
Monte Carlo methods – Why it's a bad idea to go to the casino - whereistimbo
https://easylang.online/apps/tutorial_mcarlo.html
======
55555
It's more complicated (worse) than this. That the house has a small edge only
tells a small part of the story.

When people go to vegas for a weekend, they might have a number in their head
they are willing to gamble. If they dont, then that number is their bank
account balance. Then they start flipping coins, and often they keep doing
this until they go bust. They rarely cash out when up but they always lose
when they go bust. They scale the bets as their bankroll grows. Essentially
they are flipping coins for infinite time and just waiting to get a bunch of
tails in a row, which is inevitable. The behavioral factors are bigger than
the house edge.

The idea that people are rational is also absurd. Some people are driving to
the slots _because_ they are depressed. Or they are there for fun but they
lose a bunch of hands in a row and tilt and now they're betting everything on
a longshot to win it all back and win some because they dont want to self-
identify as a 'loser'.

You can only spend so much money on drugs and sex. Gambling is the only vice
where you can lose billions. And these days, all you have to do is pull out
your phone to place a trade or a bet.

~~~
noego
You hit the nail on the head. If you simply play the pass-line and free-odds
on craps, the house edge is extremely small. And yet, most people lose far
more than predicted by the odds. The problem is exactly as you stated - people
don't have a defined exit-strategy, and their implicit exit-strategy is to
keep playing till they lose everything. Which is guaranteed to happen 100% of
the time even if the house-edge was 0.

An approach that I've found to be useful, and have personally used in Vegas:

\- Always start off each session with a fixed $X in chips, even if you're
flush from previous winnings

\- If at any point during the session, you get to $2X or $0 in chips, end the
session immediately and cash out everything. Even if you're on a "hot streak"

\- Bet large enough that you will get to $2X or $0 in a short/moderate period
of time. The longer your session drags on, the lower the likelihood of getting
to $2X

\- Once a session has ended, have a cooling off period. Eg, no further
gambling until after the next show/meal

If done right, gambling can actually be extremely cheap. With a house-edge of
0.5%, you can gamble $10,000 and only lose $50 on average. This makes it far
cheaper (and more exciting) than eating out or going to shows.

 _The usual disclaimers still apply: only gamble what you can accept losing,
no more_

~~~
arisAlexis
Can you explain what you feel playing a game that will always make you lose
money no matter the strategies and anything else? Very curious

~~~
michaelt
I've never been to a 'proper' casino, but I've seen a few in James Bond films.

Everyone is attractive, powerful and sophisticated. People look on, impressed
at his daring. Everyone has a bow tie on. Beautiful women hand him free drinks
with a smile. The atmosphere isn't even slightly tinged with the desperation
and regret of gambling addicts.

I can understand losing $50 a day to live out that fiction.

I have no idea whether any casinos offer that experience - the gambling things
I've seen in my country have all been far more tawdry.

~~~
mcguire
The people in casinos are usually senior citizens carrying their oxygen tanks
between slot machines.

~~~
Buttons840
And the slot machines are online ads incarnate.

~~~
rdiddly
I think of them as video games that are really simple, weird and boring.

------
roenxi
I have a pet peeve about Monte Carlo methods; although it might be more fairly
characterised as a rookie mistake I saw once.

MCM are not strong if the tail variance isn't an important feature of what is
being modeled. I've seen simulations where the modeler starts with an analytic
model - from which they could trivially calculate the mean and variance of a
KPI - then used a MCM simulation to find out essentially what the mean and
variance of the KPI.

So I get that this code is just for illustrative, educational purposes. That
is fine. Well done Christof, thanks for the contribution to education. But if
anyone is actually using MCM to simulate well known probability distributions
they should really put the effort in to learning how to work with well known
probability distributions. I feel pretty confident that simulating the
Bernoulli in a professional setting is a mistake, because I've seen it done
and it was a mistake. For amateurs who aren't confident with math then they
can use MCM if they like; but statistics is dangerous and they should be aware
that they are using the wrong tool for the job and it is a tell they will get
other things wrong. You get a lot of insight from a good analytic model.

If there is some interesting tail issue (eg, maybe after 3 heads there is
guaranteed to be a tails and your insurance contract pays out on a tails) then
sure, use MCM. Great tool if you have the right problem.

~~~
petermcneeley
Really dependents on your philosophy. Would you rather do error propagation
using this method
[http://lectureonline.cl.msu.edu/~mmp/labs/error/e2.htm](http://lectureonline.cl.msu.edu/~mmp/labs/error/e2.htm)

or would you rather perturbate your variables and resolve mean and variance.
My philosophy drives me towards the computational approach over the analytical
mathematical approach.

