FIVE years ago, Londoner Ashley Revell sold his house, all his possessions and cashed in his life savings. It raised £76,840. He flew to Las Vegas, headed to the roulette table and put it all on red.
The wheel was spun. The crowd held its breath as the ball slowed, bounced four or five times, and finally settled on number seven. Red seven.
Revell’s bet was a straight gamble: double or nothing. But when Edward Thorp, a mathematics student at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, went to the same casino some 40 years previously, he knew pretty well where the ball was going to land. He walked away with a profit, took it to the racecourse, the basketball court and the stock market, and became a multimillionaire. He wasn’t on a lucky streak, he was using his knowledge of mathematics to understand, and beat, the odds.
No one can predict the future, but the powers of probability can help. Armed with this knowledge, a high-school mathematics education and £50, I headed off to find out how Thorp, and others like him, have used mathematics to beat the system. Just how much money could probability make me?
New Scientist (thanks, SuZi)
There’s systems, methods, such as “the Martingala” (I only know the spanish word for it) where you double each time you lose and continue with the same colour….
However, there’s variables…..and that doesn’t work the percentage of times stadistics usually say……Or at least, the player doesn’t have all the money that requires folowing a method one throwing after another….
I don’t know much about probability but if you understand every single “throw” as an individual, every single time is a new one, with the same number of odds, right!?
There’s more factors that might affect your chances, such as the croupier (some might have a way of throwing the ball that lands more often here or there….) or the fact that roulettes are expensive, so quite a few of them are worn out and slightly bended…. enough to see results over a dozens of throws….
One more thing, European roulette has more chances of winning, as the American has 38 coloured numbers (one more than its euro-version)
When will be able to see your results!!???
Omar
Sounds Interesting… but I’m not allowed to gamble, I lose all sense of perspective and reality if I do and could probably bankrupt myself in minutes!!
If it really would help that much then why are there not winning so much more people I’d say?
What are the odds .. I hear a lot of people say … they never say this when it is about bad luck … that’s very logic .. that it happens to you … makes sense to people .. but winning the lottery or such .. nah … then they come up with hit by lightning and such …
There’s one truth as far as I am considered .. if you dont participate you will never winn .. that is a fact … and if you enter you run the risk of loosing money .. or winning some … fact .. Make sure that you can afford to loose it and will not regret loosing it too much … And ofcourse .. be able to stop at a certain point … It’s as with being famous .. stop with working when you are still famous …
Tons have tried to use math on lotteries as well … ehehehe .. but the patterns keep changing …
How things will be in the casino .. I don’t know .. never go there .. it does not really appeal to me I have to say . I prefer buying a lottery ticket each month.. and dream a little .. I never think I can’t winn. It’s just as likely that I winn as it is for the winners. Lots of things have happend in my life which you would not expect to happen either (good and bad things) but they did happen anyhow ..
It just does not reason …
Being psychic helps … tuning into to those who are behind the pc’s when the winning numbers are being drawn … and start filling their system with your money guide … so that they will pass it on to the pc … ehehehe … Rubbish ofcourse, but hey .. my shot is just as good as any when it comes to lotteries.
Okay, buying a lot of tickets will give you a much bigger chance of winning something ofcourse ….
Gambling does not trigger something inside of me, therefor they wont see me in the casino. I dont contain the drive to bring me there, nor do I see towards being in the casino as something I would really like.
And math was not my favorite thing either, so that will not improve my visit to a casino.
I dont believe math will improve it that much in most gambling .. depends on the game ofcourse. I would not call it math by the way …
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Roulette is not a fifty/fifty bet because of the 0 and 00 green spaces, it has negative expectancy, and it is therefore impossible to make a profit over a large sample, The best card counters in the world can maybe get a 2 percent edge which would require a huge bankroll to make a very high variance return. Poker and sports betting are probably the only forms of gambling in which a knowledge of probability can help the punter to have a positive expectation.
one3two6 is right – the 0 and 00 tip the odds in favour of the casino. I used that technique myself in Vegas, although I\’d never actually heard it anywhere else, i.e. I came up with it myself. It worked for me – I quadrupled my money – but if I played for long enough, I\’d slowly be increasing my chances of ending up losing.
Also, my technique was slightly different. When I lost, I\’d double my next bet. However, when I was winning, I\’d put my profit on the numbers from Lost (using 32 instead of 42). Every time my money reached a multiple of what I started with ($20), I made that my baseline, i.e. once I was on $40, I considered $35 to be a $5 loss, and $45 to be a %5 profit, etc. Once I got to around $90 I said that if I ever went down to $80, I\’d walk away. Which i did.
what people don’t seem to realize about Roulette is that every spin is separate from the next and/or previous.
This means if four reds come up in a row another red is just as probable as a black being spun next.
Casinos know that the human mind unconsciously looks for patterns and thus puts the numbers/colors that have come up for our viewing pleasure to trick you into thinking that you can somehow guess the next number/color coming up.
It is very Lottery Numbers Interesting. But I’m not allowed to gamble, I lose all sense of perspective and reality if I do and could probably bankrupt myself in minutes!!
I must it is all about luck.If you want to win this one,All the luck gods should be with you.
hi im a big roulette player from uk i travel over the uk and vegas regularly there is no system to guarantee success but i use the formula of covering half the numbers and bett around 200 quid per spin spread on the numbers sometimes you win big sometimes you lose big a senior dealer once told me than croupiers are taught to aim for the o because not many people bet on it as it isnt a date or birthday so its out of mostt peoples lucky numbers but its my favourite always betting lots on it if you read this derren il be willing to give you 5 k for the roulette bet stack em high bleed them dry good luck fri ill be watching and hoping for 0 29 32 or 7 or your favourite 22 thats derrens roulette number cheers