Prolog to gambling

From an outsider’s observation, I am someone who shies away from Casinos for the fear of falling into the deep hole of gambling hell. In reality, my hesitancy is only enforced by the annoyance of having to drive a long way to the middle of nowhere to reach these places. Casinos for me, is simply a place that I am not able to afford in my current state of life.

I don’t look at gambling with the same deep rooted hatred that my parents and their generation have, but rather, as a game of analytical reasoning intermingled with strategies. A practice of chaos management that allows you to come out ahead by making the right decisions. At least, that’s what I thought before visiting the Casino of Montreal with a few colleagues.

It’s the first time that I’ve been in this setting after I took an effort to study finances. It shocks me how careful the Casinos have crafted the game and their processes so that the outcome of any bet is left purely to chances with the exception of craps and poker, which is a highly skilled game that requires professional dedication to excel in.

I was lucky to spot a group of pro craps player so I could observe to my heart’s contend. From the way they place and hold their dices to the subtle eye signals they pass to each other. It was a beautifully coordinated orchestra which left me speechless. It was subtle, but not subtle enough to escape the notice of trained eyes. Certainly not subtle enough to fool the cameras above. It is possibly so that they don’t draw a crowd and force the casino heads to act in order to disperse the commotion. They did everything within the rules. No noticeable communication between players, the dice thrower is not the one who wins money, randomly losing and randomly throw the dice without technique. I noted to myself that I will have to come back to this game once I get experienced enough.

The ones that seem to let players have some sort of control are black jack and sic bo. I am sure everyone knows Black Jack so I won’t go into details. Only to say that the house who plays the house cards are still human and can have an effect. Even though they follow a pre-established rule of whether or not to get another card.

Sic Bo, has Chinese origins and is the game that I focused on the most this time. The western casinos took away the human factors so that a good dicer roller will not be able to roll the number he wants all the time. So the dice is purely up to chances, but at least, you have the control of choosing your numbers. It is the closest thing to the stock market that you can get and the choices available means that you can apply some of the short covering strategies to it. Since we know from craps that the chances of a number appearing is not equal depending on which face is up we can apply this knowledge to the play of Sic Bo, giving us a greater predictability of the outcome. Still, the theory has to be tested, which brings me to the next part.

Sic Bo is pretty easy to simulate with code, knowing the probability distribution. This is to refine the strategy used on when to keep and hold money. Most often, a gambler loses sight to gamble their winnings and eventually their capitals away. The simulation is to get an idea of the chances that you have in winning a certain percentage of your capital in any one hour period. This way, I’ll have a logical decision mechanism not affected by my emotions to decide when to pick up and leave.