On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 13:52:44 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Or any game, really, that's rigged so the house wins most of the time.
> 
> Same thing applies, tho. I win most of the time.  I lose bigger, but I
> win most of the time.

Depends on the game.  I can manage to win pretty consistently at 
blackjack regardless of whether I win individual hands or not - with 
enough money, that's easy to do using a simple geometric progression and 
some restraint to "stick to the plan".  But if I put the idea into 
practice in Las Vegas, I'd probably end up banned from the casinos if I 
won too much.  The house doesn't like to lose, and they don't like when 
people who understand how to turn the odds in their favour show up and 
provide a real-world demonstration that it is in fact possible.

Even still, if you're careful, you can manage to do this and not get 
caught at it - changing tables or casinos frequently makes it very 
difficult for them to track a pattern.  Not following the geometric 
progression exactly also helps make it less obvious.

Some games are rigged closely enough to 50/50 odds that most people don't 
think about the fact that they're not.  Roulette is one like that; IIRC, 
your odds of winning are not 50% but 47%.

> Losing $1 just doesn't hurt as much as losing $1,000,000.  It's not all
> the numbers in the game. It's also the numbers outside the game.

True.

Jim

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