7 ms·

The House doesn't like to be gamed. It's no different than a casino in Vegas - if you figure out how to beat The House, they change the rules (or the direction

The House doesn't like to be gamed. It's no different than a casino in Vegas - if you figure out how to beat The House, they change the rules (or the direction your knees bend). If it feels like you're getting a deal, that hole will eventually be closed.

chasing 12y ago
It's almost like these companies offering you products and services are trying to make money.
- roastbeefsc 12y ago
  There's a difference between making a profit and maximizing it at the expense of everything else (e.g. employee wages, public social safety nets). Wal-Mart employees utilizing $6.2 billion dollars of public assistance is an example of this. This isn't as an egregious example as Wal-Mart but it's indicative of the same underlying force.
  - crusso 12y ago
    There's a difference between making a profit and maximizing it at the expense of everything else They're aligning rewards for their loyalty program with the behaviors of customers not trying to game the system. And you criticize this? Wal-Mart employees utilizing $6.2 billion dollars of public assistance is an example of this. And exactly upon whom do you place the blame for unemployed people who use public assistance? How much credit does Wal-Mart get for the delta increase of public assistance that would be spent if they didn't employee people?
  - fennecfoxen 12y ago
    What?? Even if one accepts the tendentious leftist screed for the purposes of argument (which I will do here), this isn't even remotely like Wal-Mart. The traditional Wal-Mart complaints are that they don't pay employees enough or that they compete with other businesses too effectively. (Occasionally, the complaint is that they are willing to pay suppliers too little.) This airline complaint is that customers who have been explicitly trying to game the system by doing things like purchase $500 airline tickets can't get the free trips or upgrades they want as readily as they could before. It cheapens your anti-Walmart rhetoric to put this in the same class of "oppression". Why would you do such a thing?
grecy 12y ago
This reminds me of my buddies beating a casino. It goes like this: Play roulette, start with a low bet ($5) on black or white (50/50). If you win, you've profited the amount of the original bet. If you lose, double your bet and play again. Repeat until you win and you will have profited the amount of the original bet. Repeat. This works so long as you have enough cash to keep doubling the bet. Hitting the maximum allowed bet on the table is not a problem, you just split it in half and keep going. My buddies at one point had ~$60k on the table, and didn't have enough to go to ~$120k if they lost... They did this for about two weeks straight, profiting something like $10k. One morning when they tried to enter the casino, the guards at the door said they were not welcome, and if they didn't leave immediately the police would be called. They assume they had been spotted on camera, or the table operator reported them.
- CyrusL 12y ago
  This is called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_%28betting_system%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_%28betting_system%29
  - grecy 12y ago
    Thanks, I just found that. Interesting they say that casino betting limits eliminate the strategy. I don't think that's true. Let's say you have $100k on the table, which is the maximum allowed, and you lose. All you need to is play multiple tables with the doubled bet ($200k) split up across those tables. Once you've played all of those to conclusion (maybe even splitting again...) you will have effectively "won" the line of play that they tried to stop you when you hit the $100k limit.
    - notahacker 12y ago
      Betting $100,000 on two tables has a lower probability of returning $400,000 than betting $200,000 on one table. Also a lower probability of returning zero, but winning one of those bets and losing the other doesn't help. Needing to win two independent (consecutive or simultaneous) negative-EV bets to beat a losing streak of a certain length increases the probability that combination of events won't happen, and if you lose both bets at the table limit (which is slightly more probable than winning both) you'll need to spread your bets across even more tables and hope even more independent events fall in your favour.
personZ 12y ago
Air miles (along with many loyalty type programs that primarily benefit corporate travelers) exists as a form of kickback, encouraging employees to spend their employer's money prolifically, and to short circuit normal best-value evaluations, in order to earn personal miles. Some employers prohibit this, or demand that the miles go towards the company or whatever, but many more do not encouraging people to take countless unjustified or unnecessary flights and hotel stays purely to rack up personal benefits that they can use to their own benefit.
- prostoalex 12y ago
  Most companies would require the use of a corporate travel planner to combat this. My most recent employers happened to both use Concur, and the UI there typically requires a written note any time you're booking something that's not the cheapest fare.
  - checker 12y ago
    At least there's the option of booking something "more expensive". Some places require that employees book the cheapest fare no matter what. Then you get situations like an employee making 150K/yr sacrificing an entire work day traveling in order to save the $50 more it costs to fly direct or out of a closer airport. The hidden costs aren't taken into account at all, but I guess it might be easier to enforce a blanket policy.
  - potatolicious 12y ago
    In my experience it's rare to see a ruleset as hard as "absolute cheapest, no exceptions" - generally what I see is "must be within percentage of absolute lowest price". Even within these restrictions loyalty programs still make sense - these are people who purchase a large amount of travel per year, if you can guarantee yourself as an exclusive supplier you still come out ahead - even with price ceilings.
wozniacki 12y ago
I've always been intrigued by the idea of various marketplaces of financial activity, likened to houses of gambling. Someone well versed in stock exchanges, commodity exchanges, currency exchanges, insurance exchanges, rare metal / mineral exchanges etc. can chime in: What is a good "house" (a marketplace for goods and/or financial instruments) that does not change the rules - or changes them very rarely - and has generally stood the test of time? Can currency markets be gamed - by governments or other control bodies - so that a repeat of the Black Wednesday[1] is all but minimized? I am really interested in how financial markets deal with these kinds of quandaries, where a Soros[2] like figure could potentially manipulate an event to his favor. If they put in place too many fail-safe mechanisms, 'players' may be turned away and may want to 'gamble' at another house. Too few, then the 'house' gets taken to the cleaners. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros#Currency_speculation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros#Currency_speculati... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday

chasing 12y ago

It's almost like these companies offering you products and services are trying to make money.

