Sortie gambling wins for
now
16 September 2005
By Mark Pilarski
Dear Mark,
Here is one of the best ways for me to win in
craps. I “lay” the four for $100, which gives me
2 to 1 in my favor when the seven hits. I
immediately walk away with my 90 bucks. I have
found this method an easy way to make a quick
$100. Please tell me what you think? Sam Y.
What you are doing, successfully for the moment,
is called "hit-and-run gambling.” This type of
short-term play is a breeding ground for unusual
fluctuations, where the brevity of your gambling
session seems to defy probability, and for now
you keep scoring that quick $90. The casino's
built-in advantage, which they definitely have
on laying the four, appears to be on vacation.
But keep it up, Sam, and you'll find that the
casino's advantage is quite real. It's
predicated on the operation of the "law of
averages" over the long haul, not on Sam’s quick
in-and-out system. Once your $100 is exposed for
an extended time, made up of no matter how many
little chunks, you will drift inescapably into
and under the built-in house edge (albeit
slight) of 2.44% on that particular wager.
Dear Mark,
I'm sad to say I have not joined the 21st
century and own a personal computer. I still
read your column the old fashioned way, in
print. Nevertheless, you have mentioned before
that the way to get better at gambling is using
a computer. I am just starting to be a student
of Texas Hold’em poker. So, what is someone to
do who doesn't own one? Claire M.
Even if the public library computers are ruled
off limits for online gambling (which they
should be), you can still create that poker room
experience with a hand-held video game. These
small hand-held computer games offer one of the
best ways of acquiring gaming skills without the
exposure of a live dollar. Radica has such a
hand-held game called World Poker Tour: No Limit
Texas Hold’Em. Yep, they have banded together
with the number one rated show on the Travel
Channel.
This tournament-style game features fast-paced,
competitive play with up to five virtual
opponents. Each of the five players has their
own distinctive playing style and can be knocked
from the tournament as other players join the
table. Their custom grip design (No; I'm
speaking of the gadget) has a comfortable feel;
the big screen makes viewing easy, even for
those of us with a prescription of 3+, their
batteries last forever, it's a lot of fun to
play, and oh yah, it's cheap!
World Poker Tour: No Limit Texas Hold 'Em
retails for just $19.99 and is a perfect
learning tool for poker fans without computers,
who want to learn from their mistakes at home,
and not from some card shark named Jaws.
Disclosure: I don’t get a cut, nor am I in
cahoots with Radica, but do you think I should
ask?
Dear Mark,
I read your "Sic Bo 101" rundown and I don't
understand one thing. You said that on single
die wagers the game wasn’t worth playing because
the house edge was so high. Are not the odds of
a single number coming up on one of three dice
exactly 50%, in other words, 3 chances out of 6?
What am I missing here? Steve F.
In the single die wager you described, Steve, a
player picks one of six numbers (1-6) that will
appear on one of three dice. What you blanked on
is that there is six sides on each die, which
multiplied by three, create 18 possibilities.
Not three chances out of six.
Gambling Wisdom of the Week: "Everyone holds the
player in contempt, for what person in his right
mind would enter a game he knows he can't beat."
--Barry Meadow, "Blackjack Autumn"
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