If a gambler and the casino keep going forever, how come the casino is always the winner?
In: Mathematics
When you win, the house pays out a small percentage less than the “fair” payout for the actual odds. Simple as that.
In roulette, for example, an American wheel has 38 pockets; payout for a single number bet should be 37:1. The actual payout is 35:1. On average, in 38 bets of 1 dollar (say), you lose $37 and win $35 – that’s a 5% profit to the house. Other bets (and games) have similarly biased payouts.
Keep playing roulette long enough, betting on single numbers, the house takes 5% of all the bets you make. And if you keep winning and losing, you’ll likely pass your money across the table quite a few times. (Say you start with $100 dollars. After a few bets, you’ve bet it all, but maybe you won once or twice, so on average you still have $95. So you keep playing. A little later, you’ve bet another $95 dollars, but on average you still have about $90. So you keep playing. And so on.) Sure, you *could* win, and walk away. But the house is taking its cut of every single bet, and there are plenty of punters – statistics are in the house’s favour. It’s not in the game of losing money.
Latest Answers