silly roulette system spam

[sol invictus]

while there might well be some system out there in math land to beat a roulette table, lets say we define "beat" to mean have a positive bankroll after some large number of spins e.g. a million, noones found it yet, if it does exist at all it will be *very* complex, and is unlikely to win all that much in the long run.

Unless it involves cheating, that's impossible. Remember: every bet is completely independent of every other bet. And on each bet, you're likely to lose. That's all you need to know - no "strategy" can ever succeed.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

while there might well be some system out there in math land to beat a roulette table, lets say we define "beat" to mean have a positive bankroll after some large number of spins e.g. a million, noones found it yet, if it does exist at all it will be *very* complex, and is unlikely to win all that much in the long run.

No such strategy can exist, complex or otherwise.

Every bet you make has a negative expectation. Any combination of bets you make is a combination of negative expectation bets. You cannot add a bunch of negative numbers together and get a positive number, no matter whether you make the addition simple or "*very* complex".

You might as well try taking biscuits out of a packet in different ways, hoping that there's a very complex way of taking them out that leads you to end up with more biscuits than you started with.

 

[marting]

In either system, though, if you bet red or black and it comes up 0, the house's take is not zero. It's either the entire bet or half the bet. Making the same bet again doesn't remove the house's advantage. Your chance of winning is still slightly less than 1:2 (and your chance of losing is slightly more than 1:2).

Again, from the odds table (American roulette), while the house pays 1 to 1 on these "even money" bets, your odds against winning is actually 1.111 to 1.

I'm still not sure if you lose all or just half of your bet if you hit 0 or 00 (in the American game), but you still lose.

Of course I agree but my response was to your #13 where ddt had stated that, upon 0, the bet was left in place (it neither won nor lost) and thus the next spin would be treated as independent. He reviewed and restated the rules (bet placed "en prison") in post #20.

The house has no advantage were the game played with the method stated in his ear;ier post and which you had responded to in #13. Clearly such a casino game isn't viable.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Of course I agree but my response was to your #13 where ddt had stated that, upon 0, the bet was left in place (it neither won nor lost) and thus the next spin would be treated as independent.

As you note, such a system (where the 0 simply gives you a re-do at no cost) would take away the house's advantage, and that's not how it works. I never took ddt's statement to mean that (especially since in the same breath he said even under the French rules the house has an advantage--that is the payout is not commensurate with the risk of losing).

What I didn't understand was your post 28 where you said that while the 0 and 00 reduce the odds of winning, they also reduce the odds of losing (which only makes sense if you count them as "free spin" which means it would be pointless to have them on the wheel to begin with). Also, I provided a link in my post 13--the one you said was "not true"-- to show where I got the numbers, and explained that 0 and 00 are losing results, so I'm not sure how you got the idea that are simply free spins.

At any rate, as people have replied to Ambrosia, each bet is independent, and in each bet the house has an advantage. For every single instance of the red/black type of bets, the house pays a win 1 to 1 even though your odds of losing are 1.111 to 1 (American rules). Thus, there is no system that will guarantee a winning night at roulette.

 

[Aepervius]

I have actually the perfect system to win with a casino, and it is proven to work with a far higher rate than any other existing martingale system. Whatever your level of diplome in in math you will agree.

Buy/make your own the casino or invest in an existing one

 

[Ambrosia]

Unless it involves cheating, that's impossible. Remember: every bet is completely independent of every other bet. And on each bet, you're likely to lose. That's all you need to know - no "strategy" can ever succeed.

No such strategy can exist, complex or otherwise.

Every bet you make has a negative expectation. Any combination of bets you make is a combination of negative expectation bets. You cannot add a bunch of negative numbers together and get a positive number, no matter whether you make the addition simple or "*very* complex".

The complex mathematical system I believe that exists rests on the idea that the numbers generated by the wheel are not in fact random, they appear to be random but do hold true to some pattern.

If one could eliminate enough numbers on any given spin of the wheel where you can be sure with 100% certainty that the ball willl not land at those numbers, then you tip the odds such that the bets you are making have a positive expectation.

Such a system would be very complex, and need a huge number of observed spins to deduce a pattern in between spins where a bet is placed.

So while it might theoretically exist it's next to worthless in the real world - if it even exists at all.

If the wheel spins are truly random, any system is impossible for the reasons you just pointed out.

There are a bunch of systems around the internet that rely on the fact that in order for them to break down some incredibly unlikely sequence of spins that is more than 4 standard deviations from the mean has to occur.
Such sytems will appear to work for a while, and then they will fail miserably. Problem with any of them is you do not have the slightest idea when such an unlikely sequence will turn up.

I agree that you cannot add a bunch of negatives, no matter how you try, and get a positive result.

