Treat all winnings as
YOUR hard-earned money
15 September 2000
By Mark Pilarski
Dear Mark,
My friend believes I have a problem gambling
with money that I win. She says I treat it as
"the house's money" and continue to play till I
lose. Is she right? Norma B.
Nowhere is it written-in the U.S. Constitution,
the Talmud or the Nevada Revised Statutes-that
the money you win at any neon carpet joint is
still the property of the casino. Treat all
winnings, Norma, as YOUR hard-earned money.
Dear Mark,
Why does my husband sneer at my slot play? This
from someone who loses a whole lot more at the
crap table. Mary P.
Even though many table game players look down on
slot players, take heart, Mary, and please share
this gambling yarn with your spouse.
There once was a crap shooter whose wife, a slot
player, approached her spouse on a crap game
informing him that she needed more money to play
slots. "What happened to the $100 I gave you?"
he asked? When she replied, "I lost it," he
criticized her for playing slots. "Well I've
been playing for three hours and I'm having lots
of fun," she said. "You've been playing craps
for three hours. How much have you lost?"
"I'm down a few thousand," he said, "but I know
how to gamble!"
Dear Mark,
Is there a difference between Gambler's Ruin and
Gambler's Fallacy? If there is, which affects
the gambler more? Norm S.
They are completely different, Norm. Gambler's
Ruin is the chance of losing all of a stated sum
of money, given a known statistical advantage or
disadvantage on each bet, while attempting to
win a stated sum. Gambler's Fallacy is the
belief that the law of large numbers also
applies to small numbers.
Unless you are a mathematician calculating the
chance of Gambler's Ruin with decimal point
arithmetic, the latter, Gambler's Fallacy,
applies more to the average gambler.
Most players challenge Gambler's Fallacy
erroneously believing that a sequence of events
in a random process-the spin of a roulette
wheel-will represent the essential
characteristics of long-term play even when the
sequence is short. Say black appears nine times
in a row; many gamblers will now wager heavily
on red because it's way overdue.
But just because you have a deviation in one
direction (Black, B, B, B, B, B, B, B, B)
doesn't mean an aberration in the opposite
direction will occur over the short run to
restore balance. Deviations are not 'corrected'
as time goes on, just diluted.
The solution to Gambler's Fallacy is to treat
each spin as an independent event. The roulette
ball has no memory of any past actions.
Dear Mark,
Our senior citizen's group is being offered a
great deal on a bus trip to Atlantic City. Not
only do we get a buffet but also $20 in
quarters. The problem is that I am a small-time
bettor who prefers nickel slot machines. I have
been told that none exist in Atlantic City. Any
suggestions for us conservative gamblers after
our $20 is gone? Betty K.
Nickel machines are an industry staple here in
Nevada, but unfortunately Atlantic City is one
tough market for the low roller. It seems only
"The Donald" (Trump) feels the low-limit
customer is of any value. I suggest you convert
your quarters to nickels and play at either
Trump Marina, Trump Plaza or the Trump Taj Mahal.
Get there early, Betty, as the seats are always
filled by cautious gamblers. The Trump Marina
has only 44 nickel machines, the Plaza 274 and
the Taj Mahal 141. Expect an average return of
86.8 percent.
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