~~~
roenxi
Are you sure there is even a philosophical difference there? I'm still going
to use a program to do the heavy lifting of calculating the errors. I'm happy
to argue that there is no philosophical difference; if both approaches are
feasible and take comparable amount of time to implement then one gets the
exact answer to the question at hand and the other is a poor man's shortcut
for people who aren't confident in their maths skills.

The calculations should be arriving at the same numbers in the end, and
implementing a simulation vs. an error propagation tree isn't going to favour
the simulation for simple scenarios.

MCM is great for when doing usual error propagation is infeasible. It is
sloppy when the error propagation could be done with a one or two analytic
formula. Simulation isn't appropriate for problems that are easy analytically.
For example, in practice, most of the examples in the article are not suitable
problems for breaking out MCM (and although the author probably knows that,
maybe not everyone on HN does). The Pi one might be a standard application,
but even there Pi in particular is not a great choice for a showcase because
Pi has some very nice analytic approximations.

~~~
alexgmcm
I think the value is in checking assumptions - if the analytical approach
assumes a normal distribution and then you do MCM and get a vastly different
result then it is probably worth checking the assumptions made by the
analytical model.

~~~
roenxi
That is an inappropriate way of checking your assumptions. Assuming a normal
is assuming a model (a model is a simplification of a situation by only
considering the relative parts). Writing a simulation is _also_ assuming a
model, although the process is a lot less formal than traditional statistical
regression.

If a modeler has assumed two different models of a situation and are getting
vastly different results then that is evidence something is wrong, but it is
also evidence that the modeler is out of their depth. It is not appropriate to
fit two different models and then claim that the differences are delivering
insight. The differences are revealing big gaps in the modelers understanding
of key influences, rendering both models highly suspect. They should not be
creating models, they should be putting more time into understanding the thing
they are modeling.

There are times when a modeler would have two different models, but they
should certainly not be surprised that they give different results. Indeed,
they should be assuming two different models because they are going to give
completely different results. There will probably be other edge cases, but in
my experience they are rarer than people just making mistakes about where MCM
is appropriate.

------
TBurette
A while ago I wrote a similar interactive article to prove that the martingale
betting technique at the roulette doesn't work : [1]. The martingale is when
you bet 1, double the bet each time you lose, start again at 1 when you win.

The aim was to create a single page anybody could link to that proves without
a doubt the abysmal odds of making money off the roulette with the martingale
technique. Instead of pre-written probabilities, charts and 'obscure
complicated math' that people could easily dismiss. I wanted to give people
the ability to run simulations of playing at the casino in the browser. The
idea being that people would end up building the probabilities/charts
themselves through simulations.

It is running Monte Carlo simulations inside the webpage and outputs the
result as charts dynamically using js and D3. What it does is it repeatedly
simulates going to a casino with a certain starting amount of money and an
objective of how much you want to win. It then plays the roulette using the
martingale technique until you got your target winnings or you lost your
money.

Unfortunately I don't think I wrote the article really well and the 'generate
yourself the charts proving it doesn't work' doesn't come across really well.
I should have put a 'run' button instead of needing a page refresh for a
start.

[1]
[http://thomasburette.com/martingale/](http://thomasburette.com/martingale/)

~~~
mongol
Theoretically I learned it works, but only if you have unlimited funds.

~~~
dorgo
Wait, what could you win if you already have unlimited funds?

~~~
mongol
1 dollar, an unlimited number of times.

------
learnstats2
My experience of going to high-end casinos, mostly in London, is that:

\- Many players were plainly cheating in some way, by marking cards and
sometimes colluding with the dealer, but the casino didn't appear to mind
because they were cheating in an ineffective way and still losing money to the
house edge.

\- (Related: you would just be banned if you won an amount of money that
showed you were beating the house edge: see also the Phil Ivey lawsuit)

\- Some players were gambling large sums of money generally on games with a
small house edge, and looked bored like they were there to do a job. I assume
from their behaviour they were laundering money.

~~~
matwood
European casinos I have found to be boring compared to American casinos. A
craps game in an American casino can get raucous in a good, exciting way. Even
more so at a 'cheap' American casino.

