For example, I played a lot of Roulette this weekend. Now I know Roulette is not the best game to play as the house has a big edge here (like 5% or something). However, it's fun, simple and I like to play it. Therefore, I don't really care that much if I lose money on it.
I don't know any kind of Roulette terminology so bear with me here.
I started out with a strategy of putting $1 on the corner of 4 numbers. I did this with 7 chips ($7) and then put 3 chips down on single numbers. The 4 corner one would pay 31-1 and the single numbers would pay 32:1 (I think - somewhere in the 30s anyway). My idea was that I would hit at least one of the corner chips most of the time since I was covering so many numbers. However, I soon realize the flaw in my plan - even though I did hit them most of the time, I was only getting $8 back and hence losing $1 on each round. This is a small amount but it's equivalent to dying slowly. I definitely stretch the amount of time I play here but unless I hit one of those single numbers often, I'm still dying.
So I changed my strategy. I decided to bet on two numbers instead of four numbers. This definitely cut down my odds of "winning" but the payout was now 16:1 - which meant when I did win, I was winning $6 (since every round I bet $10 - which was the minimum). Of course, I kept betting on single numbers as well. The exception to this was that I saved 2 chips and bet on a four corner in the first section and a four corner in a third section. I like to bet on the middle of the board so this worked for me.
My last strategy was employed when I founda $5 minimum table. I don't like making outside bets with $10 because I feel like I'm just risking too much (told you I was a conservative gambler). But $5? That I can do. I decided to bet $5 on the second twelve and $5 on the third twelve. I figured my odds were about 2/3 chance I'd win (ignoring 0 and 00 because I felt better that way) and if I did win, I'd win $5. Of course, there was a 1/3 chance that I'd lose $10.
I actually hit this a whole bunch of times before losing twice in a row which sadly put my winnings at only $10 from this method. However, it was pretty fun!
I did end up winning with these two strategies - not a lot but over the whole weekend, I won about $170 from Roulette (and $30 from Craps). I definitely don't think these kind of strategies would win all the time, mostly I was just lucky. However, I had a lot of fun and winning definitely helps make a Vegas trip great!
I consider this a "semi-engineer" like approach to gambling because I saw a lot of people who would just put down a whole bunch of chips without thinking of how many they were putting down - or considering the odds of where they were going. It was more of a gamble by feel approach - which probably works just as well. It's just completely opposite to my, "Ok, put 10 chips down on places where I have a higher probability of winning" approach. However, it's only semi-engineer because there are much more precise ways of calculating probabilities and then deciding how to play.
One of these days, I have to try the gamble-by-heart method and see how that goes. One of these days.
So, what about you? Are you a gamble-by-engineer or a gamble-by-heart person?
Yours,
No comments:
Post a Comment