win 500K and suddenly the police is involved and the casino refuses to pay out. Personally I think if they can't prove that you are cheating that you should be allowed to continue to play as long as you feel like and the casino stays afloat. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander. The police automatically siding with the casino and arresting people without any proof or even reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing other than the say so of a party that clearly isn't impartial is ridiculous.
- nickthegreek 4y ago
  Normally they just ask you leave and/or ban you. But they should still be paying out any winnings if they cant prove any wrongdoing.
- aklein 4y ago
  It wasn’t that they won; the article explains that plenty of people walk out with designer bags full of money. It’s that these folks won in a statistically hugely unlikely way, and that alone is pretty damning evidence that something is off. It’s usually just a matter of finding the smoking gun. Although it’s unpleasant that the casino and police assumed it was cheating and not a defect in the game itself (in what turns out to be a naive and self-delusional assumption), is that really that surprising or ridiculous a position to take? The catch 22 is the accused cannot defend themselves without divulging their secrets.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    > It wasn’t that they won; Of course it was! If they had lost using the same method there would have been no issue. > It’s that these folks won in a statistically hugely unlikely way, and that alone is pretty damning evidence that something is off. That's the casino's problem though, not law enforcement. Statistically unlikely equates 'we haven't seen this before' and that should not be enough reason to arrest people. The police should not be in the business of protecting the revenue streams of gambling installation operators. There should be some symmetry here, if the casino is a-ok with making money on gamblers then they should take their lumps when the situation is - temporarily - reversed. LE has no business here, tough luck they should have run a business where the flow is one way by design instead of one with a pretend two way flow. > The catch 22 is the accused cannot defend themselves without divulging their secrets. Which is precisely why the police has no business doing this. The burden of proof with respect to cheating is on the casino, and until they have something solid nobody should be arrested. That's the police acting unilaterally on behalf of one party. A more balanced response would have been to help the players cash their checks, after all the casino did not object to the reverse when the funds were deposited. It's fraud by the casino until proven otherwise.
kilroy123 4y ago
Wait until you read about the Native American casinos. They'll straight up not pay if you win without cheating.
mrandish 4y ago
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."
ProjectArcturis 4y ago
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.
- GCA10 4y ago
  I think the article actually says something slightly different -- which changes the math a lot. Yes, they placed these "neighbors" bets, but it sounds as if they had several of them in motion on each spin. If they're covering an average of three clusters per spin, our random odds become (15/37)^13, which is approximately 1:125,000. Still plenty of grounds for suspicion, but if the casino is open for action all year and hosting 1000 or more roulette betting episodes a night (i.e. 13 spins/player), something this improbable SHOULD happen several times a year.
  - listenallyall 4y ago
    Now calculate 13 in a row, and 10 in a row, and and 8 in a row, and a bunch more, by the same players in the same night.
- vikingerik 4y ago
  You make small bets in a scheme like this to avoid the possibility of enough bad results wiping you out to zero so you have no capital to start again. Suppose you have $100 and can flip a coin to lose $1 on heads or win $2 on tails. The highest expected value per flip is to bet all $100. But you shouldn't do that since you have a 50-50 chance to go to zero and be unable to continue. You should bet something like 1/8 of your bankroll each time so you can survive a streak of bad luck. I also wouldn't trust that "13 in a row" reporting from something like this. That's likely exaggerated or misreported or misremembered from an unreliable witness for the sake of the splashy story.
  - ProjectArcturis 4y ago
rdtsc 4y ago
Just think of the casino as the mafia who also own or are friends with the law enforcement. Many really do have that connection. Then it makes sense. It’s pointless to seek fairness or point out unfairness. It’s naive to assume there is any.
QIYGT 4y ago
Indeed the police and courts exist mostly to help rich people keep their money.
scotty79 4y ago
Fair play is for loosers. No gambling enterprise actually gambles. If you can grease the wheels to have police on speed dial when someone plays too well for your liking, you do.
Waterluvian 4y ago
This reminds me of the cheating scandal in chess. They don’t actually have any proof of cheating beyond it being statistically near-impossible for Niemann to play such “perfect” games.
- wruza 4y ago
  The report also contains lots of information on sudden skill jumps and other abnormalities in his logged chess history. It’s not a proof either, but at this level they make sure their decision is not based on a single set of coincidences.
listenallyall 4y ago
> I haven't finished the whole article yet Perhaps you should keep reading before posting: Was there any legal way to stop Tosa and the others from collecting their winnings? he asked. No, the officer said. There was no other option. The Ritz would have to pay up Let's face it, lots of people get arrested because of suspicious activity, and that totally sucks and has real consequences, but this situation is not especially different than any other, because of influence from the casino. If a person is suspected of robbing a store, they'd likely be detained as well.

ryandrake 4y ago

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 organizations resort to threats and violence.