Contrast this when I was at the Monte Carlo casino in Monaco where they
somehow sucked the fun out of craps.

~~~
learnstats2
Las Vegas-type casinos are definitely selling entertainment.

European casinos seem to be selling something else.

------
arsenide
I work on Monte Carlo simulations professionally for casino slot games.

I wish that more depth was presented here: what percentage of the time do you
get favorable vs unfavorable outcomes with each strategy? For further depth,
use different types of players (with different exiting conditions).

Perhaps I should write such a blog post at some time..

~~~
dang
That post would probably be of interest to a lot of HN readers. If you want,
we can look over a draft if you send it to hn@ycombinator.com. Sometimes we
can make suggestions that improve an article's appeal to this crowd.

Same offer goes for anyone else who's putting a lot of work into a post they
hope will interest HN.

~~~
arsenide
Thanks dang. I may very well take you up on this offer.

------
oldandtired
When I was 8, I spent 6 months in hospital and that was over 50 years ago. Not
much to do, so my parents made sure I had lots of puzzle books of all kinds as
well as story books. One of those books had a chapter on gambing, which I
found interesting, it was written for children. It made the claim that as long
as the "bank" had a significant value greater than your own (by at least 10
times), you could not win against them even if the odds were 50:50. As the
decades have gone by, I followed this up with other research and basically,
gambling is a mugs games if you are not the bank.

Yes, you can at times win and come out ahead. But on the whole, you will lose.
My father's advice has always been: "Son, treat it as entertaiment and spend
only what you can afford to lose like every other form of entertainment. If
you think you can win, you be the fool and will lose more than you can
afford." I have also found that gambling institutions are so depressing a
venue to be in.

------
trymas
I am even more impressed by the `easylang`[0] itself, which was used to create
the demo.

[0] [https://easylang.online/ide/](https://easylang.online/ide/)

------
lanrh1836
Blackjack on the strip has become a boiling frog of sorts. Everytime I go back
the rules are tweaked a little more in the house’s favor.

3:2 payouts for Blackjack were gone years ago, but more recently no even money
for Blackjack if dealer shows an Ace, only split once for two Aces...not worth
it at that point.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
In the handful of times I've been into casinos here in the UK I've always just
stuck to the Blackjack table (I used to play it with my grandma for buttons
when I was a kid). Every time I've walked away with more money than I started
with. My biggest profit was over £500.

The one and only time I was convinced to give roulette a try I lost everything
pretty quickly (I mean the small pot I'd set aside for gambling - I'm not
stupid enough to keep withdrawing money and bet more than I can afford).

Seems blackjack can be pretty lucrative if you're willing to walk away at the
right moment. I seriously doubt it would work as any kind of long term
strategy, however. Of course you also have to have the discipline to spend the
rest of the night drinking beer and watching your friends get poorer and
poorer.

------
WalterBright
Investing: Return on Investment > 0

Gambling: Return on Investment < 0

For the casinos, it's an investment, for the customers, it's gambling.

~~~
denormalfloat
Perhaps we could combine the two? Make a slot machine that pays out in penny-
stocks, rather than chips.

~~~
WalterBright
We call them "online brokers" :-)

------
kai101
I have similar simulation 10 years back written in C, no fancy description but
understand how casino works.

Similar conclusion, once u win enough, you leave; once you lose enough, you
leave. Never bring your whole bank account to a casino, or the figures will be
move closer to 0.

------
jaimex2
If you go to a casino play poker with other humans. Nothing else is worth your
time.

~~~
soVeryTired
Even poker in a casino probably isn't worth it unless your opponents are
obviously drunk or bad players. After the rake and the dealer tip, there's a
good chance your edge is zero or negative.

~~~
AlexandrB
I read parent as saying that playing poker with others is the most
entertaining way to spend your time at the casino, since he didn't mention
money.

------
listenallyall
This article should be down-voted, the only reason it isn't is due to the
clickbaity nature of discussing casino games. It's a terrible initial
introduction to Monte Carlo simulations, he doesn't even discuss the
possibility of seeing the distributions of the results of the games he
proposes, which is essentially the most valuable reason to perform a Monte
Carlo simulation.

