The short run is the long run

Now this might seem like a nutty idea but hear me out. Don't shake your head in disbelief or frown in disgust at my rationale for this column. Why? Because I am totally, completely, absolutely right in what I am about to tell you.

Too many gambling writers and Internet ploppies think there is something different in the short run as compared to the long run. They use as their evidence that there are wild hits of numbers and crazy streaks and wacky trends (different words, same idea) in the short run but in the long run these all smooth out so that the actual results start to resemble the mathematical probabilities. This is true, but the conclusions these writers reach because of such streaking are totally false. So you have a true premise but a wrong conclusion.

These ploppies reason that the short run is fundamentally different than the long run, and that a player is therefore free to bet in any idiotic way since they are only experiencing the "here and now" of play. So you can get on and off perceived trends; figure a number will hit that hasn't hit or, conversely, a number will hit again because it just hit a few times or a number is hitting too much so don't bet it anymore because such hitting will soon stop.

That sounds good to some craps-playing folks ... until you look at the supposition closely. So how do we do this? By broadening our viewpoint to take in the entire world of craps play going on right now.

Think about this: You must now bet for every single craps player on planet earth right this second. How do you determine what is or is not the best bet to make? Obviously, you use the math of the game to tell you that such-and-such a bet is the best one. You don't say, "Oh, heck, bet any way you like all you millions of players because it really doesn't matter to your bottom line."

Yes, it does matter to your bottom line. Why would you say and do the wrong thing when you are playing at your table when there is only one right way to play if you were playing for every player on the planet playing right now, this second? If you are smart, you wouldn't play foolishly in the short run for any of these players, so why play foolishly for yourself? Still, so many craps players have fallen victim to the "short run is different than the long run" mantra that they can't see the statistics through the trees.

There are only mathematical formulas that tell you what to bet and what not to bet. You bet the best bets; you avoid the worst bets. That is pure; that is simple. That is also true. The math cannot be dismissed because you are playing in what you think of as the short run.

Does anyone know short run statistics that say, "Uh, in the first 30 rolls, the 10 comes up five times but in the second 30 rolls, the 10 comes up once. But if a 5 comes up three times in a row bet the 5 again because our statistics show that the 5 will come up much more now."

There are no such statistics. Such ideas that the short run is predictable are stupid and sad and yet totally believed in by gamblers who should know better but seemingly never know better. Why they never know better is beyond me. I have seen craps players who have played and lost for decades using their "short-run" systems. Aren't hefty losses enough to warn them that perhaps their play could use a little tweaking?

So how should you look at your betting choices? There is a very simple way to do that. Think of your moment in your game as merely a part of the long run. You are part of the long run the moment you put your first bet down. The long run statistics (that is, probability) tell you how best to play your game. There is NO OTHER WAY to play to maximize your winning potential or keep your losses low.

Why then do players believe in the philosophy that the short run is different than the long run and that they are only playing and betting in the short run and therefore free to bet stupidly? Our minds seem to need patterns and trends to follow. We can't assimilate randomness in our thinking, so when we see streaks and trends we feel an urge to project these streaks and trends into the short-range future. This is a mistake that seems inherent in the human mind -- a mistake that costs gamblers tremendous amounts of money.

Train your mind to see the truth and such truth will set you free from the ridiculousness of short-run thinking. The bottom line is that the short run is the long run ... even if you can't see it happening before your very eyes.