Patterns count

2 June 2015

By Frank Scoblete

Human beings are pattern-finding creatures. Indeed, understanding nature concerns picking up on patterns and projecting them into the future. Doing so often saves our lives. Daniel walks by the lions’ den and gets eaten. Paul walks by the lions’ den and gets eaten.

Are you going to walk by the lions’ den? I am guessing not.

Little Timmy feels the warm glow of the fire on this cold night in the frigid mountains. Oh, it is so nice. He says to his sister Susie, “Come on, let’s put our hands in the fire. I’ll bet it will feel great on this cold night in these frigid mountains.” Susie hesitates while Timmy plunges his right hand into the flames. Once Susie sees Timmy screaming in agony with his hand blistering with third-degree burns, do you think Susie will plunge her hand right in as well? I am guessing not.

Almost all science is based on pattern-finding. For something to usually hold true in scientific circles, other scientists have to be able to duplicate the pattern first discovered. Science wishes to be able to make accurate predictions. So does your doctor. They want diseases they know the patterns for, not diseases with which they are totally unfamiliar.

Gamblers want to discover patterns as well. Unfortunately, when it comes to random games, there are no accurate predictive patterns that can work to give players an edge over the casino -- that’s why the games are random.

Still, there are types of patterns that do exist even in random games -- not winning patterns, but patterns of what I call “random behavior.” Yes, these “random behaviors” are betting methods, although not methods that change the nature of the game or of how much you will win or, rather, lose over time. Betting based on “random behaviors” merely changes the pattern of your wins and losses.

Let me use roulette as my first example. If you bet directly on an inside number, the house edge on a double-zero wheel is 5.26 percent. If you bet on an outside even-money bet such as Red/Black the house edge is 5.26 percent. No difference. Given enough time your losses on the inside and the outside will be the same or just about the same.

However, the pattern on any given session will be different. Betting the inside number directly gives you 37 ways to lose and only one way to win. You will have long losing streaks with a burst every so often. Many a session you might not win a single spin!

Betting the outside even-money bets will cause a different pattern. Since you will lose 10 times and win 9 times, you will find that the game is closer in terms of wins and losses. You’ll win a few, lose a few, and so on. Of course, you are only being paid even-money, not the 35-to-1 you’re paid on a winning inside bet. Still, many gamblers would prefer the pattern of back-and-forth to the pattern of long losing streaks before a big hit.

Yes, of course, a player could sit down at a table, hit an immediate inside number and be catapulted into heaven. That will happen, on average, once every 38 sittings. If you are a roulette player you have to decide what type of “random behavior” you’d prefer to wager on.

The same holds true for craps. If you bet the Pass Line or Come bets, you will win 244 times and lose 251 times for a house edge of 1.41 percent. Your patterns on these bets will be similar to the pattern of the outside even-money bets at roulette. You will win some, lose some and go back and forth.

However, if you choose to bet what my mentor the late Captain of Craps called the Crazy Crapper bets in the middle of the table, you are looking at a “random behavior” similar to the inside numbers at roulette. If you bet on Boxcars (the 12) you have one way to win and 35 ways to lose. Such betting will give you long losing streaks with an occasional hit that usually pays 30-to-1.

Placing the numbers 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 10 will give you a pattern somewhere between Pass/Come bets and Crazy Crapper bets. Again, as the player you have to decide what kind of “random behavior” you’re comfortable with.

Baccarat and mini-baccarat give you the back-and-forth “random behavior” of the outside numbers in roulette and the Pass/Come bets at craps. The Tie bet gives you more of the long-wait “random behavior.”

It is clear that while randomness determines your long-term expectation, how you bet determines what type of pattern this randomness exhibits. I prefer the back-and-forth betting pattern. You might prefer the big hits but long losing streaks pattern.

The bottom line is that over time the casino will win the house edge -- but how the casino does that changes based on the types of bets you make. I guess you can say it is the same destination arrived at by different methods.

For those of you who go to the casinos for a day every so often, I’m guessing that the back-and-forth would be more fun on any given trip because you will get to enjoy some wins. The long losing streaks could just make your day at the casino a horror.