Dear Mark,
My friend believes I
have a problem gambling with money that I win. She says I treat it as
"the house's money" and continue to play till I lose. Is she right?
Norma B.
Nowhere is it written-in the U.S.
Constitution, the Talmud or the Nevada Revised Statutes-that the money
you win at any neon carpet joint is still the property of the casino.
Treat all winnings, Norma, as YOUR hard-earned money.
Dear Mark,
Why does my husband
sneer at my slot play? This from someone who loses a whole lot more at
the crap table. Mary P.
Even though many table game players look
down on slot players, take heart, Mary, and please share this gambling
yarn with your spouse.
There once was a crap shooter whose wife,
a slot player, approached her spouse on a crap game informing him that
she needed more money to play slots. "What happened to the $100 I gave
you?" he asked? When she replied, "I lost it," he criticized her for
playing slots. "Well I've been playing for three hours and I'm having
lots of fun," she said. "You've been playing craps for three hours. How
much have you lost?"
"I'm down a few thousand," he said, "but
I know how to gamble!"
Dear Mark,
Is there a difference
between Gambler's Ruin and Gambler's Fallacy? If there is,
which affects the gambler more? Norm S.
They are completely
different, Norm. Gambler's Ruin is the chance of losing all of a stated
sum of money, given a known statistical advantage or disadvantage on
each bet, while attempting to win a stated sum. Gambler's Fallacy is the
belief that the law of large numbers also applies to small numbers.
Unless you are a mathematician
calculating the chance of Gambler's Ruin with decimal point arithmetic,
the latter, Gambler's Fallacy, applies more to the average gambler.
Most players challenge Gambler's Fallacy
erroneously believing that a sequence of events in a random process-the
spin of a roulette wheel-will represent the essential characteristics of
long-term play even when the sequence is short. Say black appears nine
times in a row; many gamblers will now wager heavily on red because it's
way overdue.
But just because you have a deviation in
one direction (Black, B, B, B, B, B, B, B, B) doesn't mean an aberration
in the opposite direction will occur over the short run to restore
balance. Deviations are not 'corrected' as time goes on, just diluted.
The solution to Gambler's Fallacy is to
treat each spin as an independent event. The roulette ball has no memory
of any past actions.
Dear Mark,
Our senior citizen's
group is being offered a great deal on a bus trip to Atlantic City. Not
only do we get a buffet but also $20 in quarters. The problem is that I
am a small-time bettor who prefers nickel slot machines. I have been
told that none exist in Atlantic City. Any suggestions for us
conservative gamblers after our $20 is gone? Betty K.
Nickel machines are an industry staple
here in Nevada, but unfortunately Atlantic City is one tough market for
the low roller. It seems only "The Donald" (Trump) feels the low-limit
customer is of any value. I suggest you convert your quarters to nickels
and play at either Trump Marina, Trump Plaza or the Trump Taj Mahal.
Get there early, Betty, as the seats are
always filled by cautious gamblers. The Trump Marina has only 44 nickel
machines, the Plaza 274 and the Taj Mahal 141. Expect an average return
of 86.8 percent.
