That awful club music is the sound of a thousand mermaids singing for me to shipwreck my bank account on $16 drinks and cocaine from some dude named Mario that's slanging in the club.

When it rains it pours, eh? I hope you had a good time in Vegas none-the-less. I'm sure you have pictures of donkeys and the like doing ungodly things.

Not only do you play a sucker game like roulette, but you bet on black and red!? Oh boy...

>> ^campionidelmondo:
Not only do you play a sucker game like roulette, but you bet on black and red!? Oh boy...

all the while drinking a mojito

Actually, no drinking while gambling... er... for the most part. None of the big bets. Though one night I was pretty hammered and lost like 100 bucks, but that's to be expected when smashed.

I didn't just gamble on roulette. There was video poker and the occasional bullshit slots game. I spread my losses around. Gwiz665's mom knows what I'm talking about.

I've always wondered about that particular betting strategy. If you "reset" to $10 every time you win, you should win almost every time. 47.37% chance to win on each roll.

$10
$20
$40
$80
$160
$320
$640
$1280
$2560

So you get 9 tries to win $10 with a loss of $5110 if you don't make it . . . ooh, I see what you did there. Never actually added up the expected value. So, let's see. .4737^9 = 0.00120096531. Ohhh, hmm. So the probability of losing all 9 bets is less than one-tenth of one percent. This probably cancels out the huge dollar value.

0.998799035*10 = $9.99
0.00120096531*(-5110) = -$6.14

$9.99-$6.14 = $3.85. So each entire "cycle" if you make sure to reset back to $10 each time you win will net you a measly $3.85. It's a good strategy if you want to get a bunch of free drinks, I guess, but let's say it takes about 3 cycles on average to complete, each of which is, what, 2 minutes? So 6 minutes to earn $3.85 or $38.50 per hour . . . Wait, really? Maybe they aren't that fast with the rolls. Whatever. I should go to bed now. Enough stream-of-consciousness probability-musing. Nighty night.

EDIT: This guy disagrees and I'm inclined to believe him: http://wizardofodds.com/gambling/bettingsystems.html

The sign of a true gambler.

They always say they have a system that 'works' if only you would lend them $500.

There flat-out is no system for beating a house game like roulette. If there were, they'd simply change the rules. If they couldn't do that (say, for card counting), they'll just ban anyone who can reliably win. And they certainly can, and do, exactly that. Bottom line, gambling against the house is for losers, literally.

I thought of the same strategy, although with the socialist twist of having someone else play the opposite color and then splitting the winnings. Let me know if you want to try it sometime, although if we do, we should be prepared to bet up to the maximum amount in the formula. I wonder if there is a Vegas rule that prevents two friends from betting on opposite numbers. I know an individual is not allowed to bet on both red and black.

My formula goes like this. Lose 7 times in a row and you are out a shit load of money.

10
20
60
180
540
1620
4860

After reading nibiyabi's link, I'm no longer interested in trying this out.