barmar Posted February 18, 2016 Report Share Posted February 18, 2016 We have video poker in our casinos, maybe there's also video roulette. And in Vegas, gambling machines are not just in casinos, they're everywhere. Most notably, the waiting areas at the airport. On my first trip to a Vegas NABC, I got to the airport very early for my flight home, and had nothing much to do other than play video poker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billw55 Posted February 18, 2016 Report Share Posted February 18, 2016 On my first trip to a Vegas NABC, I got to the airport very early for my flight home, and had nothing much to do other than play video poker.No longer a problem in the smartphone era http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Tu Posted February 18, 2016 Report Share Posted February 18, 2016 Do a google on Masachusetts lottery, perhaps adding "positive expectation" or the like. You will see that this is by no means a waste of time - when the opportunity comes up there is serious cash to be made. The Massachusetts situation was a strange isolated case, google "Massachusetts Winfall":http://www.huffingto..._n_1729416.htmlhttps://slice.mit.ed...ng-the-lottery/ I believe the gist is when the lottery jackpot had reached a sufficient size, a very unusual rules quirk capping payouts and rolling down prizes to tickets matchiing fewer than all six numbers created a situation where syndicates wagering very large sums could be gambling with significant positive expectation, essentially from an overlay on the current lottery drawing granted by the losers of previous lotteries. But this game was shut down. In most of the other lotteries, such as the multi-state Powerball, while it's theoretically possible to reach positive expectation, it hasn't happened yet and isn't likely to. This is mainly due to: 1. Taxes, and 2. Sharing jackpot with multiple winners when several people select the winning numbers. So even in the recent "1.5 billion" Powerball, it came nowhere near positive expectation. For one thing the lump sum payout was "only" about 930 million, tax knocks that down by 40-50%. Then with the publicity of the big jackpot, the number of players seriously swell and the probability of multiple winners increases substantially. In practice 3 tickets split the money. So you end up with "only" $187 million as a winner, nowhere close to the $580 something million that the odds need for neutral EV (given that each ticket costs $2 and your odds are something like 290 million - 1 against.) Actual positive EV situation has occurred in smaller lotteries:http://www.forbes.co...n/#698637f7145cBut it is quite rare, and to guarantee a win by choosing all possible numbers runs into serious practical logistical concerns of how do you buy so many tickets, ensure non-duplication of numbers, working around state laws barring bulk ticket sales, etc. So lottery is nearly always, unless you get a strange Massachusetts situation, a seriously lousy way to gamble. I don't agree with your characterization of "many cases of people making small fortunes gambling on lottery with positive EV". Only a few cases. If you want to gamble with positive EV, IMO the only realistic options are becoming very skilled at poker, sports betting, fantasy sports betting, or betting in the financial markets. The common theme among these is that you are mostly betting against other people (preferably mostly stupid people), with the house only taking a cut of the action, rather than you betting directly against the "house" which is always rigged against you. If you can bet better than the other people by a margin enough to overcome the house cut, you can become a professional gambler. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Tu Posted February 18, 2016 Report Share Posted February 18, 2016 Winning the lottery is a one-off, but it seems to me that not buying a ticket when there is a positive expectancy is simply a mistake. This isn't true, because of marginal utility value of money and risk of ruin/bankroll considerations. For most people, losing a large sum of money with near certainty hurts them a lot more than they would gain in joy from a remote chance of an inconceivable fortune. Take an example, say you had a sum of $250000 available to wager in Powerball. The jackpot has inexplicably grown to a point where it's +EV, say $700 million even after taxes & splitting it a few ways, so it's being advertised as like the $4 billion lotto. Still, even if you bought quarter million worth in unique lottery tickets, it's still over 99.9% that you won't win! Are you willing to throw away a quarter million 99.9% of the time for a 0.1% chance of winning 700 million just because it's technically +EV? I'm certainly not. Most people should not be taking this wager. If you are rich enough that this wager is reasonable, that quarter million is entertainment money, then you have enough money that it's silly to play the lottery for a small gain when you can just try to invest it wisely with less risk of some freak 6-way jackpot split killing your odds. Now maybe you can say you should buy just one ticket, but then the magnitude your "mistake" is losing out on an expectancy of like 10 cents. If you are playing lottery, it should be solely for entertainment value of the fantasy of winning the jackpot. For +EV gambling there are much better avenues to explore, making many bets with positive expectation and grinding out your advantage over time, rather than shooting for the moon. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wank Posted February 19, 2016 Report Share Posted February 19, 2016 So lottery is nearly always, unless you get a strange Massachusetts situation, a seriously lousy way to gamble. there are lots of lotteries out there with different rules. the australian keno lottery is very doable i heard. