h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A608104

Nice article, I didn't play beforehand, but I certainly won't start now.
How about a little section on cheating - If its possible? If it exists?. Can the house push the odds even further in their favour?

Even if only in passing, it's worth mentioning the '00' used in US casinos to increase the house's edge from 2.7% to 5.2%.

You might also want to add something about Farmer and Packard's successful foray into using a wearable computer to calculate the ball's path so as to increase the odds in their favour.

There's also a design flaw in the way roulette wheels are constructed which it may be possible to take advantage of. The deflectors and pocket frets don't influence the ball's path quite enough to make a roll totally random, and skilled/consistent dealers can stack the odds in favour of a particular sector either consciously or unconsciously, which can be exploited at a busy table.

Thanks for you comments, gents.

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How about a little section on cheating - If its possible? If it exists?. Can the house push the odds even further in their favour?
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I think the consequences of being found out are a big deterrent. Also, pushing the odds more in their favour would mean essentially increasing the hit-rate of the "0", but if the bias is significant enough to increase their income it would be significant enough to be spotted by players, who would promptly pile their money on the "0", and turn the casino's gain into a loss.

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Even if only in passing, it's worth mentioning the '00' used in US casinos
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Well, I alluded to it in passing by referring to a "European (not American) wheel". I didn't think it merited more than that. It just means American casinos are greedier than European ones.

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You might also want to add something about Farmer and Packard's successful foray into using a wearable computer to calculate the ball's path so as to increase the odds in their favour.
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I think you're referring to the "wheel-clockers". I can't remember whether they actually made any money with it, but they were stopped, and casinos are on the look-out now for similar pranks.

As for accidental bias in the wheel, I have to doubt that dealers would ever be skillful enough to exploit it. It would require an accuracy in execution that even the world's best darts players haven't got. And the advantage is always with the player, as I said in my answer to Whisky's question. The player chooses the bet, not the casino, and they are just as good as any dealer at spotting a bias. I also suspect that casinos replace their wheels long before they're actually worn out for this very reason. By the time the bias shows up, i'ts too late for anyone to exploit it, because the wheel is retired.

I didn't include any of this diversionary stuff in the article, because I wanted to keep the focus on the delusions of players. There is something called the "gambler's fallacy", acknowledged by a fair fraction of roulette players (and vehemently denied by the rest), which is the fallacy of thinking that you can predict future behaviour from past results, e.g. if a coin goes heads ten times in a row, the chances of heads again on the eleventh throw are no longer 50/50, but either something more or something less, depending on which guru you're talking to. What I was trying to reveal was a much bigger fallacy, which is the fallacy of thinking that progression-systems have any effect on the final oucome. All they do is move the peas around the plate.

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Thanks for all the extra info, you seem to really know your stuff, are you an ex-casino employee or founder member of gamblers anonymous?

There was a semi-interesting book called "The Newtonian Casino". Some American students designed a computer which fit into the player's shoe. The player tapped a toe-operated switch every time the ball passed a particular mark. The computer radioed predictions to another player who placed the bets. The designers claimed this gave them a marginal edge which would allow them to turn the odds very slightly in their favour. Unfortunately the computer was so dodgy that they only got it to work once or twice. Using such a computer is not illegal (at least in America), but will get you thrown out of the casino if it is detected. The casinos set their own rules for what they consider acceptable and will evict anyone if they think they have a working system.

A fine entry. Very clearly explained.

I agree with every word, but feel that the "system" is done a slight injustice. If you had a limitless amount of money and there was no celing on the bets, then you could keep playing until you reached the point when luck dominated and you gained. This is not a violation of the stats, but simply an example of the fact that you choose when to say "enough". The linear "system" is useful for this because it helps you keep track of whether you are ahead or not.

If you re-ran your analysis with the 'theoretical' situation of no celing (but say with a player choosing not to start again if there were less than 50 spins left - to avoid end-effects), I would bet 37:18 that they would come out ahead (by a very little). It is just that you would need a "pot" well in excess of a thousand times what you wanted to win.