I still believe that roulette wheels are not generating truly random results, and thus can be "beaten"

I think it might be possible to devise a system as well where a sequence of numbers that is something like 7 or 8 standard deviations from mean needs to happen before the system breaks. You might well be able to play such a sytem in your lifetime without ever hitting this sequence if you were lucky, though it would be inevitable eventually if you played long enough.

I am not about to try though

 

[ddt]

The complex mathematical system I believe that exists rests on the idea that the numbers generated by the wheel are not in fact random, they appear to be random but do hold true to some pattern.

[...]

I still believe that roulette wheels are not generating truly random results, and thus can be "beaten"

Roulette wheels are not 100% random, they have a deviation because of slight mass differences. Around 1900, some clever guys analyzed all the numbers of the roulette wheels in Monte Carlo for this deviation, and managed to break the bank.

Since then, the wheels are exchanged every night to different tables, so you never get a long enough sequence of numbers to analyze. As I've heard, the casinos even give out these lists for the poor souls who still think it's useful.

 

[Yoink]

Roulette wheels are not 100% random, they have a deviation because of slight mass differences. Around 1900, some clever guys analyzed all the numbers of the roulette wheels in Monte Carlo for this deviation, and managed to break the bank.

Since then, the wheels are exchanged every night to different tables, so you never get a long enough sequence of numbers to analyze. As I've heard, the casinos even give out these lists for the poor souls who still think it's useful.

Really? I find this a little hard to believe. Seems too vulnerable to insider knowledge. All you'd need is someone on the inside who could tell you which wheel is at which table each night and you'd clean up.

Got a cite?

 

[Hokulele]

I'm still not sure if you lose all or just half of your bet if you hit 0 or 00 (in the American game), but you still lose.

In Las Vegas, if the wheel comes up 0 or 00 and you have bet on red or black (or odd or even), you lose. I don't know if this applies to American casinos outside of Las Vegas.

 

[Hokulele]

Really? I find this a little hard to believe. Seems too vulnerable to insider knowledge. All you'd need is someone on the inside who could tell you which wheel is at which table each night and you'd clean up.

Got a cite?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Jagger

There are a variety of tricks the casinos use to prevent mechanical bias. They will rotate dealers (who may use different throwing techniques), change the size of the balls, and (as in the case linked above), reshuffle the tables.

 

[ddt]

Really? I find this a little hard to believe. Seems too vulnerable to insider knowledge. All you'd need is someone on the inside who could tell you which wheel is at which table each night and you'd clean up.

Got a cite?

The story is a bit different than I recollected. The Monte Carlo casino then employed wheels with movable frets.

wiki: Joseph Jagger
snopes

 

[Yoink]

The story is a bit different than I recollected. The Monte Carlo casino then employed wheels with movable frets.

wiki: Joseph Jagger
snopes

And more to the point, there was only one wheel that was biased in this way. It seems unlikely that modern casinos (with, presumably, more accurately engineered wheels) regularly switch their wheels around to prevent this exploit.

 

[69dodge]

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).

I don't think that's right.

Expectation is not always defined.

Besides being independent, all the bets need to be about the same size. If they can be of very different sizes, so that a single one of them can outweigh all the others combined, as happens in the doubling strategy, the law of large numbers never gets a chance to start taking effect.

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.

What do you mean "you're betting $1"? A bunch of bets, each of $1? What happened to doubling your bet whenever you lose?

If you double your bet whenever you lose, the only way never to be up is never to win a bet. The probability of that happening is zero, regardless of the house's edge (unless the house has such an edge that it's guaranteed to win every bet).

This is all assuming that you have an infinite bankroll, which is of course somewhat unrealistic.

 

[Starthinker]

The only real way to make money in a casino is to be the casino owner.

 

[Yoink]

I suppose the other approach to the old "double-your-losses" approach is to make your bankroll "relatively infinite" by minimizing your initial stake (of course, real casinos have a minimum bet, but let's ignore that; and we need to ignore the 0 and 00 outcomes as well). If you bet 1 penny on red, and doubled whenever you lost, you'd probably end up ahead most nights. Assuming the casino has a $1,000 maximum bet, you'd need to get to something like 19 consecutive "reds" or "blacks" before you went bust. The odds against that happening are staggeringly high. Of course, your "guaranteed" winnings would be well below what the casino would be making out of you in drinks etc.

 

[Thabiguy]

I suppose the other approach to the old "double-your-losses" approach is to make your bankroll "relatively infinite" by minimizing your initial stake (of course, real casinos have a minimum bet, but let's ignore that; and we need to ignore the 0 and 00 outcomes as well). If you bet 1 penny on red, and doubled whenever you lost, you'd probably end up ahead most nights. Assuming the casino has a $1,000 maximum bet, you'd need to get to something like 19 consecutive "reds" or "blacks" before you went bust. The odds against that happening are staggeringly high. Of course, your "guaranteed" winnings would be well below what the casino would be making out of you in drinks etc.