~~~
screaminghawk
If you read it instead as an advertisement for easylang.online it's a pretty
nice introduction for the language

~~~
listenallyall
...and if the headline was "Learn to Program in easylang.online" it never
would have sniffed the front page of HN

~~~
chkas
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19299760](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19299760)

~~~
listenallyall
another clickbaity headline, confirming my point

------
slewis
Great article showing how easy it is to experiment with probability using
Monte Carlo methods. You don’t need any fancy libraries or deep mathematical
knowledge.

Of course you should always try to have a deeper understanding if you want to
make serious conclusions. But I felt this article got the concept across
really concisely! Nice work.

------
refrigerator
For people interested in applying Monte Carlo methods, here are some tools
that make it easy:

\- Causal: [https://causal.app](https://causal.app) (I'm working on this, web
app)

\- Guesstimate: [https://getguesstimate.com](https://getguesstimate.com) (no
longer in development but very cool, web app)

\- Palisade @RISK: [https://palisade.com/risk](https://palisade.com/risk)
(Excel plugin)

\- GoldSim: [https://goldsim.com](https://goldsim.com) (very technical,
desktop app)

------
spaceflunky
It's (relatively) easy to show the math on why casino games are impossible to
win, but what about sports betting? Does the house always have the advantage?
Perhaps it's slightly better for the gamer?

FWIW I was looking a betting website recently [0] and they were offering
DOUBLE your initial deposit for signing-up, up to $1000. So to reiterate, they
are willing to give up to $1000 for FREE just for creating an account. All I
can imagine is that they would only do this if the numbers are vastly not in
your favor.

[0] I'm not going to post the name of said website.

~~~
OscarCunningham
>Does the house always have the advantage?

The mathematics doesn't really matter because if you find a systematic way of
winning then they just ban you.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
So... yes?

------
TazeTSchnitzel
The language they're using seems to pretty much be BASIC with slightly
different syntax, it even lacks user-defined parameters for functions just
like BASIC does.

~~~
chkas
There are user defined functions with parameters and locals.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Why have subroutines then?

~~~
chkas
Subroutines have a global namespace - this is easier to understand. Functions
with parameters and local variables allow longer and recursive programs.

------
blunte
If you want to really know why you shouldn't gamble (for profit... gambling
for fun, with discipline, can be satisfying), read this quintessential book:

Scarne’s Complete Guide to Gambling

What you will probably take away from this book is that the house wins when
you win. And the reason they win is that they don't pay actual odds.

Take the roulette wheel as a simple example. There are 37 (or 38 in the case
of 0 and 00 wheels) slots. If you bet on a single number, they pay 36:1.

TFA mentioned doubling down when you lose. That's known as the Martingale
Strategy. As banks and real estate lenders discovered in 2007, regardless of
your model, there will be some condition where the near-impossible will
happen.

If you want to use the roulette wheel again as an example, and even if you
want to ignore the green 0/00 slots, you have half black and half red. You can
simply play one color and double your bet if you lose... until you finally win
it all back.

The problem there is that while it's true that for millions of spins, about
half should land black and half should land red... but in short periods it is
possible for there to be 10 or 15 or 20 or more spins of the same color. We
can all do exponential growth, so it's easy to see how doubling down will
empty your wallet eventually.

But just to be sure that strategy won't work, most casinos will set a table
limit. That limit will be designed to prevent you from doubling your bet too
many times (5-7ish times? depends on the place). Of course, if you discuss in
advance with the casino, you may be able to set a personal table limit based
on your initial bet. So you can bet 1 million on the first spin in order to
set your table limit to 1 million. But that's truly a gamble.

There is one element you can control when gambling: that is when you increase
or decrease your bets, and ultimately when you stop playing.

Yes, you can count cards in blackjack; but that's generally frowned upon
(where "frowned" means you will be escorted out and told to never return --
and they are very serious). Even levels of indirection of counting such as
employed by the fascinating experience of the MIT crews of yore
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Blackjack_Team](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Blackjack_Team))
have become obvious. So the short of it is, unless you only play a little, bet
big, and get lucky for your limited period (and then stop so you don't get
banned), you will otherwise lose more than you win.

Now for my personal opinion :). Casinos used to be a fun place. Now they are
so optimized and commercial that they are like Walmart. Yes you can go, but
you'd probably rather not. For modern thrills, we now have crypto exchanges
with 50:1 or more leverage.

~~~
dagenix
From what I've read, casinos are perfectly happy to let you count cards in
blackjack. The advantage you get is so small, that even a few mistakes per
hour means you'll lose a bunch of money. It's only if you count cards and win
that you get kicked out.