javajosh 4y ago
The pillars of society are based on the ordinary. When something extraordinary happens, it shakes those pillars and there will be a reaction whether or not it is just. And yes, casino operators are known for a level of self-restraint, basic decency and fairness roughly equivalent to pawn brokers and payday loan operators. Business is predatory when satisfying "customer demand" damages the person, you end up doing business with a bunch of damaged people, which justifies treating them harshly. It's the circle of life, where life is suffering.
- mjklin 4y ago
  “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices” - Adam Smith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracies_against_the_laity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracies_against_the_laity
willcipriano 4y ago
I oppose efforts to legalize gambling not because I dislike gambling but I oppose the theft that we call legalized gambling.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  The same theft is present in the lotteries and those are more often than not national affairs with the common pot as the beneficiary. Have you ever seen a wealthy person play the lottery?
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Lotteries don't even have the semblance of legitimacy that allowing church bingo parlors does; they're exclusively an optional tax on the poorest members of society. Then again, so many of our sin taxes are.
    - IncRnd 4y ago
      From "Who is buying Powerball and Mega Millions tickets?" [1] > The general belief is that poorer Americans buy lottery tickets more often than wealthier ones. But that's not quite true. > The survey showed the most frequent lottery players earn between $36,000 and $89,999. About 56% of that group bought tickets in the last year. Fewer of those making under $36,000 bought tickets, only 40%. About 53% who make above $90,000 bought a ticket. [1] https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/06/news/powerball-mega-millions-who-buys/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/06/news/powerball-mega-million...
      - bombcar 4y ago
        Keep reading: >But other studies have shown that when lower income players do buy tickets, they spend far more money on lottery tickets than wealthier players. A study published in the Journal of Gambling Studies found that those in the bottom fifth of income spent the most on lottery tickets, and more than twice as much as the richest lottery players - $433 a year vs. $193 a year. Most everyone buys a Powerball ticket when it hits a cool billion or whatever it is; but that's not the vast majority of lottery enjoyers.
eloisant 4y ago
More concerning is that the police and judges will follow on the casino's requests.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  Sad because they know who pays their bills, however indirectly, yet it's the little people getting hurt who need protection of the courts the most.
- dfxm12 4y ago
  Siding with capital is par for the course for LE and courts though.
- listenallyall 4y ago
  Is it "concerning" that police "follow up" investigating store robberies? And judges who convict the theives? How about passing bad checks? Eat-and-runs? A lot of criminal activity is perpetrated against corporations, they should be allowed recourse.
  - rufus_foreman 4y ago
    Winning at roulette is not a crime. There might be a crime involved when someone wins at roulette, there might be negligence by the casino in maintaining their games. There might be luck. Some people do win hundreds of millions of dollars on a $2 lottery ticket. The police where I live do not follow up investigating store robberies, they do not follow up on people who pass bad checks, and they definitely do not follow up on eat and runs. More often than not they will answer the phone when someone calls 911, but not much more often than not. So yes, the idea that the police seem to be at the beck and call of the casinos to detain people with no hard evidence that any crime at all has actually been committed is concerning. At least let us know what phone number they are calling that the police actually pay attention to.
    - listenallyall 4y ago
      > There might be a crime involved when someone wins at roulette Exactly. And so, the police investigated. When they determined there wasn't a crime (or at least had no proof or evidence of one), they released the accused and required the casino to pay them their full winnings.
koolba 4y ago
They do it with online sports betting as well. If you consistently win, you get blacklisted or limited in wager size.
bastardoperator 4y ago
Casinos have never claimed to run an honest game. It's common knowledge that the odds are always in favor of the house with the exception of maybe blackjack where the odds can theoretically be equal. I played roulette for hours at the Venetian with family a few weeks ago and we basically walked away with a ton of money, we got lucky, but they didn't say a word to us, in fact they were friendly to us and took care of us the entire time. Maybe play at a better Casino?
- reducesuffering 4y ago
  > exception of maybe blackjack where the odds can theoretically be equal Better than equal. Most Blackjack is -0.6% EV playing basic strategy, but with counting, each true count is an extra ~0.5% of EV, leading to big betting on high count hands with EV of 1-3%. Of course, that's why casinos kick out counters. They're literally "too good" at the game, and they don't want that.
  - joshyeetbox 4y ago
    I thought casinsos started using multiple decks (like 6) and auto shuffled between games now so that counting was pretty much impossible?
    - reducesuffering 4y ago
      Multiple decks, like 6, is what I mean by "most blackjack." Yes, the 6-deck shoe is shuffled after about 75% of those decks are played. There are certain casinos that have "continuous shuffling machines" that shuffle every hand. Those are impossible to count, but rare. 6 decks, as opposed to 1 or 2, does make counting less accurate. But ultimately everything I said previously applies. Those stats are based on the current common game of 3-2 Blackjack, H17, 6-deck shoe, no continuous shuffle, and double after split.
    - vikingerik 4y ago
      Counting works fine with 6 decks. And they don't shuffle after each hand - that would slow down the game so that not as many hands will get played. Counting works but the way to profit from it is easily detected. You have to bet big when the count is favorable, and a casino will see that and stop you. The MIT Blackjack Team beat this, with the strategy to have one player at the table who would bet small while counting cards, incurring the expected slight losses to the house edge, and signal a teammate to jump in and bet big (like $5k per hand) when the count was favorable. Casinos now know to stop this - if you walk up to a table and want to bet big, they will require you to wait for the next reshuffle (or just reshuffle immediately.)

