Bad Bets - Why Do We Make Them?
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The article " Bad Bets - Why do we make them?" is about casino gambling, it was written by Brian Osborne.
Bad bets attract the equivalent of billinos of dollars in wagers
from millions of human being around the world each week.
Most professional gamblers look at the promoter's advantage over
the player to determine if a specific bet is a bad bet. If the
promoter has an advantage of 3 percent or more, it is considered
a bad bet.
Every day mililons of human being buy lottery tickets without the
slightest consideration of the promoter's advantage. Between the
promoter and the Government as much as 50 percent is removed
from the prize pool either before or parlty before for overheads
and after the draw as tax. If that is not bad enough, the
player's chances of winning a prize of any description are
thousands to one against and the odds of winning the titanic one are
millions to one against.
Many of the players making these bets are well aware that they
have only a really slim chance of winning a serious prize but most
are amazed when shown the mathematical odds against such a win.
My wife is well aware of the odds but each week, she plays a set
number of games in 'Gold Lotto', a local lottery type game that
is somewhat similar to Keno.
Bingo is a second clsasic example of a bad bet. Millions of
people play it each week. A return of 75 percent of the take to
players is considered a high return in bingo. The odds against
getting a bingo and the low return to players make that a
classic bad bet.
The Big Wheel or Wheel of Forutne gives the promoter an
advantage of about 15 percent. Fortunately most of us only ever
play that at fairs and other charity events so we know our money
is going to a good cause.
The casino has an advantage of at least 25 pecrent when we play
keno. I know that but whenever I have a meal at a casino I
invariably play a few games during the cousre of the meal.
When you place a five number line bet in roulette and select the
00 to 3 bet, you have chosen the worst possible bet in roulette.
On that one the casino's advantage is a bit over 7 percent.
Recall hearing the stickman at the craps table constantly
extolling you to bet 'Any craps'?
It is a sucker bet as are all
the proposition bets.
Video Poker and Slot machines are all bad bets unless you read
the placards on the machines. Because of the way in whcih prizes
are calculated for winning combinations, you must always bet the
maximum number of coins or the casino will always win.
This is
why it is better to play a lower denomination machine and bet
max than to bet the same amount as a single coin on a higher
denomination machine.
Today most human being think that the casinos have a really small
advantage when you play blackjack.
Wrong, unless you have
mastered at least a basic blackjack strategy. The use of this
strategy changes the condo advantage from about 5 percent to
about 1 percent and that allows a skilled player to become a
regular winner.
These examples of bad bets highlight our willingness to
regularly make bad bets. Interestingly many of the human being making
these bets do not consider themselves to be gamblers.
This is
especially true for the bueyrs of lottery tickets and bingo
players. Cleaver marketing campaigns have popularized many of
the bad bets to the extent that many human being place them with
about as much forethought as we give to purchasing our favorite
breakfast cereal at the supermarket.
This is especially true for
the lotteries.
For the lottery ticket buyers, I believe that it is the allure
of instant riches fueled by the publicity given to the big
winners collecting their checks in exchange for what amounts to
no more than the cost of a couple of cups of coffee that induces
so many to contribute to a prize pool from which the vast
majority will never benefit.
The rest of us fall into three groups namely tohse who have made
these bets on a regular basis over an extended period of time
without ever questioning the wisdom of such bets, those of us
who are overtaken by a combination of the euphoria of the moment
and alcohol and lastly those who thought it seemed like a good
bet at the time.
Of course there are other more scientific explanations for this
but the afore mentioned explanations are much kinder to those of
us who make bad bets.
May Lady Luck smile upon you the next time you place your
favorite bad bet.
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Bad Bets - Why do we make them?
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