Personal opinion
Having never been a gambler myself I felt this was an interesting topic to cover in the Maths elective as I have always thought that the bandit/casino/dealer always wins. I have always said that I would only gamble if I had money to throw away and up to this time in my life I have not had excess cash to waste gambling.
My theory (having watched people gamble and from my dads advice) that the casino/bandit/slot machine wins is backed up by Bellos (2011) in Chance is a Fine Thing chapter where it starts with the explanation of machines in the US making ‘$25 million dollars’ after they have paid out the winnings. This shows that maybe one person might drop the jackpot in every few hundred people that play it but the gamblers don’t actually win in the long run.
Lottery
Gambling takes many forms but the probability of winning depends on what you play. Likes of the lottery the probability of winning the Jackpot is approximately 1 in 14million but this does not discourage people from playing it as there is a very small chance. Stefan Mandel proved that he could win the lottery in Virginia with every possible combination bought from stores which was a very laborious task and took a huge team of people to do this. The video below shows how his system worked.
Probability of a dice
Dice have 6 sides and if rolled could land on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 – there is a 1 in 6 chance it will land on one of these numbers. But to roll two 6s with two dice changes the odds to 1 in 36 as there are many other options which could be rolled. The table below shows all the possible combinations that can be thrown with two dice which equals 36.
| 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 6 | 1 |
| 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 2 |
| 1 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 6 | 3 |
| 1 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 4 |
| 1 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 5 |
| 1 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 6 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
Roulette
Roulette has several ways of gambling – numbers, odd, even and colours – the table is shown below. People can bet on which number they think will come up and there is a screen which shows what numbers have come up which may influence peoples decisions to bet on different numbers. In the input on this particular area there was a video showing how Derren Brown wanted to beat the roulette table and memoriesd like a computer how to win it. This is a very difficult thing to do and takes many years of training to complete.
As mentioned at the start of this, I am not a gambler but after reading Bellos (2010) Chapter 9 has opened my eyes to what probability is and how it can capture people into thinking they can win. The odds for gambling and slot machines are set to make it impossible for the casino to loose in the long run as they are mathematically calculated.
Bellos, A. (2010). Alex’s Adventures in Numberland (Chapter 9). London: Bloomsbury
http://lottery.merseyworld.com/Info/Chances.html
http://datagenetics.com/blog/july12015/table.jpg
