OP must be referring to this Color Game in the PERYAHAN
This is very common and famous on our country and this is a very fun game because of the prizes,... People may not be able to win any time but this is just a pure luck as I think but some people says it has a cheat or trick on how you'll get those colors correctly picked.
And to correct the subject, there will be always a winner because if there isn't, nobody will play the game. nobody will make a gamble anymore. But the fact that some luck may be used to win, that's why there are so many people who wants to try this kind of games.
I've watched several videos about this game, and it looks like it is pretty popular in the Philippines. It is played mostly in open markets and in the crowded streets, and I never saw big money involved, but rather pocket-money. If you ask me, I would never play such a game because it looks very suspicious, and also, as some posters above have pointed out, there is no house edge in this game, so I guess cheating is embedded in it, or, otherwise, how it can be profitable to the organizers?
Yes its very popular and you can see at least 5 tables for this kind of game alone in most of the perya. I’m also wondering how they can earn big profit through this, but I’m confident that there’s no cheat on this. Looking at the collectors table, it looks like they earn more from the small money of every player.
It took me some time, but I think now I know why this game is profitable for the organizers.
a) When placing $1, say, on GREEN, many people think that the probability of a green color to show up with 3 cubes is
50%(1/6 + 1/6 + 1/6 = 1/2), and they are happy to get $1 profit in case of seeing 1 green among the three cubes.
b) They also think that the probability of 2 greens to show up is
25% (1/2 * 1/2 = 1/4), and thus they are happy to get $3 profit in that case.
c) Same goes for that rare case when 3 greens are showing up. People think that the probability of that is
12.5% (1/2 * 1/2 * 1/2 = 1/8) and are happy to get additional $7 to their bet in that case.
The thing is that, in fact, all the above calculations are wrong. Below are the real probabilities for the cases a, b and c respectively:
a)
42.13%b)
17.75%c)
7.5%I think now it's obvious that this game does have a house edge, and not a small one.
P.S. Please, those who played this game in real life, correct me if I'm wrong regarding the pay-outs, because my sources were several videos of poor quality.