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silly roulette system spam

JoeTheJuggler

Penultimate Amazing
JoeTheJuggler
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
27,766
So I've gotten an e-mail something like the following several times now:

you know in roulete you can bet on blacks or reds. If you bet $1 on black and it goes black you win $1 but
if it goes red you loose your $1.
So I found a way you win everytime:

bet $1 on black if it goes black you win $1

now again bet $1 on black, if it goes red bet $3 on black, if it goes red again bet $8 on black,
if red again bet $20 on black, red again bet $52 on black (always multiple you previous lost bet around 2.5)
if now is black you win $52 so you have $104 and you bet:

$1 + $3 + $8 + $20 + $52 = $84 So you just won $20 :)

now when you won you start with $1 on blacks again etc etc. its always bound to go black
eventually (it`s 50 / 50) so that way you eventually always win. But there`s a catch. If you
win too much (like $800 a day) casino will finally notice something and can ban
you. I was banned once on red games casino. So don`t be too greedy and don`t win more then $200
a day and you can do it for years. I think bigger casios know that trick so I play for real
money on smaller ones,
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followed by a spam ad for a casino website.

So boiled down, this "system" just says "don't quit when you're behind, but quit when you're ahead". (Although instead of "quit" it talks about making a smaller bet, and instead of "don't quit" it recommends making a bet larger than your losings.)

The thing it gets wrong, though, is that the house has an advantage.

If they're actually paying out even money on red/black bets, their advantage is slight, but still there because the 0 is neither red nor black, so the odds of either red or black is slightly less than 1:2. ETA: Some wheels also have a 00 that is neither red or black, so the odds are even lower.

Why would anyone think this "system" is guaranteed to win? Even if the odds were really even (and the house didn't have an advantage), you could still lose more than you can afford to bet.
 
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JoeTheJuggler said:
followed by a spam ad for a casino website.

So boiled down, this "system" just says "don't quit when you're behind, but quit when you're ahead". (Although instead of "quit" it talks about making a smaller bet, and instead of "don't quit" it recommends making a bet larger than your losings.)

The thing it gets wrong, though, is that the house has an advantage.

If they're actually paying out even money on red/black bets, their advantage is slight, but still there because the 0 is neither red nor black, so the odds of either red or black is slightly less than 1:2. ETA: Some wheels also have a 00 that is neither red or black, so the odds are even lower.

Why would anyone think this "system" is guaranteed to win? Even if the odds were really even (and the house didn't have an advantage), you could still lose more than you can afford to bet.
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I think the 0 doesn't play a role in the "even odds" cases, such as red/black and even/odd; you can leave your bet there for the next round. At least around here.

The classical scenario for using these is the doubling strategy. Place a $1 bet on red; if you lose, place $2 on red; then $4, etc. When red turns up, you earn $1. The advantage of the casino stems from another source here: there's a cap on your bet. If that cap is $1000, you can only place 10 bets this way, and when there's a row of 10 blacks, you lose $1023, end of story.

Note that the strategy in the email you got is even worse. It advocates multiplying your previous bet by 2.5, so you run up against the maximum bet even sooner.

Disclaimer: I have an MSc in math. There's a casino in my town. I've promised myself not to enter it until I have a winning strategy. I haven't been inside yet. :)
 
With an infinite bank roll, no table limit, and a house that is not allowed to refuse your bet, it would work. None of those three things are a reality, however.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Why would anyone think this "system" is guaranteed to win? Even if the odds were really even (and the house didn't have an advantage), you could still lose more than you can afford to bet.
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Exactly. Not only is this system not guaranteed to win, it's actually guaranteed to lose your entire stake... because if you play long enough, you are certain to hit a string of bad luck that wipes you out.

You can only win (on average) if you have an advantage. But even if you have an advantage there is an optimal betting strategy given your stake and the time you have to play... and it's not this one.
 
CanadaGlass said:
With an infinite bank roll, no table limit, and a house that is not allowed to refuse your bet, it would work. None of those three things are a reality, however.
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With an infinite bank roll, I'd suggest investing it instead at 5%/year :).
 