~~~
chimeracoder
> From what I've read, casinos are perfectly happy to let you count cards in
> blackjack. The advantage you get is so small, that even a few mistakes per
> hour means you'll lose a bunch of money. It's only if you count cards and
> win that you get kicked out.

It's not that the advantage is small (if it were, the MIT team would never
have been so successful in the first place). It's that most people who try
aren't good enough to do it well, so the casino is happy to let them try (and
fail), thereby making money for the casino.

~~~
TylerE
It's also worth noting that the MIT teams (and successors) stopped circa 2000.
Times have changed. Casinos are much more on top of what's going on on the
floor.

------
IngoBlechschmid
The Python examples are delightful! If you input them at

[https://www.speicherleck.de/iblech/zufall-im-
browser/index.e...](https://www.speicherleck.de/iblech/zufall-im-
browser/index.en.html)

(with slight modifications), then you get continuously-updated histograms of
the results.

------
potatote
I do not have a lot of background on statistics. Hoping someone here could
explain why in Roulette game, although the apparent chances of getting number
between 0-18 (inclusive) and 19-36 (inclusive) are the same, we lose money if
we keep playing more and more numbers of games.

~~~
obenn
The 0 does not count as a lower number. There at 18 numbers in both the groups
1-18 and 19-36. Each of these give a 18/37 chance of winning, which is lower
than 50% and therefore loses in the long run when the money is being doubled
on a win.

~~~
potatote
Ah...I see. I am not much of a gambler either, so this is a very useful piece
to know why Roulette gambling, in the long run, turns negative for the
gambler. Thank you.

------
blt
The subtitle made me expect something about a failure mode of MC methods in
some popular application...

------
nurettin
I made an effort to download previous draws form my local lotto website [1]
And parsed them and applied a montecarlo method to see:

1\. If I could find an optimal way of playing the game to maximize my profits.

2\. If I could find a bias towards certain numbers.

The result was:

1\. I found a way with 1/3 chance of winning big and paying back all expenses
you played for the past 20 years. It is a significant investment and everyone
will think you are crazy, but you have a very high chance of early retirement.

2\. I found no obvious difference between the frequency of numbers.

The idea is to spread your betting numbers as far apart as possible in order
to follow the normal distribution. If you reduce the overall gap between your
numbers, your chances of winning is significantly reduced.

[1]
[http://www.millipiyango.gov.tr/sonuclar/_cs_superloto.php](http://www.millipiyango.gov.tr/sonuclar/_cs_superloto.php)

~~~
kaoD
If you found no difference on number frequency, it's the uniform distribution,
not normal (a.k.a. gaussian) distribution.

AFAIK uniform distribution means any number is equally likely to be drawn,
regardless of distance to your other picks.

Just to check if I got that right: does that mean that playing 333333 and
666666 in a 6 digits lottery had a higher chance of winning that picking
333333 and 333334? If so, why? And, since playing more numbers will reduce the
overall gap. Does that mean the optimal strategy is playing a single number?

Did you test your method via simulation? I can't see how it works with my
little knowledge of statistics. Can someone chime in?

~~~
nurettin
Yes, I meant uniform distribution. My method was to give it a higher chance to
have a lower gap between the numbers to see if it would make a difference
within a montecarlo simulation and it did. So if you have say 16 slots and you
need to choose four numbers, according to my simulation, highest likelyhood of
winning is to spread out your numbers like [3 6 9 12] or [4 7 10 13] and
lowest likelyhood of winning is to spread like [1 2 3 4] [2 3 4 5] all the
time.

Not exactly sure why.

~~~
kaoD
Huh, that's unexpected. I'll try to reproduce it, thanks!

~~~
nurettin
Would love to hear about it!

------
paulcarroty
It's absolutely obviously for people who know the basics of Probability
theory. Not sure if modern high schools covers it now.

But it's only a part of the problem. Second part - money and gaming easily can
be addictive like drugs.

~~~
doomjunky
Everything that makes your brain feel good, can be addictive.