roastbeefsc 12y ago
There's a difference between making a profit and maximizing it at the expense of everything else (e.g. employee wages, public social safety nets). Wal-Mart employees utilizing $6.2 billion dollars of public assistance is an example of this. This isn't as an egregious example as Wal-Mart but it's indicative of the same underlying force.
- crusso 12y ago
  There's a difference between making a profit and maximizing it at the expense of everything else They're aligning rewards for their loyalty program with the behaviors of customers not trying to game the system. And you criticize this? Wal-Mart employees utilizing $6.2 billion dollars of public assistance is an example of this. And exactly upon whom do you place the blame for unemployed people who use public assistance? How much credit does Wal-Mart get for the delta increase of public assistance that would be spent if they didn't employee people?
- fennecfoxen 12y ago
  What?? Even if one accepts the tendentious leftist screed for the purposes of argument (which I will do here), this isn't even remotely like Wal-Mart. The traditional Wal-Mart complaints are that they don't pay employees enough or that they compete with other businesses too effectively. (Occasionally, the complaint is that they are willing to pay suppliers too little.) This airline complaint is that customers who have been explicitly trying to game the system by doing things like purchase $500 airline tickets can't get the free trips or upgrades they want as readily as they could before. It cheapens your anti-Walmart rhetoric to put this in the same class of "oppression". Why would you do such a thing?

grecy 12y ago

This reminds me of my buddies beating a casino. It goes like this: Play roulette, start with a low bet ($5) on black or white (50/50). If you win, you've profited the amount of the original bet. If you lose, double your bet and play again. Repeat until you win and you will have profited the amount of the original bet. Repeat. This works so long as you have enough cash to keep doubling the bet. Hitting the maximum allowed bet on the table is not a problem, you just split it in half and keep going. My buddies at one point had ~$60k on the table, and didn't have enough to go to ~$120k if they lost... They did this for about two weeks straight, profiting something like $10k. One morning when they tried to enter the casino, the guards at the door said they were not welcome, and if they didn't leave immediately the police would be called. They assume they had been spotted on camera, or the table operator reported them.

CyrusL 12y ago
This is called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_%28betting_system%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_%28betting_system%29
- grecy 12y ago
  Thanks, I just found that. Interesting they say that casino betting limits eliminate the strategy. I don't think that's true. Let's say you have $100k on the table, which is the maximum allowed, and you lose. All you need to is play multiple tables with the doubled bet ($200k) split up across those tables. Once you've played all of those to conclusion (maybe even splitting again...) you will have effectively "won" the line of play that they tried to stop you when you hit the $100k limit.
  - notahacker 12y ago
    Betting $100,000 on two tables has a lower probability of returning $400,000 than betting $200,000 on one table. Also a lower probability of returning zero, but winning one of those bets and losing the other doesn't help. Needing to win two independent (consecutive or simultaneous) negative-EV bets to beat a losing streak of a certain length increases the probability that combination of events won't happen, and if you lose both bets at the table limit (which is slightly more probable than winning both) you'll need to spread your bets across even more tables and hope even more independent events fall in your favour.

personZ 12y ago

Air miles (along with many loyalty type programs that primarily benefit corporate travelers) exists as a form of kickback, encouraging employees to spend their employer's money prolifically, and to short circuit normal best-value evaluations, in order to earn personal miles. Some employers prohibit this, or demand that the miles go towards the company or whatever, but many more do not encouraging people to take countless unjustified or unnecessary flights and hotel stays purely to rack up personal benefits that they can use to their own benefit.

prostoalex 12y ago
Most companies would require the use of a corporate travel planner to combat this. My most recent employers happened to both use Concur, and the UI there typically requires a written note any time you're booking something that's not the cheapest fare.
- checker 12y ago
  At least there's the option of booking something "more expensive". Some places require that employees book the cheapest fare no matter what. Then you get situations like an employee making 150K/yr sacrificing an entire work day traveling in order to save the $50 more it costs to fly direct or out of a closer airport. The hidden costs aren't taken into account at all, but I guess it might be easier to enforce a blanket policy.
- potatolicious 12y ago
  In my experience it's rare to see a ruleset as hard as "absolute cheapest, no exceptions" - generally what I see is "must be within percentage of absolute lowest price". Even within these restrictions loyalty programs still make sense - these are people who purchase a large amount of travel per year, if you can guarantee yourself as an exclusive supplier you still come out ahead - even with price ceilings.

wozniacki 12y ago

I've always been intrigued by the idea of various marketplaces of financial activity, likened to houses of gambling. Someone well versed in stock exchanges, commodity exchanges, currency exchanges, insurance exchanges, rare metal / mineral exchanges etc. can chime in: What is a good "house" (a marketplace for goods and/or financial instruments) that does not change the rules - or changes them very rarely - and has generally stood the test of time? Can currency markets be gamed - by governments or other control bodies - so that a repeat of the Black Wednesday[1] is all but minimized? I am really interested in how financial markets deal with these kinds of quandaries, where a Soros[2] like figure could potentially manipulate an event to his favor. If they put in place too many fail-safe mechanisms, 'players' may be turned away and may want to 'gamble' at another house. Too few, then the 'house' gets taken to the cleaners. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros#Currency_speculation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros#Currency_speculati... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday