bob Dancer's new column, new question

At what point does a "fair gamble" turn into a "good bet".

With mathematics you can calculate the probability of winning based upon the rules of the game and the number of trials. With a few trials it probability of reaching the EV is low (i.e. with one hand of craps and $100 on the line you will not walk away with $98.60) and luck plays an important part. But as you increase the number of trials, the probability mathematically approaches the target EV and luck no longer plays an important role.

How many coin flips does it take before the probability of getting no more than five heads go from being a "fair gamble" to a "good bet"? 8? 10? 12? 15? 25? 100? 1000? 10,000? I could calculate the probability based upon the number of trials, but that would be too much like work.

It is all fun and games until it becomes work.

Each month I spend $120k to make a $15k return. That is a good bet because I know I have customers to buy what I produce and I know what they are going to pay me. That is a good bet. Everything else is a gamble. Three card monty on the street is not a fair gamble. Video poker machines in a Nevada casino are a fair gamble (assuming they haven't been rigged). Advantage video poker is a way to get more from a fair gamble and cannot promise anything more than that.

I think that sums up my position.

I'll agree with that.

I'll go further to say that the more time you spend at AP (i.e. more hands or trials) the higher the "probability" that your actual results will match the theoretical return of the game. This is just the mathematics of probabilities and how it relates to the number or trials. It is then a personal choice to decide at what probability point that it goes from being a fair gamble to a good bet.

Funny, you should mention this...I am working with a group that wants me to publi$h my reports, pictures, and hot tips, on my own column ,on their web site.

Stay tuned for more details

--Rizzo

this is what we need. a true "local player" playing "real games" with a "real budget" and not the high roller info that most of us cannot relate to or even fathom such as losing 80K to win a 40K car.

The big problem moneyla has is he doesn't understand randomness or simple statistics. He probably never will and will continue to repeat his view of "luck" being an important factor. I wonder what he thinks of polls ... Or, just about any other survey. Maybe his business is too small to bother, but most businesses use statistics to look at trends and ways they should invest in the future.

Guess what, a lot of the statistics they use differs very little from the statistics used to understand VP.

Not only that, but we all take part in statistical chances every day. Every time we get in a car there's a chance someone will smash into us and kill us. Everything we eat could be tainted. Germs are everywhere and every time we touch a door handle walking into a store there's a chance of getting a life threatening disease. We live in a world defined by probabilities.

Are we all just lucky to be alive? Or, are the chances of these bad things happening so small that we really don't have to be "lucky" to avoid them. Same holds true for VP. Winning money in a solid +EV game has nothing to do with luck anymore than getting home unscathed from anywhere we might go is lucky. It simply is what we expect to happen based on the probabilities involved.

Who else thinks moneyla will respond with yet another claim that luck is what counts? What is the probability of that?

Is it luck or is it fate?

Given enough trials.

You play one hand of VP and your outcome is based upon luck.
You drive home drunk from the casino once and arriving safely is based upon luck.

Repeat the above enough times and you results will converge mirror the statistical probabilities.