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Tu Posted February 19, 2016 Report Share Posted February 19, 2016 there are lots of lotteries out there with different rules. the australian keno lottery is very doable i heard. Doable regularly on a +EV basis?? I can't possibly believe that. What's special about Australian Keno? The Keno in casinos in Las Vegas is well established as one of the worst games in the casino. Lotteries in general are designed to be voluntary taxes on the poor and mathematically challenged, they generally pay out only 50-70% of the money wagered in winnings, and are going to be -EV by design. If they weren't -EV the governments and gambling establishments wouldn't offer them! The only time +EV situations really arise are when there is a progressively growing jackpot, that keeps growing if no one hits the winning numbers, and it somehow manages to get large enough. The non-payed out winnings from previous drawings are in effect added to the current drawing and make the current drawing +EV. And as described before because of taxes & splitting jackpots, this situation exceedingly rarely comes up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wank Posted February 19, 2016 Report Share Posted February 19, 2016 well for a start, winnings are not taxed in many jurisdictions. gambling winnings are not taxable in the the UK for example (i don't know about australia, but as in the uk, australians are much more liberal about such matters than the US so i suspect winnings are not taxed there either). of course the government is extracting its cut from the lottery company though so the pot is reduced one way or another, but if it's not coming out of your winnings it's effectively the people who played in previous non-rollover weeks who are paying your tax for you and i expect the cut is much lower than in US anyway. anyway here is a link to an article about it. it says they won at least 4 jackpots over 2 years. they were collecting the retailer's cut from ticket sales which obviously improves the maths. http://www.afr.com/business/no-humbling-a-great-gambler-20120608-j2lq3 the website is australian financial review. i'm not au fait with australian media, but i suspect its standards of journalism are above the likes of buzzfeed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted February 19, 2016 Report Share Posted February 19, 2016 i'm not au fait with australian media, but i suspect its standards of journalism are above the likes of buzzfeed.Not sure about that. This line gave me pause: "mathematically, such a run of wins was not just remote but almost improbable." Unless "improbable" has a different connotation in Australia, I think they meant "almost impossible". The next sentence says that the odds are 11 million to 1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Tu Posted February 19, 2016 Report Share Posted February 19, 2016 anyway here is a link to an article about it. it says they won at least 4 jackpots over 2 years. they were collecting the retailer's cut from ticket sales which obviously improves the maths. Hmm, from what I can gather, this guy and his partners waited until the jackpot had grown enough for the game to be only slightly minus EV then swung a deal with the game operator for a massive commission rebate in exchange for the business to get it slightly in the positive? Then it involved gambling well over the jackpot amount (7 something million) to win the jackpot, then I guess eking out some small profit from the smaller prizes and the commission rebate. And it seems he no longer is involved in this, probably having found easier avenues to grind out his +EV (seemingly mostly in horse racing). It still doesn't seem "doable" for the average person to me, it's a lot easier to win at poker or sports betting than finding these rare lottery situations to exploit, and having the capital to cover all the possibilities. I mean the guy already had well over the lottery jackpot amount, the average person is playing lottery because they *don't* have the jackpot amount. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grisescens Posted March 7, 2016 Report Share Posted March 7, 2016 Many moons ago a Toronto club was facing a gaming house charge (there was rubber bridge for reasonable stakes going on) and Eric Murray defended them in court. He told the judge: Bridge is a game of skill the way I play it but a game of luck the way YOU do. They lost. Never mind, I figured it out. You can restrict the dealers on the "General" tab. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barmar Posted March 7, 2016 Report Share Posted March 7, 2016 Never mind, I figured it out. You can restrict the dealers on the "General" tab.Huh? Was this supposed to be in another thread? http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/73694-force-dealer-with-advanced-deal-source/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie Yu Posted March 20, 2016 Report Share Posted March 20, 2016 In theory +EV lottery jackpot exists. In practice, a huge jackpot attract so many bettors that it become -EV again because the jackpot is shared among multiple winners. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nige1 Posted March 21, 2016 Report Share Posted March 21, 2016 Lotteries are a tax on the poor. Insurance and lotteries complement each other: We insure ourselves against a remote contingency that would otherwise be disastrous.We buy a lottery ticker for the remote chance that it rescue us from our otherwise miserable existence. It's just a bonus when (rarely), we have a +ve expectation, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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