Yesterday I saw a nuber of people bet equal amounts of chips on both odd and even at a roulette table, it was then that it dawned on me how stupid some people really are.
I remember from a maths conference they were going through ways 'us mathematicians' can milk average joes for money with a collection of bets that are counter-intuative. Sadly I forgot them all. Does anyone have any? Come on! Let's use our science to treat ourselves once in a while!
Hi Rob:
I have no way of knowing where you saw those bets but I can assure you it is not as strange as you may think. At times in Las Vegas the Hotels will give some guests a number of chips to open their play. I have been given such chips myself so I know. Suppose the house gives you $500.00 in chips that must be played and can not be spent. The one way to assure you will walk away with spenable cash is to play both sides of a bet and walk away with a spenable $250.00 and no risk of losing it all.
You must look a little deeper into your mysteries.
Cheers!
jjw
It gets better than that even. I used to work in a casino and management thought they would offer 10 to 1 odds on six number bets on the roulette table. It was just to be for a day, as a promotion. Without getting into the specifics of how to play it, I'll just point out that with six $10 bets on each spin, anyone could GUARANTEE a profit of either $50 or $120 on every single spin that day.
I wish I had quit and played (it would have been at least $1600 per hour) instead of pointing out the danger in their promotion. They cancelled it.
jjw004,
But this wasn't in a real casino. It was at a hotel staff party where they issued fake money and the one who won the most got a prize. Sorry, I should have specified that.
Well get this: my wife buys a lottery ticket every week! She once blamed me for not having positive thoughts about her winning, but it's not my fault, it's those damned stats courses I had to take.
A state Lottery pays back an average of 5%, a nickel for every dollar input. Half the cash inflow goes to "education" at the start. The Lottery is a voluntary tax upon the stupid.
Work it out yourself. Get a table of pi to 10,000 or a million decimal places. Pick a starting spot. Read off 100 sequential "random" Lottery picks (modulo whatever). Assemble 100 "lucky" picks of your own. Visit a Lottery Web pag and download a month or a year of Lottery results. Let the computer play a few tens of thousands of times. How much did you put in, how much did you get out? Did pi do better than you did?
The worst slots in Las Vegas pay back 90%. Reputable slots near entrances pay back about 95%. If you pace your betting to show sudden disinterest, an electronic slot will toss some money your way.
A statistical fluctuation can make you money. One does better in the long run by playing Vegas and not its games of chance.
Uncle Al! It's not about statistics, it's about negative and positive energy! It's clear to me that you're so full of negative energy, you'll never win that jackpot. The money is repelled! ;-)
I no longer waste my breath discussing probability with her. If she wants to pay a dollar for a cheap thrill, she can have at it. Maybe some of the ejumication moneys can go toward a few stats classes in high school. But I've learned that marriage means sometimes overlooking her dumbass er, stuff, if she overlooks some of mine.