jacquesm 4y ago

That jumped out at me too. You could lose 500K in a casino and nobody would bat an eye but win 500K and suddenly the police is involved and the casino refuses to pay out. Personally I think if they can't prove that you are cheating that you should be allowed to continue to play as long as you feel like and the casino stays afloat. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander. The police automatically siding with the casino and arresting people without any proof or even reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing other than the say so of a party that clearly isn't impartial is ridiculous.

nickthegreek 4y ago
Normally they just ask you leave and/or ban you. But they should still be paying out any winnings if they cant prove any wrongdoing.
aklein 4y ago
It wasn’t that they won; the article explains that plenty of people walk out with designer bags full of money. It’s that these folks won in a statistically hugely unlikely way, and that alone is pretty damning evidence that something is off. It’s usually just a matter of finding the smoking gun. Although it’s unpleasant that the casino and police assumed it was cheating and not a defect in the game itself (in what turns out to be a naive and self-delusional assumption), is that really that surprising or ridiculous a position to take? The catch 22 is the accused cannot defend themselves without divulging their secrets.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  > It wasn’t that they won; Of course it was! If they had lost using the same method there would have been no issue. > It’s that these folks won in a statistically hugely unlikely way, and that alone is pretty damning evidence that something is off. That's the casino's problem though, not law enforcement. Statistically unlikely equates 'we haven't seen this before' and that should not be enough reason to arrest people. The police should not be in the business of protecting the revenue streams of gambling installation operators. There should be some symmetry here, if the casino is a-ok with making money on gamblers then they should take their lumps when the situation is - temporarily - reversed. LE has no business here, tough luck they should have run a business where the flow is one way by design instead of one with a pretend two way flow. > The catch 22 is the accused cannot defend themselves without divulging their secrets. Which is precisely why the police has no business doing this. The burden of proof with respect to cheating is on the casino, and until they have something solid nobody should be arrested. That's the police acting unilaterally on behalf of one party. A more balanced response would have been to help the players cash their checks, after all the casino did not object to the reverse when the funds were deposited. It's fraud by the casino until proven otherwise.

kilroy123 4y ago

Wait until you read about the Native American casinos. They'll straight up not pay if you win without cheating.

mrandish 4y ago

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."

ProjectArcturis 4y ago

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.

GCA10 4y ago
I think the article actually says something slightly different -- which changes the math a lot. Yes, they placed these "neighbors" bets, but it sounds as if they had several of them in motion on each spin. If they're covering an average of three clusters per spin, our random odds become (15/37)^13, which is approximately 1:125,000. Still plenty of grounds for suspicion, but if the casino is open for action all year and hosting 1000 or more roulette betting episodes a night (i.e. 13 spins/player), something this improbable SHOULD happen several times a year.
- listenallyall 4y ago
  Now calculate 13 in a row, and 10 in a row, and and 8 in a row, and a bunch more, by the same players in the same night.
vikingerik 4y ago
You make small bets in a scheme like this to avoid the possibility of enough bad results wiping you out to zero so you have no capital to start again. Suppose you have $100 and can flip a coin to lose $1 on heads or win $2 on tails. The highest expected value per flip is to bet all $100. But you shouldn't do that since you have a 50-50 chance to go to zero and be unable to continue. You should bet something like 1/8 of your bankroll each time so you can survive a streak of bad luck. I also wouldn't trust that "13 in a row" reporting from something like this. That's likely exaggerated or misreported or misremembered from an unreliable witness for the sake of the splashy story.
- ProjectArcturis 4y ago

rdtsc 4y ago

Just think of the casino as the mafia who also own or are friends with the law enforcement. Many really do have that connection. Then it makes sense. It’s pointless to seek fairness or point out unfairness. It’s naive to assume there is any.

QIYGT 4y ago

Indeed the police and courts exist mostly to help rich people keep their money.

scotty79 4y ago

Fair play is for loosers. No gambling enterprise actually gambles. If you can grease the wheels to have police on speed dial when someone plays too well for your liking, you do.

Waterluvian 4y ago

This reminds me of the cheating scandal in chess. They don’t actually have any proof of cheating beyond it being statistically near-impossible for Niemann to play such “perfect” games.

wruza 4y ago
The report also contains lots of information on sudden skill jumps and other abnormalities in his logged chess history. It’s not a proof either, but at this level they make sure their decision is not based on a single set of coincidences.

listenallyall 4y ago

> I haven't finished the whole article yet Perhaps you should keep reading before posting: Was there any legal way to stop Tosa and the others from collecting their winnings? he asked. No, the officer said. There was no other option. The Ritz would have to pay up Let's face it, lots of people get arrested because of suspicious activity, and that totally sucks and has real consequences, but this situation is not especially different than any other, because of influence from the casino. If a person is suspected of robbing a store, they'd likely be detained as well.