Roulette
I'm going to be near a casino on Saturday. The last time I was in a casino, I put some money on black (thanks to your suggestions), won, and walked out. Simple.
I started thinking through the whole roulette strategy. With pretty high confidence you can win any amount you want as long as you have the bankroll to stay in. Here's how:
Let's start with $100 so we end up winning $100. Bet on either black or red. There are 18 of each color plus 2 green spots (0 and 00) which is where the house gains the advantage. The payout for a red/black bet is even money but the odds of winning are only around 47% (18/38.) Every time you lose, you double your bet and repeat. As soon as you win, you quit, and you'll end up with $100. Here's an example.
- Bet $100. Lose. Total expenditure: $100
- Bet $200. Lose. Total expenditure: $300
- Bet $400. Lose. Total expenditure: $700
- Bet $800. Win. Payout is $1600. Total expenditure: $1500
You just made $100. The odds of losing that bet four times in a row are only 5.03%. Obviously you can keep going beyond that and improving your odds but it gets expensive. Therein lies the catch. You have to have the bankroll and it assumes that the casino will give you an infinite betting limit. Once you hit that limit and you're still losing then you're in big trouble.This is known as the Maringale strategy.
But do I have the guts to try it? I think I'd pass out if I had $800 on a single spin. Maybe I'll try it with $10.
Plus now that the 2008 World Series of Poker has started up on ESPN, I'm getting the poker bug again. I need to enter a real tournament one of these days.
PS. If the math behind this post didn't make sense, you might want to check out this post that also talks about roulette. Plus I love the picture in the post so I want to link to it again.