Ugi

PS
You can win ten coin tosses in a row, or you can lose ten - a variation of 0-100%, often done, often seen (only seen once in every 1024, I guess)

Gnomon, in case you're thinking of doing it, using a computer in a casino is *very* illegal in the US. Since 1985, merely being found in possession of any device capable of assisting in calculating the odds while inside a licensed gaming establishment in Nevada is a category B felony. This yields a fine of up to $10,000 and/or 1 to 6 years for a first offence, and the jail time becomes mandatory for a second offence. New Jersey has similarly draconian legislation.

From Whisky
Thanks for all the extra info, you seem to really know your stuff, are you an ex-casino employee or founder member of gamblers anonymous?

Neither - just a computer programmer who'd like to make some money. What I've said about real casinos doesn't apply to internet casinos. Their wheels are not real wheels, of course, but software-driven sequences, and are beatable in principle. Trying to crack the system means gathering the data, and that means playing. So my research has cost me a few quid. I reckon I need about ten thousand spins for my program to work on, and I'm about half way there. After that, if I'm right, it's just a question how much I can win off them before they close me down.

From Ugi:
I...feel that the "system" is done a slight injustice. If you had a limitless amount of money and there was no celing on the bets, then you could keep playing until you reached the point when luck dominated and you gained.

Yes, of course, with limitless amounts of money, and no casino ceiling, you could stand an infinite run against you. In practice, the world record for a run of colours is 27, I think, so your infinite bank could handle that comfortably, and trump it with the 28th spin. Unfortunately your bank isn't infinite, and there is always a casino ceiling.


Your PS implies that ten-in-a-row happening once in every 1024 tries doesn't count as "often". The Hamburg daily run is about 350 spins, enough to ensure that a run of ten colours happens once every three days or so. Any roulette player would tell that that counts as "often", especially if it cost you a couple of thousand bucks every time it happened.

Hi Ketman,

So, given that it is the celing, rather than the system that makes you lose, you don't think this should be mentioned? I realise that in practice there is always one, but I feel it is the impression that you can go on for long enough to be "bound to win one" that makes the system tempting. Clearly you will never be allowed to bet 270 million times what you hope to win.

My PS merely indicated that I could never be bothered to "toss a coin" 1000 times & so had not often seen 10 heads or tails in a row.

With or without the above, this is clearly an entry in great shape.

Ugi

Ugi, you're pushing me into a corner on this. But I've gone back and re-written the end of the relevant paragraph, as follows:

What players do, or all except a few lunatics, is impose their own limit - a "stop-loss" - abandoning a progression at, say, 64, and starting again at 1. So, in practice, a system like this is not open-ended. The stop-loss is part of the system, and a system's profitability obviously depends on winnings from progressions that succeed outweighing losses from progressions that fail.

That should do it. One point: do you think this should have been done in GuideML? The table looks a bit rickety in plain text, but I don't know if it would look better in the other format. I'm new to h2g2 and I'm still finding my way around.

I've got my own variation on the Martingale system, but as I don't gamble, I've never tried it

As I see it, the main problem with the system as it stands is that however far into the progression you get you'll always end up with the same return. Wouldn't it work better if instead of doubling the stake each time you lost, you multiplied it by 2.1? That way the worse your losing streak, the greater your return.

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As I see it, the main problem with the system as it stands is that however far into the progression you get you'll always end up with the same return.
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No, that isn't the main problem with the system. The fact that it gives a modest return when it succeeds is no problem at all. It is the monster amount that it costs you when it fails that is the problem.

Yes, that is a problem, but it's basically the same problem: the loss is huge relative to the potential return for each sequence.

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Peer Review' to 'Why you Lose at Roulette'.

This thread has been moved out of the Peer Review Forum because your entry has now been recommended for the Edited Guide.

You can find out what will happen to your entry here: http://www.h2g2.com/SubEditors-Process

Congratulations!

weyhay

Crikey, those editors get here fast! Still, if I sat around all day staring at h2g2 and got paid for it, maybe I would work as hard!

Anyway, I'm the scout who recommended this entry - well done, it's worthy to be in the guide!

I've also known about some simple stats with roulette, which is why this one caught my eye.

Congrats again.
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