Anybody want to tell me what I am talking about anyway?

[Carl]

I have started a quest, and am now deeply enbroiled in "Search Engine Hell".

It all started innocently enough, though I would find out a little more about the roulette system I described for Glen under his "Progressive Betting" thread. And now I find that

Thought one -----O.K., so the "system" for roulette I described under Glen's progressive thread is probably not called a Ponzi.

Mr. Ponzi was a "gentleman" who used to defraud investors by using the money of later investors to pay off earlier investors. The most common applications of his ideas today are chain letters and Multilevel Marketing. Many people liken Social Security to a "Ponzi".

Thought two----- NEVER hit a search button for "roulette systems". The people on these lists pay up to a $1.42 a hit, and your screen will be flooded with boxes to close out for at least the next 15 minutes.

Thought three----- My little pocket calculator figures the odds of black coming up 20 times in a row (i.e. the chances of a 50% bet losing 20 plays in a row) at .0000009. This means it should happen once every million or so times? Help please smarter people.

Regardless, I will persevere. Thanks Glen, interesting topic.

later,
Carl

[Glen]

Carl,

Listen to this...Now this is really sick. I just typed in "progressive wagering" into my Sherlock on my Mac at work. It is a real strong internet search tool. Can you guess what the first thing listed?

Something titled...
100% Free Anal Sex Pics

No joke!!! Hope there is no true correlation between progressive wagering and the above...

[MikeDee]

I think I saw it somewhere and now I don't remember and can't find it, but it was someting like if you have a win% of say 30% how long of a losing streak is possible but still be within your 30% win rate. As I recall you could have a real long losing streak and still be within your 30% overall win rate. Maybe someone has this and can post it.

Anyway it seems pretty much anything will work for some period of time. It is just a matter of getting lucky and hitting it at the right time. But will it work over the long haul, very few things do.

[Glen]

Other links it came up with...

http://www.casinocity.com/Krigman/Strategy/COL605.cfm


http://professionalgambler.com/phony.html

http://www.dmtc.com/chat/quinn.html

http://www.letstalkwinning.com/winalert_Feb22_2001.htm

http://twoplustwo.com/digests/oct97_msg.html

[Dr.Larry]

Carl,

>>My little pocket calculator figures the odds of black coming up 20 times in a row (i.e. the chances of a 50% bet losing 20 plays in a row) at .0000009. This means it should happen once every million <<

The mathematical percentages are theoretical. People seem to think that the odds of
a streak happening is referring to a streak that they will see while they are in
action. Roulette wheels are spinning and dice are rolling all over the world right now. The odds of some number, 15, 20 etc in a row is a mathematical description
of all of these events, not the events you are following in your small place in
our planet. I have over the years seen College kids in the Casinos ready to win
money with systems that I played with as a teenager. I have also seen many
a poor soul at Baccarat start to progress on the Bank after the Bank lost 10 or
more hands. The Bank was "due"

I have great respect for Glen. He is one of the best I have seen. Main problem is
that he is forced to play small. When you figure all the hours involved in waiting to
make his bets, he is risking money and working for practically nothing. If he raises his bets to a meaningful level, then a bad streak or short payoffs will sink him.

Please excuse my being so negative. Maybe this post will save someone time
and money.

[hurrikane]

I think Glen had something from an old pub that had number of consecutive loses on 1 mil bets. At 30% I think it was something like 42 loses in a row.

Carl,
The reason casinos have maximum bets on all the tables is specifically to erase any advantage progressive betting would give you. Pools use to bet progressive and the casinos were getting killed...they did thier homework and figured out how many progessions they could allow and still keep thier advantage...

I'm guessing the mutual system takes care of this by the odds adjusting as the bets get bigger.

[Carl]

O.K.,

The roulette system I was thinking of was a Martingale, which requires you to double up your bets after each loss, the idea being that when you finally win one you will win back all your money plus the one unit you started with.

Nice discussion of same and related progressive systems at
http://www.thewizardofodds.com/game/scam.html

I think Glen is doing something different.

later,
Carl

[Carl]

And a nice couple of paragraphs from one of Glen's articles about how streaks "happen more than we think they should (Dr. Larry's point also I believe).

From Alan Krigman:
===========================
I'll use baccarat to illustrate the players' perspective. Baccarat buffs believe in streaks so strongly they keep track of results on little scorecards. The principal bets in this game, "player" and "banker", each win close to half of all decisions. The chance of a run of 10 winning player or banker hands in a row is a modest one out of 512. However, in 500 rounds, the chance of at least one such streak exceeds one out of five. A solid citizen could easily play 500 rounds during a casino visit, and therefore wouldn't find a 10-hand streak unusual. A frequent player would think such phenomena dominate the game, having seen them often.

A roulette example shows how some casino executives view streaks. In a year, a busy table might log 350,000 spins. Say the casino uses a fancy computer system to monitor and analyze such a table, for fear that if the wheel is somehow biased, certain players will be able to "clock" and exploit the effect.

One day, the computer detects the ball landing in one of the 19 numbers on half the wheel 20 times in a row. Goons are dispatched to close the game. As fate would have it, a player with a progressive wagering strategy and a system for covering half the wheel got to the table at the onset of this series, bet the right segment, and was making a mint. The casino bosses were sure they were being bamboozled. They knew the chance of any arbitrary half of the wheel winning 20 times in a row is a low one out of 524,288. They didn't realize that in 350,000 spins, the chance of at least one run in which any selected set of 19 numbers will win or lose 20 times in a row is a high two out of 13.
====================

later,
Carl

[Bruce]

Think of a baseball team playing .250 ball (something like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays).
That's a respectable percentage for hitting horses (assuming you're not playing all chalk), but the Devil Rays could lose 10 in a row or more several times in a season, even 15 in a row.

bruce