Exit Strategy

Fellow LVA'ers,

as always, good to talk with you all.  I've a read few gambling books now, "20/20 sports betting", "Whale Hunt in the desert" and almost done with "Gambling Wizards".  All great reads.  Been playing for 30 years.  Seems like each of these gamblers on this site and in these books all have their own point where they walk away.  Just wanted to know if there is statisical strategy for walking away.  Say you are playing $1.00 10X VP.  You get ahead $700.00, seems like take the money and run.  But more the play the math works in the casino's favor.  Didn't know if some have 20% more than bankroll and take a break or loss of 10-15% of bankroll and walk away.  Seems like the best strategy is to walk away when you are ahead and take a break and come back. 

thanks for your input.

Dave

Whether you are ahead or behind during any given session isn't relevant. Think of your life as one long session. Does it really matter whether you're ahead or behind today? No. The arbitrary division of that lifelong session into days, or weeks, or hours, or whatever is just that--arbitrary.

You should stop playing a bad game NOW and continue playing a good game as long as you can still play it well. And obviously, you should stop playing any game if and when you no longer want to play it. That's it!

You can also set trip or session bankroll limits if your true goal is to have as much fun as possible and not go broke no matter what. But even then, there's no set point where it's optimal to stop other than, if you exhaust your session bankroll, you quit playing until it's time for the next session.

But again, if you're playing a winnng game, stopping at some arbitrary point costs money, and if you're playing a losing game, every minute you continue to play loses money. That's the primary consideration.

Thanks kevin,

great point "But again, if you're playing a winnng game, stopping at some arbitrary point costs money, and if you're playing a losing game, every minute you continue to play loses money. That's the primary consideration." 

preping for another trip to vegas.  My strategy in playing sportsbook, video poker and craps has allowed me to walk away with winnings for the past 4 trips.  Love this site and this forum.

Dave

Uh, no. Your "strategy" had nothing to do with it. You were lucky. You also could have played well, which would increase the magnitude of your wins and decreased the magnitude of your losses, but the primary determinant of your aggregate results was random chance. You could easily have played the exact same games the exact same way for the exact same amount of time and walked away a loser.

Keep in mind that "Quit while you're ahead" is utterly meaningless if you intend to play again sometime in your life. Ypu're not quitting; what you're actually doing is pausing, and it doesn't really matter if that pause is for six seconds or six months.

I'll repeat myself and then stop beating this dead horse: it's a concept I somehow always have trouble getting across. Expected value is all that matters--NOT RESULTS. If I put a $100 bill on Even at a roulette table, and I win, that doesn't make me a savvy gambler (nor does it make me an idiot). What I just did is pay five dollars and twenty-six cents to play roulette for half a minute. The fact that it's impossible for me to actually lose exactly $5.26 scrambles many people's brains.

Results in the short term are irrelevant--only expectation matters, because you can't control results. Your job as a skilled gambler is to maximize expectation and IGNORE short-term results.

That's what the casino does! Do you think they care if they lose today?