Is the casino math of craps really that important?

[DeadCat]

I was HOPING that he would explain his "Dice Pattern" conspiracy somewhere in there. I continued becaise so much of it sounded so familiar and finished because I was worried about that guy.



-DC

[Mad Professor]

Hi Little Joe,

Do you mean that we have to pay extra for finding and exploiting those infamous SuperHarley/RickHorn "Fight-Night" dice?


MP

[DeadCat]

Little Joe-

You must have missed the part where he describes how the conspiracy made him jobless and homeless and how he practices "explosive takeoffs" on his bicycle to escape the many hit men that are following him. Yes, it's crazy but so close to what we have been hearing from others we know, I thought maybe I should read it. It may be kooky but it does offer an insight into the crooked casino theorists' minds.

Sadly I think this guy believes everythingnhe has written, just like the guys we know who are of the same faith.


-DC

[heavy]

Of Math and Money. Great little thread from about six years ago. Is the casino's math really that important when it comes to craps? Let's hear your opinion with examples. I'll start out with a question of my own:

Let's say you have $50 each on the five and nine. The seven rolls and you lose both bets - $100 total. What was the vig on that loss?

[skasower]

Heavy,
I read the thread and it is interesting but it strikes me that it does not matter. Here is why. Starting with your $100 loss. If your Bone Tracker tests consistently point to a higher number of 5s and 9s than probable random tosses, then when you lost it still does not make it a bad bet. You just lost 100% of your bet so who cares what the vig is? Now, only if you are a random roller, then the MP discussions of the math make perfect sense. Now, you have to place bets more in line with minimizing vigs, and increasing probabilities over the array of possible outcomes. With such an approach I am going to call this the MP's slow acting poison to your bankroll. You may spend less of your bet on vigs when you win, but when one loses, vig does not matter, it is a 100% loss.

My hope is that I can overcome probabilities somewhat through DI with consistency. Otherwise, I am convinced that the MP is spot on with his analyses. Minimizing the vig is like investing in low fee mutual funds...you make more money over time with lower administrative fees. However, in craps, unless you are a consistent and strong DI, the vig does not matter, you will lose your bankroll over time.

skasower...aka...probably missed the main points everyone was driving at here!

[House of Orange]

Of Math and Money. Great little thread from about six years ago. Is the casino's math really that important when it comes to craps? Let's hear your opinion with examples. I'll start out with a question of my own:

Let's say you have $50 each on the five and nine. The seven rolls and you lose both bets - $100 total. What was the vig on that loss?

If the 5 & 9 were bought, vig on win, the casino made $5. In Vegas, the casino made $10.
Come to think of it, with a $50 five or nine paying $73, in MS, the casino only made $4.

[heavy]

Man, you guys are making my brain hurt on a relatively simple question. I did not ask how much the casino made. I asked what the vig was on a losing bet. Nor did I say these were Buy bets, which are the exception and not the norm. Especially if the house collects the juice on a win and not up front. The answer to the question is simple - there IS no vig on a losing bet. You just lost the bet. The vig is extracted on a win. The housed edge on the five and nine is 4%. That 4% is the difference in true odds and what they pay you. The casino makes its money by paying you less than true odds.

[Irukanji]

So if you know the answer, why are you asking the question?

[Operator]

My side my side that was funny irukanji

[skasower]

You guys don't remember school. The professor always asks the questions and the professor always knows the answer. I am suspecting Mr. Irukanji drove the professors crazy! Professor Heavy was staging a test. We are at best getting D's in this class. Although, I thought my answer was at least a C-.

Skasower

[stratocasterman]

It sure is for the casino...

[mainframe]

Again, I go back to the slot play comparison. A little old lady risks $50/wk on slots. Most of the time she loses some if not all, some time she wins some. One day, the slots gods smile on her and she hits a $3000 jackpot. If she does not change the way and the level at which she plays, she may never be a "net loser." Though the likelihood that she'll draw down on that $3000 jackpot is quite high.

The longer you play, the more obdurate the math becomes. Unfortunately, most craps players believe the longer you play, the more "experienced" and "knowledgeable" you become and that "knowledge" and "experience" can overcome the math. THAT is really the gambler's fallacy.

So I have a few comments on Irish's gems of wisdom above (and I mean that with all sincerity).

Re: Old lady who plays $50/week on slots and wins a $3,000 jackpot. Irish: when you say "She may never be a net loser", is that because she is unlikely to *live* long enough to burn through that $3,000 win? Beacuse if she played a mere 60 weeks at $50/week always playing the 50 session bankroll to run, she will have burned through all $3,000 in winnings in five years:)

re: "The longer you play, the more obdurate the math becomes". This is what I have alluded to in past posts as the "law of large numbers".
The more you wager over time, the closer the results will be to the mathematical expected value of any given wager.

I don't know many habitual gamblers, who over the course of their lifetimes, stuck to a single low EV bet such as a "passline" bet, or a "banker bet" in baccarat.
Most people who gamble with any regularity, even people who eventually become card counters or die influencers, have wagered ALOT on different bets with different more negative EVs over the course of their lifetime. Many of the bets people have placed at some point in their gambling careers had really bad EVs, making it even true that in the long run, the house always wins.

If you view your gambling as one long "lifetime" session of all money wagered on all games of chance over the course of your lifetime, the likelihood that on the day you die, you have won more than you have lost at gambling is very low.

Here are the scenarios I can think of where a person ends their time on earth as a "net winner" at negative expectation games:

Scenario 1: The person rarely gambled at all over the course of their life. The exceptionally few times that they wagered money at a game of chance, they happened to win the wagers, and then walked away. Basically, someone who is not a habitual gambler, who played small and won small, and then died.

Scenario 2: The person was a habitual gambler for relatively small stakes who happened to score a single tremendous win such as winning a state lottery (when the jackpot pool had become very large) or winning a very large jackpot on a progressive slot machine. Their lifetime losses from all other gambling happens to be less than the net from the single large jackpot win.

Other than the two aforementioned cases, the law of large numbers overcomes short term variance over the course of everyone's life for people who gamble with any regularity.

[mainframe]

The only problem with this whole hypothetical situation re: the old lady with a seperate gambling account and $3000 in winnings, and a $50 session bankroll that she doesn't "play to extinction" every weekend is this: Maybe this scenario where she "won some" and "lost some" on a 50 session bankroll may have worked in the 1970s when they still had mechanical slot machines and the per spin wager was a single quarter. But have you ever looked at modern circa 2018 slot machine? You can burn through $50 in no time flat!