Topic: Dooglus "AMA" - page 4. (Read 2895 times)

The problem with this is that while most of your players will play until they lose, one of them will never go below zero.  He will win enough that he'll never run out of funds, and the positive edge you've given him will allow him to use basic bankroll management techniques to safely keep playing for bigger and bigger stakes until he breaks you.

This guy was playing on Just-Dice today, betting at 90% chance to win (generally a pretty bad idea) and winning.  Notice his profit at no point went negative.



Now imagine he was playing with a significant positive expectation...


I don't know the term.  What's pre-funding?  And what figure?

Thanks. I have to reconsider this. I was assuming people are more likely to let things ride until their bankroll's out, at which point they're unable to recover, even if it's EV+. The premise is that gamblers have already written off what they gamble, and should they be up, they'll continue gambling, but if they're down, they'll also continue gambling. Compared to the average user, the casino has an unlimited bank roll. They can wait out the user until luck turns against them for a while and wipes their relatively tiny bankroll out (assuming it eventually does, which is almost guaranteed, especially with high stakes where it takes far fewer bets to wipe the player out). JD doesn't do pre-funding (AFAIK), but that figure's enough to make me assume I'm wrong.

Someone have a simulator to help me fully realize I'm wrong? I dunno how to create the formula for doing this quickly. 1,000 users have a $1,000 bankroll and must make 1,000 $25 bets with a 51% chance of 2x return, 49% chance of 0x return. The casino has an unlimited bankroll. The casino only loses if someone cashes out their winnings, which in this simulator, requires someone to make 1,000 $25 bets without their bankroll ever hitting $0. They get to keep whatever's left at the end of that.

There must be some site in the existence of the internet that has tried to fight the math and done a +EV game.  haha.

actually, +EV games happen in land casinos.  Not intended of course, but usually due to some math error combined with game rules/dealer error (and perhaps some unscrupulousness on the players part).  There are a lot of APs (advantage players) who try to find these games and take advantage of them before the casinos find out.  This was how Phil Ivey won the amount away from the casinos playing baccarat.  Edge sorting.

This itself is a fallacy.  It doesn't matter why people play, or what they're thinking.  In a game with a 2% edge the house will average 2% profit on turnover in the long run(*).  Even if every player played until they bust, that doesn't change anything.  Some would get to play though their deposit more than 50 times over before busting, and some less.  On average they'd play through 50 times and so lose 2% of their total wagered amount.


Because that makes no sense at all.  In a game of no skill, psychology plays no part.  Actual returns approach expected returns over the long run.  Offer a +EV no-skill game and quickly go bust.

(*) I know, Just-Dice has a 1% edge but only 0.33% profit.  That's because "the long run" is longer than you think.

Kluge, you seem to be a senior member here, but you really do have to brush up on your math and fallacies yourself.  I'll respond to this assuming you're not trolling all of us here.  

The math dictates that with large enough sample size, results will tend to the odds of the game.  Thus if the game has a 1% house edge, the house's profits will tend to 1% of the total wagered volume.  This holds true as players bet more.

If players bet more, they will tend to lose more relative to their overall wagered volume.  This is why a bankroll of a certain value will certainly go to zero as you play more, and that most wise people advise you to leave the tables and never play again when you are up.  As you play more, your total wagered will increase, and your expected loss (1% of that growing number) will definitely outgrow your total balance.

The profit of the house (house edge) can NOT increase to 5% as people play more.  It can fluctuate to 5% because of variance, but it will always tend to 1% as more bets are wagered/hands played.

A casino will definitely go out of business offering a +EV game because as more play is generated, their profits will fall in line with the math.  Their bankroll will dwindle, on average, with every bet.

What you might be thinking about is their actual profit.  Their total winnings minus operational costs.  That profit margin is definitely going to be very high, and not related to the house odds (1%)

Edit:  to address your point about players that lose their entire bankroll, roll to ruin so to speak.  If you have a lot of players, some will win and some will lose.  there will be enough winners that cancel out the losers, and still average back to the 1% in the long run.

Hold on, before you jump on me for asking something ridiculously idiotic...

I was specifically thinking of the tendency for people to continue gamble until they're no longer able, especially on sites where you have to pre-fund accounts (you need to deal with the bother and, with BTC, confirmation wait times of withdrawal and possibly a withdrawal fee). I don't know of any figures which'd be relevant, but I'd be surprised if a very simple coinflip site, where there's always a 49% chance of the player winning, did not actually haul a 5% averaged profit or more due to gambling fallacies (letting it ride, then believing you can recover a loss by betting more, eventually losing their entire roll with a bad series of gambles).

-So, then, why not offer a casino where the player has an edge per play (maybe even significant), but still has the cards stacked against them simply by gambling psychology? The only concern, then, is with bots, but perhaps you could just raise the stakes high enough where bot-users would be hesitant or maybe even demand some kind of flat fee to play the game. Alternately, perhaps you could have it where players need to "unlock" that "EV+" game, perhaps through a large number of losses/bets with EV- games in the casino.