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Gaming Guru
You Can Raise Your Chances of a Long Series of Winning Sessions19 November 1996
My informants usually counter with something like, "It's gotta be more than luck. If someone comes to a casino once or twice a month, the odds of winning for a solid year must be minuscule." It happens. The odds are small but not infinitesimal. And, yes, it's more than just luck. I call it intelligent gambling. Others sometimes call it wise money management. Picture a "fair" even-money game where the house has no edge - like flipping coins. The player has a 50-50 chance on every bet and gets paid 1-1 for a win. Results won't be too much different on real casino games with low house edge. Solid citizens can adjust their chances of successful sessions by changing their win goals relative to the loss limits they'll tolerate. Here's how to find the chance of reaching any win goal in a fair game, starting with a specified loss limit. Get out your calculator, or your pencil and paper, and use the formula: C=(100xL)/(W+L), where C is your chance expressed as a percent, L is your loss limit, and W is your win goal. As an example, a 20-unit loss limit offers 80 percent chance of winning five units, 66.7 percent chance of 10 units, 50 percent chance of 20 units, and 33.3 percent chance of 40 units. The chances of having successful sessions visit after profitable casino visit drop the longer you go. But, modest win goals relative to your loss limits make it feasible. Here are examples of the chance you'll have a year of successive victories with one or two visits per month, for various session win probabilities:
What about real games? Games where the house has an edge? Consider six-deck blackjack with resplitting of pairs and surrender of appropriate hands. Basic strategy and no card counting give the casino roughly 0.3 percent edge. Assume a 40-unit loss limit and 10-unit win goal. Players' chances of winning are 77 percent for any single game, 4.3 percent for a string of 12 and 0.2 percent for a series of 24 successes. These odds are the same as for a fair game with a loss limit of 40 and a win goal of 12 units. The bottom line? You can manipulate the odds of achieving a series of profitable casino visits. How? First, by playing games with low edge, moderate fluctuation, and small or negative skew; next by conservatively setting win goals relative to loss limits. An aggressive bettor, who doesn't mind spending a day's gambling budget to buy a shot at a big score, may triumph spectacularly on occasion but not regularly. Sumner A Ingmark, the Chaucer of chance, summarized the situation succinctly in this insightful stanza about streaks:
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