
What's luck got to do with it? The math of gambling - badcarl
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327202.600-whats-luck-got-to-do-with-it-the-math-of-gambling.html
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jamesk2
Your odds of hitting on Red or Black is not 50/50. It is 47.37%. The ball can
land on green. If you don't get your money back, it's a loss.

<http://wizardofodds.com/roulette>

Most games at Casinos are stacked against you. They have very smart math and
stats geeks who've figured all this out. Try counting by yourself with a 6
deck shoe. Or even a single deck is hard because they reshuffle after 2-3
hands.

One interesting thing from the article. Picking unpopular combinations of
numbers can offer less competition in large jackpots. i.e. adjacent numbers
23-24-25, etc... because people mistakenly believe that's less likey to happen
than totally random numbers.

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charlesju
The odds of hitting red or black is 50/50, green doesn't factor into those
odds. You're adding up the odds of red or black out of all possible outcomes,
not just the outcome in a perfect world of just red or black.

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bdittmer
You're slicing hairs here, was this really necessary?

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charlesju
I'm defending the context of the article.

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gchpaco
Oh gawd, not the Martingale again. (do not do this. The modern expression is
"The market can stay irrational for longer than you can stay liquid") At least
arbitrage across bookies is reasonably safe. And I like the "marriage problem"
concept.

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calcnerd256
What happens if someone tries to run two Martingale systems (of opposite
colors) at the same time?

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mynameishere
What happens if somebody shorts two inverse levereged ETFs at the same time?

[http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=DIG&t=2y&l=off&z...](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=DIG&t=2y&l=off&z=l&q=l&c=dug)

[Warning: Doing the above features similar dangers as a Martingale system.]

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briancooley
Most casino table games have a betting cap, so you can't run martingale on
them anyway.

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jvdh
This is a duplicate of: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=755833>

