Give me my money!

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Ozzie Osmond

21,189 posts

245 months

Monday 8th October 2012
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coyft said:
As I thought you are confused. The chance of winning 41 consecutive games are indeed practically zero. Have another think up, he played over two days. Let's say he played for 20 hours, 1 minute a hand = 1200 hands. Out of those he won 621 and lost 579. Are the chance of that practically zero?
Quite, but these things need to be kept simple for the internet. And yes, the chances of the outcome you suggested are practically zero, which is why the casino isn't going to pay.

Ozzie Osmond

21,189 posts

245 months

Monday 8th October 2012
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SpeckledJim said:
if you were playing roulette, putting £150k on a single number each spin, you'd only need to be right twice in 20 hands to walk away £8.1m up.
I think you have overlooked the effect of the "table limit". After the first win you have £300k in you hand but are still only allowed to gamble £150k on the next spin. Therefore it takes a very large number of wins to make £8m.

8,100,000 / 150,000 = 54 wins required!

The "table limit" is one of the biggest protections available to a casino. Otherwise they can be readily cleaned out by the simple expedient of "doubling up" and running away when you win.

over_the_hill

3,185 posts

245 months

Monday 8th October 2012
quotequote all
Ozzie Osmond said:
coyft said:
As I thought you are confused. The chance of winning 41 consecutive games are indeed practically zero. Have another think up, he played over two days. Let's say he played for 20 hours, 1 minute a hand = 1200 hands. Out of those he won 621 and lost 579. Are the chance of that practically zero?
Quite, but these things need to be kept simple for the internet. And yes, the chances of the outcome you suggested are practically zero, which is why the casino isn't going to pay.
No It's not.
If you tossed a coin 1200 times getting 621 heads and 579 tails would not be unexpected at all.

over_the_hill

3,185 posts

245 months

Monday 8th October 2012
quotequote all
Ozzie Osmond said:
SpeckledJim said:
if you were playing roulette, putting £150k on a single number each spin, you'd only need to be right twice in 20 hands to walk away £8.1m up.
I think you have overlooked the effect of the "table limit". After the first win you have £300k in you hand but are still only allowed to gamble £150k on the next spin. Therefore it takes a very large number of wins to make £8m.

8,100,000 / 150,000 = 54 wins required!

The "table limit" is one of the biggest protections available to a casino. Otherwise they can be readily cleaned out by the simple expedient of "doubling up" and running away when you win.
Roulette pays 35-1 on a single number win so you get £150k x 35 plus your £150k stake back.
One win and you have £5.25 Mill. + your stake

madala

5,063 posts

197 months

Monday 8th October 2012
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When you look at the maths....being able to punt up to 150k a hand at P.B. his win is not huge over two days.....many a time I have seen runs on either bank or player exceeding eight or ten....but no one is talking at present.

Ozzie Osmond

21,189 posts

245 months

Monday 8th October 2012
quotequote all
over_the_hill said:
Roulette pays 35-1 on a single number win so you get £150k x 35 plus your £150k stake back. One win and you have £5.25 Mill. + your stake
That's right if you're on the single numbers as opposed to making a red/black bet. But the odds are of course massively worse at 1:36 as opposed to a red/black bet at about 50:50.

Can't think of many Roulette tables with a £150k table limit though.


Ozzie Osmond

21,189 posts

245 months

Monday 8th October 2012
quotequote all
over_the_hill said:
Roulette pays 35-1 on a single number win so you get £150k x 35 plus your £150k stake back. One win and you have £5.25 Mill. + your stake
That's right if you're on the single numbers as opposed to making a red/black bet. But the odds are of course massively worse at 1:36 as opposed to a red/black bet at about 50:50.

Can't think of many Roulette tables with a £150k table limit though.


NoNeed

15,137 posts

199 months

Monday 8th October 2012
quotequote all
Ozzie Osmond said:
over_the_hill said:
Roulette pays 35-1 on a single number win so you get £150k x 35 plus your £150k stake back. One win and you have £5.25 Mill. + your stake
That's right if you're on the single numbers as opposed to making a red/black bet. But the odds are of course massively worse at 1:36 as opposed to a red/black bet at about 50:50.

Can't think of many Roulette tables with a £150k table limit though.
You can't think of many or any? I watched a program where some bloke wanted to gamble everything he owned and the stake came to about £150k iirc and even on a red or black gamble it took a long time to find a casino to take the bet and even then I think they only did it becasue it was a TV programme.

In my local casino the biggest is about £300 on a single 35-1 number.



ETA as a regular high roller things change as we seen with the mike ashley losing streak, he was betting £25k on number 23 all night and lost £5 million. I take it that even then £25k was the maximum.

NorthernBoy

12,642 posts

256 months

Monday 8th October 2012
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Ozzie Osmond said:
Quite, but these things need to be kept simple for the internet. And yes, the chances of the outcome you suggested are practically zero, which is why the casino isn't going to pay.
The important figure is the chance of him winning that many, or more, and that is a long way from negligible.


NorthernBoy

12,642 posts

256 months

Monday 8th October 2012
quotequote all
over_the_hill said:
No It's not.
If you tossed a coin 1200 times getting 621 heads and 579 tails would not be unexpected at all.
The odds are even better than that suggests, as he could have that many hands up after 1199, 1198, 1197 etc. and still walk away with the same size prize.

The probability of winning depends on starting stake, too. Go in with a huge pot, and you get a very long random walk before you expect to hit the eventual expected zero.

