A friend was telling me that the end of the table covers 12 of the numbers on the wheel and that a 66% chance of winning is probable if two bets are placed on the end of the table.
He says that there are 36 numbers and 24 of the 36 are covered.
This makes no sense to me. I am not a gambler but I know about the green 0 and 00. He then said OK, so it is out of 38 numbers. So the odds have already changed.
I asked about the pay off for those bets and got an answer that did not make sense to me. It seams that the pay off would reduce the odds to no better than the red/black odds.
It has been a loooong time since probability class but it looks to me like a 12/38 plus another 12/38 chance with a 26/38 of loss (one of the 12/38 and the other 12 of 38 being a loss) is actually less than the near 50/50 red/black chance of winning.
I forget the odds on individual games and remember this. There is no combination of bets that will give you even odds.
The house has a certain fixed and limited amount of money to cover losses. The public, which is the actual opponent playing against the house has unlimited resources for all practical purposes. If one individual goes broke, another replaces him with fresh money.
In another thread it was demonstrated that if two gamblers are playing an exactly even game, i.e. 50/50 odds, and one has twice as much money as the other the odds are two to one that the guy with the least money will go broke first.
So we have the house with limited money and the public with unlimited money. What are the odds that the house will go broke first if the game is exactly even?
You guessed it. The house is certain to go broke under those conditions. So the house always adjusts the odds in its favor to prevent its going broke. And it takes a surprisingly small edge in the odds to do the job. In addition to that odds adjustment the house has to make a certain amount each day to cover the overhead. This is covered by another adjustment of odds in favor of the house. And the house has to make a profit for its owners. Sure enough, still a third adjustment in the odds. And finally, just to make sure and cover any possible run of bad luch there is one last adjustment in favor of the house and that gives us the odds that the house offers.
Furthermore, the house has just as good mathematicians as your friend and they watch their results very carefully. If things start to go wrong they look first for cheating and then at the odds, and in either case they fix the problem promptly.
Over the long run you just plain cannot beat the odds and the odds always favor the house.
Yeah. Near 50/50. I think the casino will be happy and go to the bank with their over 5% surcharge on the fun involved. Yeah, yeah, I’m going to need to see those new cover sheets on those TPS reports. Yeah, thanks.
As Einstein said, let everything be as simple as possible, and no more simple. To wit: They did not build Las Vegas by letting you get on a plane with bags full of money. The odds are always against you, unless you are playing poker against other individuals, where the house gets a taste. Other than that, Blackjack provides the best possible odds, provided you understand the possibilities and probabilities of the game. As with all games in Vegas, the biggest shifter of odds away from the player is their ignorance of the probabilities :). Gamble for fun, work for profit! I bid you peace.
I think that what your friend is talking about are the spaces on the table where you can bet on a range of numbers: 1-12, 13-24 and 25-36.
Each of these has a 12/38 chance of winning (assuming that you’ve got 0 and 00 on the wheel), slightly less than 1/3. If you cover two of those spaces your probability of winning is 24/38, better than betting on red or black which both have probabilities of 18/38.
I don’t know the payoff of one of those spaces but I’m pretty sure it’s 2:1 - bet $10 and win, you wind up with $30. You’re betting to triple your money but you’ve got a little less than 1/3 chance of winning and that’s how the house makes its money.
Oh yes, and to prevent the doubling-the-bet-on-loss method from working, and for other reasons, the house puts a limit to the bet size on the tables.
If you use the doubling method you are likely to have a run of good luck which the method requires you to play at the unit bet level. Each time you win you return to a bet of your basic unit.
However you are just as likely to have a run of bad luck and doubling the bet as the method requires rapidly runs you into the table limit and your doubling scheme goes out the window. Sorry about that.
Do people really think that those who operate gambling casinos were born yesterday?
They may have been born yesterday, but they stayed up all night and learned a few things! And finally, the doubling method “The Martingale System” fails to factor the true odds. Flip a coin in the air and have in come up heads 12 times in a row. On the 13th flip, what are the odds of heads again?..you guessed it the ods are always 50/50. Martingale assumes you have to hit the opposite color eventually, but as was pointed out before, you often hit the table limit before fortune smiles upon you. As they say in Vegas, show me a man with a sure fire system and I will show you an easy mark.
I’ve been told (by a statistics professor, so it’s a good source) that your best odds in vegas is to go up to the roulette wheel and bet everything you have on one color (red or black). It’s not quite 50/50 because of the one green space (00) but that’s the closest to 50/50 odds that you are going to get in vegas.
With one “0” on the wheel, the house has a 1/37 advantage right there. With both “0” and “00”, they have a 2/38 i.e.1/19 advantage. About 3 and 5 percent respectively.