Not the drugs are addictive, feeling good is.

~~~
TremendousJudge
Yes, that's what psychological addiction is. Make no mistake though, chemical
addiction is very real. Alcohol withdrawals can be fatal

------
dalore
This actually taught me that the losing strategies win more often then we
thought.

I got positive 2 our 4 times for the single 13 choice.

And for the strategy to double your bet to cover your loss actually worked for
me!

Day 1: $10870 Day 2: $12980 Day 3: $10630 Day 4: $8190 Day 5: $7560 Day 6:
$9100 Day 7: $9090 Day 8: $10130 Day 9: $12080 Day 10: $12870 Day 11: $12910
Day 12: $14110 Day 13: $15450 Day 14: $15030 Day 15: $15500 Day 16: $14230 Day
17: $13700 Day 18: $11190 Day 19: $12250 Day 20: $14190 Day 21: $16070 Day 22:
$12880 Day 23: $12820 Day 24: $11480 Day 25: $12470 Day 26: $14920 Day 27:
$9940 Day 28: $10240 Day 29: $9020 Day 30: $10740 Day 31: $12600 Day 32:
$14880 Day 33: $17220 Day 34: $15700 Day 35: $17920 Day 36: $18150 Day 37:
$14080 Day 38: $16150 Day 39: $18140 Day 40: $19960 Day 41: $20000
\-------------

------
mateo411
The American roulette wheel has 38 slots, which include a zero and a double
zero. The French roulette wheel has 37 slots. The house edge on the french
wheel is half of what it is on the American wheel.

------
arisAlexis
I am very surprised that this is something that needs to be said in a hacker
news site? Would there be community members here that don't understand basic
arithmetic and stats?

------
joyjoyjoy
How about the lottery? If the Megamillions jackpot is, lets say 500 MM, your
changes are not higher to win it, but more is paid out in that drawing than
paid in.

------
stibba
From personal experience: this is absolutely true. There is this csgo gambling
scene on the internet. It's basically betting with real money but masked as a
value of weapon skins. I have made some idiotic decisions in the past
regarding these websites and I still regret it a ton. The problem really is
that these websites also allow people of any age to gamble with their weapon
skins (aka money), and it's fairly easy to buy new skins with actual money.

What's interesting though is that it's easy to observe a ton of gamblers for a
long time. And since there is usually also a chat, interacting is also
possible. These sites usually have 14 numbers for roulette where 1-7 is red
and 8-14 is black, 0 is green which gives 14x your bet. Red and black give you
2x.

If you observe enough gamblers long enough (which I did), you see the same
pattern over and over and over again. It goes like this: 1\. Gambler starts
out with a random amount of money (could be high or low). 2\. Gambler wins big
(usually like 1-3 times on green) 3\. Gambler feels lucky and gives out money
to 'passive' beggars* in the chat. ( Sometimes I would feel bad for the
gamblers and hint them in the chat that they should cash out, no one ever
listened ) 4\. Gambler continues and might win some more, or lose some but not
all. 5\. Gambler has been betting for such a long time that he/she is back at
where he/she started. ( Beggars keep begging but gambler says he is down so
doesn't give out money right now ) 6\. Gambler suddenly wins big on green
again (or went all in) and feels like a king again. 7\. Now Gambler cashes out
(by buying a skin) the money with which they started and continues with what
his/her leftovers. 8\. Gambler loses the leftover money on the website. 9\.
Gambler deposits the skin that was previously withdrawn again. 10\. Gambler
loses everything now and the beggars focus on a different big gambler. 11\.
Gambler usually comes back within a week or month and loses more money. 12\.
The cycle continues.

* People, usually kids, that lost their (usually small amount of) money earlier and our now cheering for some big gamblers so these gamblers might send them money on the website.

I personally also lost a (for me) quite big amount of money on these sites
over a decent period of time. Later, I was able to sort of stop my addiction
and I made a bot which predicted random results (red/black/green) in the chat.
It got me like 30 dollars of tips from people that had probably used the bot
but the website changed some things so my bot stopped working and I have been
too lazy to fix it.

Last thing: I also kept some stats of the roulette because I had to know the
timing of the roulette so my bot wouldn't predict if it was already rolling. I
added an extra feature for myself so I could see how many times red/black and
green were rolled and how many times my bot got the predictions right.
Obviously this always ended up in a big loss for my bot (in terms of
predictions, I did not bet money with my bot) in the long term.

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wavefunction
Blackjack has been a source of success for me though I'm unconventional in my
betting strategy which seems to enrage the other players even when I break the
dealer consistently.

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phkahler
Dont they kick you out if you're consistently winning?

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forbiddenvoid
Not necessarily. Casinos will kick you out for a particular set of behaviors.
Just winning isn't enough.

Playing a minimum bet for a long time, then suddenly increasing to the max
near the last half of a shoe is a good way to get a casino to ask you to stop
playing blackjack.