Except that what you propose is a complete and utter waste of time.

If you come in with, say, $1000, and stay until you've either won, say, $10, or lost everything, it doesn't matter whether you bet pennies or dollars. If you restrict the outcome to these two possibilities, then the odds of ending up winning your predetermined amount ($10) and the odds of ending up losing everything remain precisely the same, regardless of how much you bet at any time during the process. (As long as you never place a bet that could result in you leaving with more than the predetermined amount.)

For this reason, betting pennies is no better than betting dollars; it's just slower.

In fact, you would be best off replacing all those mindnumbing hours of betting pennies with a simple and fast martingale with the initial bet directly equal to your target amount. Your odds of ending up ahead will be identical - and you will have a night to spend in a more productive way.

ETA:

Bonus quiz: Target-amount martingale is the fastest if you only bet on red/black, but there are even faster ways. For example, if you come with $1015 and your target amount to win is a modest $29, you can do the entire "night" in a single spin. Do you know how?

 

[Yoink]

Except that what you propose is a complete and utter waste of time.

If you come in with, say, $1000, and stay until you've either won, say, $10, or lost everything, it doesn't matter whether you bet pennies or dollars. If you restrict the outcome to these two possibilities, then the odds of ending up winning your predetermined amount ($10) and the odds of ending up losing everything remain precisely the same, regardless of how much you bet at any time during the process. (As long as you never place a bet that could result in you leaving with more than the predetermined amount.)

For this reason, betting pennies is no better than betting dollars; it's just slower.

In fact, you would be best off replacing all those mindnumbing hours of betting pennies with a simple and fast martingale with the initial bet directly equal to your target amount. Your odds of ending up ahead will be identical - and you will have a night to spend in a more productive way.

ETA:

Bonus quiz: Target-amount martingale is the fastest if you only bet on red/black, but there are even faster ways. For example, if you come with $1015 and your target amount to win is a modest $29, you can do the entire "night" in a single spin. Do you know how?

Er, what does your comment have to do with mine? Where to I talk about quitting at a given maximum? If you bet 1 penny on red on every spin (assuming, as I said, true 50-50odds), and double your bet every time you lose, you'll walk out of the casino ahead of the game. You'll only have earned pennies, of course.

Perhaps you missed the part where I stipulated that this wouldn't work in a real-world casino?

 

[sol invictus]

I don't think that's right.

Well, I think it is. Let's see.

Expectation is not always defined.

Except in impossible cases like infinite bankrolls, I think it is (I'm defining it to mean the average over many instances of playing with the same strategy under the same conditions).

Do you have an example where it isn't defined?

Besides being independent, all the bets need to be about the same size. If they can be of very different sizes, so that a single one of them can outweigh all the others combined, as happens in the doubling strategy, the law of large numbers never gets a chance to start taking effect.

Large bet sizes would simply mean that the fluctuations around the expectation are large, not that the expectation itself doesn't exist.

What do you mean "you're betting $1"? A bunch of bets, each of $1? What happened to doubling your bet whenever you lose?

Sorry, that's what I meant: start at $1, double when you lose, and reset to $1 when you win.

If you double your bet whenever you lose, the only way never to be up is never to win a bet. The probability of that happening is zero, regardless of the house's edge (unless the house has such an edge that it's guaranteed to win every bet).

That's the probability to be up by $1. But that's not what I said. I said the probability to be up by $100 under these circumstances is less than 1 (and in fact quite small if the house has a typical edge).

Was I right? I estimated it crudely, without thinking too hard... but it still sounds right to me. The point is that the expected winnings will go negative linearly with N (number of bets). But the size of a typical fluctuation from the mean is only root N, and the odds go down exponentially for fluctuations larger than that.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

In Las Vegas, if the wheel comes up 0 or 00 and you have bet on red or black (or odd or even), you lose. I don't know if this applies to American casinos outside of Las Vegas.

Thanks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Jagger

There are a variety of tricks the casinos use to prevent mechanical bias. They will rotate dealers (who may use different throwing techniques), change the size of the balls, and (as in the case linked above), reshuffle the tables.

I'm not sure, but I suspect this is rather like the idea that the Coriolis Effect influences which way the toilet water drains. There is a real and measurable force acting on the water, but it is some orders of magnitude lower than all the other forces affecting the way the water drains.

I think the advantage the slight mechanical bias might give someone are swamped by the house's advantage. Plus, as noted, the efforts to mask that bias--swapping wheels, balls, or whatever--would easily make the results truly random for all practical purposes.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

"I've discovered the perfect business: people swarm in, empty their pockets, and scuttle off."
-- Monty Burns