Ozzie's first calculation effectively assumed a starting pot of 150, (and then ignored thousands of paths where you win a bit, give some back, then win again) which is unlikely to be true.

rogerthefish

1,985 posts

230 months

Monday 8th October 2012
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A little rumour that a certain knighted shop owner on this last weekend did the opposite to Wynns Las Vegas to the tune of $10 mil,not a happy man.

madala

5,063 posts

197 months

Monday 8th October 2012
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Robert Maxwell....he was a manic gambler.....rushing for table to table calling maximum bets....sweat dripping from his face....that was way back then in the "glory" days.

....but that's just a "by the by".....

Edited by madala on Monday 8th October 22:45

Justices

3,681 posts

163 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
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He might have been playing 150k a hand as his regular bet, but very likely he'll have put on a much larger hand when he's had a run on Player or Banker. £500k/£1m/£2m if he was feeling confident and the house allowed it. If not he might have bet 11-1 on pairs or 8-1 on a tie hand a few times along with his bet. It's a very easy game to make a very large amount of cash in a short time if you double up/go all in for a few hands*, assuming you take your steel plumbs to the table and ignore that nagging voice (a.k.a the other half).

Is it a crime if they don't pay out? As stated already, the only way to cheat is with the help of the dealer. The cards come out of the shoe AFTER the bets have been placed so there's no way you can see them and you can't increase your bet once the cards have been drawn. On top of that, the cards are slid out of the shoe and over the surface of the table and are never raised/turned, but the bet would have already been placed. Assuming they are using 8 decks of cards per shoe, they'd be automatically shuffled in front of the client in a private room, I can't see where the scam could take place. Definitely reeks of sour grapes as they wouldn't investigate someone losing all their money, that's for sure.

Send him an invite to Macau, we fold the living daylights out of cards and everything here smile

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/03/14/macau.b...




*Of course, get one of those all-in guesses wrong and off you toddle with the nagging voice feeling rather smug.

ofcorsa

3,527 posts

242 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
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I was under the impression that gambling debt were a civil matter, but with it so heavily regulated I would be suprised if they could get away with this

Jasandjules

69,825 posts

228 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
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ofcorsa said:
I was under the impression that gambling debt were a civil matter, but with it so heavily regulated I would be suprised if they could get away with this
Well I'd love to be involved in the High Court claim for the money!

over_the_hill

3,185 posts

245 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
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NoNeed said:
Ozzie Osmond said:
over_the_hill said:
Roulette pays 35-1 on a single number win so you get £150k x 35 plus your £150k stake back. One win and you have £5.25 Mill. + your stake
That's right if you're on the single numbers as opposed to making a red/black bet. But the odds are of course massively worse at 1:36 as opposed to a red/black bet at about 50:50.

Can't think of many Roulette tables with a £150k table limit though.
You can't think of many or any? I watched a program where some bloke wanted to gamble everything he owned and the stake came to about £150k iirc and even on a red or black gamble it took a long time to find a casino to take the bet and even then I think they only did it becasue it was a TV programme.

In my local casino the biggest is about £300 on a single 35-1 number.



ETA as a regular high roller things change as we seen with the mike ashley losing streak, he was betting £25k on number 23 all night and lost £5 million. I take it that even then £25k was the maximum.
Try walking into a Bookies to put more than a few hundred quid on a straight win and they have to call head office to check if it's OK. (Not that I do but I know people who do.)



NorthernBoy

12,642 posts

256 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
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I just ran a quick simulation of likely outcomes. If he started with an £8m stake, bet £150k per hand, and had a 49% chance of winning (and walked away when £8m up, or when the money ran out), then after playing 2,700 hands, he'd have walked out a winner 82 times in a thousand, a loser 244 times, and still been sitting tehere playing 674 times.

If his starting stake was £1m, he'd fare far worse, as expected. In this case there'd be 26 wins, 968 losses,, and 6 occasions when he's still be playing by the end.

Not knowing punto banko, and how the house's edge was stated up above, but assuming that he's got a 49.4% chance of winning each hand, (50.6% chance of losing, so the house effectively takes 1.2% of the hands automatically, and shares the remainder between themselves and the player randomly), then even with this small stake, he's still got a 5.5% chance of walking out £8m richer, against a 93.5% chance of walking out £1m poorer.

To reiterate, this is based on a quick excel simulation, not on directly solving the distributions, so may be a bit off. The dispersion seems to be around 1%.

SpeckledJim

31,608 posts

252 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
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PH: hehe Brilliant.

NorthernBoy

12,642 posts

256 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
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I've had a chat with my quants about a closed-form solution, but it's not going to be easy to put one together, so I think that the simulations's the best bet for now.

Ozzie's answer above puts me in mind of Einstein's quote, "Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler".

Ozzie Osmond

21,189 posts

245 months

Tuesday 9th October 2012
quotequote all
coyft said:
Just as well Camelot don't take your viewpoint. Sorry mate you can't have your £10m the odds were practically zero, you must have cheated somehow.
Indeed.

But the business which Camelot are running is very different from a Casino. Their model NEEDS big payouts to pull in the suckers who bet £1 at the newsagent and think they can win £100m. They are more likely to die on the way home! Lottery odds are IMO so bad as to be close to criminal.

For each £1 National Lottery ticket the money goes roughly,
  • 50p prizes (paid tax free)
  • 28p good causes
  • 12p gaming duty (12% tax from non-taxpayers is not to be sneezed at!)
  • 5p Camelot (4.5p expenses and 0.5p profit.)
So in other words the government is taking 50% as opposed to, say, 3% in a casino. Stunning. Or as some may prefer to think of it - voluntary taxation. Strictly for the suckers IMO.