![]() Newsletter Signup
Stay informed with the
NEW Casino City Times newsletter! Recent Articles
Best of Alan Krigman
|
Gaming Guru
Know What You Can and Can't Control in the Casino23 January 2002
This doesn't mean that folks filing into their favorite punting palaces must rely purely on luck, fate, secret systems mailed to their homes in plain brown wrappers, or the prognostications of their 1-900-PSYCHIC advisors. Over an extended gambling career, edge will come to dominate an individual's performance. But the time or number of rounds involved, depending on the particular game, can be indeed lengthy. Certainly longer than a specific casino sojourn or even years of regular visits. In the context of a single session, day trip, weekend, or vacation, players are more concerned with the likelihood that, given a definite bankroll, a) they won't go bust during the normal downswings of a game, and b) they'll reach a profit level they consider worth the risk they took. Here, players have a lot of control. Edge is certainly a factor, and gamblers can choose games and sometimes the way they play to trim this element to the bone. Bet sizing relative to bankroll is also a consideration, as are quitting criteria and whether or how wagers are varied during the course of the action. In some games, players can also influence session characteristics by balancing the probabilities of winning and the corresponding payoffs. Roulette offers the opportunity to do so without changing the edge or the amount placed at risk during a spin. Say you're at a double-zero roulette table. You have a $350 bankroll. You'd like to double your money or, failing to do so, get a two-hour ride for it. The accompanying list shows six ways you could bet the same $10 total per spin, giving the chance of winning and the net payoff for success.
The next table shows that by spreading your $10 over more numbers, getting a better chance of a smaller hit, the likelihood decreases that you'll double your money but it increases that you'll survive the fluctuations of a two-hour session.
Consider the day of reckoning, Recent Articles
Best of Alan Krigman
Alan Krigman |
Alan Krigman |