OTOH, betting “on the line” at craps gives the house only a 1.41 percent advantage. The figure is even lower, 1.36%, for “don’t pass” bets, but that’s unsportsmanlike
That is referred to as the “Martingale system.” There is a variant on that system in which you double your bet and add a unit when you lose, the “Great Martingale system”
I’d like to provide a link to an article written by Alan Krigman that addresses some common roulette questions. I don’t think the article directly addresses the OP’s situation, but he definitely talks about the idea of different bet combinations in roulette.
I would highly recommend Mr. Krigmans articles (he has a weekly e-newsletter) for those of you who are curious about casino gambling. He is able to cover the mathematics of gambling as well as the human interest side in a way that, in my opinion, makes you a better gambling “consumer”.
This was a debate towards the end of a night of drinking and I am glad my post made as much sense considering.
When one considers the casinos have the benefit of a bazillion samples, they certainly know where to set the odds and know with so many playing that the odds will balance out any good luck runs.
Now that I’m somewhat clearer, it looks to me like there is only a .32 chance of winning. If the odds are 2:1 then one may bet on all three of the places at the end of the table and there is a very good chance of winning but the odds put the better at a break even at best situation not including the 4% chance that the house has when the green 0, and green 00, show up.
Man I wish I better remembered probability. As I recall the math was easy, it was kinda tricky to pick and phrase the proper formula/equasion for a given situation.
Well, hate to say it, but your professor is wrong. Way wrong. Roulette has some of the worse odds at the casino.
In American roulette, the house advantage is 5.26%
Slots vary from 2%-15% (Penny slots set for the worst payouts, higher bets with better payouts)
Craps is often cited as having the best odds in a standard casino game, but it’s not exactly true. A Pass/Come bet has 1.41% odds to the house. Don’t pass/don’t come, 1.36% to the house.
Baccarat also has a house advantage hovering at around 1%.
Blackjack with perfect strategy, the house edge is also just under 1%.
Even Video Poker has a house advantage of under 1%.
One more point: Vegas roulette tables usually have both a double zero and a single zero. Some casinos offer a single zero European-style table, but those are the exception, not the rule. Even if you can find a game on the single zero variant, the house advantage is still 2.7%. (Then there’s variations with “en prison” or “en prison surrender” rules, all of which still keep the house advantage over 1%.)
Blown & Injected, re your last post, I get the impression you’re still unclear on why it’s not necessarily to your advantage even if you have, say, a 64% chance of winning. Let me give you an exaggerated example:
I have a particular game in mind (a made up game, not a casino game) that gives you a 99% chance of winning! Should you play?
The correct answer (assuming you’re in this to win money, and not just for fun) is that it depends. Not enough information is given.
Now what if I told you that it costs $500 to play. If you lose, you lose your $500; if you win, you get your $500 back plus one whole cent!
Now would you play?
I hope it’s pretty clear that you shouldn’t. On average, 99% of the time you play, you’ll win, albeit only a penny. However, that 1% of the time you actually lose, you’ll be down 500 bucks.
In the long run, you would expect to lose per game:
.99 * (.01) + .01 * (-500) = - $4.9901.
Not a very good bet, in spite of the fact that 99% of the time you are a winner.
All of the casino bets are rigged like this, though not necessarily this obviously.
If you change your friend’s last statement to the payoffs are in the favor of the casino, then perhaps his statement makes more sense. He just misspoke, but I completely understand what he’s getting at.
Heck, you can cover ALL your bets on the roulette (even the 0 and 00) table, making your odds of winning 100%. But the money you win will be less than the money you just laid out on the table.
As others have pointed out, your professor is not very knowledgeable about gambling. However, his basic strategical thinking is sound. It is better odds for the player to lay all their money down at once then to divvy it up into smaller portions and play them succesively.
The odds are against you in any casino game (leaving aside card counting). Let’s say there is a bet at even money you win 48% of the time. If you lay your bet down all at once, you have a 48% chance of getting lucky, and you walk away a winner. If you split your money up into 100 smaller bets, you must win more than 50 of those to walk away a winner. The odds of that happening are way below 48%. With only one bet, the house has only one chance to beat you, and there’s a close to even chance you will win. With many bets, the house can “grind” away at you, and it is virtually certain they will win.
(Tangent: The amount of money placed in play is called “action” at a casino. This is actually more important to the casino than the size of any one bet, and it is what the personnell are evaluating when they decide to give you comps. A bettor who only has $1,000, but puts $10,000 in play, is a better deal for the casino than a bettor who has $5,000, but plays it all at once and walks away.)
No that’s not right. If you bet $5,000 in $50 increments you have a 48% chance of winning (although you certainly won’t win $5,000). The way the casino whittles away your bank is by having you turn it over repeatedly. Keep betting that $5,000 and after you’ve turned it over 20 times a 5% hose advantage will have acquired it all.