CanadaGlass said:
With an infinite bank roll, no table limit, and a house that is not allowed to refuse your bet, it would work. None of those three things are a reality, however.
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The joke could yet be on them. Perhaps Obama should concentrate on tweaking the gaming laws rather than health care. No house limit or refusing bets to the President for example.
 
sol invictus said:
With an infinite bank roll, I'd suggest investing it instead at 5%/year :).
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If you had an infinite stake couldn't you double your money any time you wanted simple by altering the order in which you counted it?
 
shuttlt said:
If you had an infinite stake couldn't you double your money any time you wanted simple by altering the order in which you counted it?
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And I was going to ask what 5% of infinity was. I like your thinking better.
 
shuttlt said:
Maybe I should write me some Financial Secrets THEY Don't Want You To Know type internet spam. No stealing my idea now!
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THEY are the ultimate authority on everything, don't you know. I am glad to see it in all capitals, as most folks don't acknowledge THEY are just a legal fiction.
 
sol invictus said:
Good point. Might take a while, though.
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Nonsense, I can just write "IOME all my money with even serial numbers" on one scrap of paper and "IOME all my money with odd serial numbers" on another scrap of paper. I had thought of paying an infinite number of people to count it for me, but that sounds expensive.
 
ddt said:
I think the 0 doesn't play a role in the "even odds" cases, such as red/black and even/odd; you can leave your bet there for the next round. At least around here.
Click to expand...

Yes, the 0 and 00 matter. They're possible results of a spin, meaning the chances of getting a red or a black is just less than 1:2, but the house is paying out even money.

Leaving your bet out there doesn't matter. Your odds of winning are less than 1:2, but the house pays as if it's exactly 1:2.

For example on an American wheel (with 0 and 00), the payout is 1:1, but the odds against winning one of these "even" bets (like red or black or even or odd or 1-18 versus 19-36) is 1.111 to 1.

That's how casinos stay in business.
 
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CanadaGlass said:
With an infinite bank roll, no table limit, and a house that is not allowed to refuse your bet, it would work. None of those three things are a reality, however.
Click to expand...

It would also require a 4th thing to be a reality: for the house to give up its advantage. (That is, they'd have to pay $1.111 for every dollar bet or get rid of the 0 and 00.)
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
It would also require a 4th thing to be a reality: for the house to give up its advantage. (That is, they'd have to pay $1.111 for every dollar bet or get rid of the 0 and 00.)
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Being slightly less likely to win does not defeat the betting system. I too have long known of this system with a straight doubling of the bet.
 
CanadaGlass said:
Being slightly less likely to win does not defeat the betting system.
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It's not about being slight less likely to win as much as it is that the payoff is never equivalent to the risk. Over time, no matter what "system" you use, the house will come out ahead.

I too have long known of this system with a straight doubling of the bet.
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And yet the casinos are doing just fine.
 
CanadaGlass said:
Being slightly less likely to win does not defeat the betting system. I too have long known of this system with a straight doubling of the bet.
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That's incorrect.

No matter what your betting strategy is, your expected earnings are always your advantage times the total amount of money you bet. Each bet is independent of every other bet, and it makes no difference at all what order you place them in (with an infinite bankroll, that is - with a finite bankroll things are even worse for you). If you play for a finite amount of time and bet a finite amount of money on a game where the house has an advantage, your expected earnings are negative regardless of your bank roll.

So, suppose you follow a strategy closely related to the one in the OP, except with an additional rule: quit when you're up by some pre-determined amount. Given an infinite bankroll, you might think you'd always achieve that amount eventually with a string of luck. But I think that's actually not the case - it looks to me like your probability of achieving that fixed amount is finite, and goes to zero very rapidly when the house's edge gets large. Plugging in numbers, if the house's edge is 1% and you're betting 1$, your odds of ever being up by more than $100 are very small, even if you play for an infinite amount of time.
 
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JoeTheJuggler said:
And yet the casinos are doing just fine.
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I assume you mean financially, and not morally.

On a side note, it is illegal to have an honest slot machine, since they must have a prescribed percentage payout. Furthermore, the way they work the math is different from how most players work theirs. The players count how much money they put in, not how many times they hit the spin button. Having eaten up their "payout" with extra spins, they think a payout should be "due" when it isn't.
 
Yeah, this is another variant of the Martingale betting system. One good description of it (and why it doesn't "work") is here
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Yes, the 0 and 00 matter. They're possible results of a spin, meaning the chances of getting a red or a black is just less than 1:2, but the house is paying out even money.

Leaving your bet out there doesn't matter. Your odds of winning are less than 1:2, but the house pays as if it's exactly 1:2.

For example on an American wheel (with 0 and 00), the payout is 1:1, but the odds against winning one of these "even" bets (like red or black or even or odd or 1-18 versus 19-36) is 1.111 to 1.

That's how casinos stay in business.
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You're right about American roulette, yes. French roulette (which is also the usual style in my country - note the "at least around here") has other rules. I checked with "Holland Casino" what their rules are. When you bet on 'red' and the outcome is 0, your bet is placed "en prison". When it's 'red' again, you get your bet back. Or you can ask the croupier to give back half your bet on the 0, which statistically amounts to the same.

So, the house has indeed a slight advantage on the 0, though a lot less than with American roulette. And they earn on the drinks and on the tips to the croupier. :)
 
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