The ultimate money management challenge.

[arabianights]

For some time now, Betfair have operated a 'zero casino' where there is no house edge. How does this make them money? My suspicion is through an interesting statistical phenomena known as gambler's ruin. If you're not familiar with gambler's ruin then you must read about it (try wikipedia here) as it is of utmost importance to your trading.

Anyway, it doesn't concern us why Betfair do this, all that matters is they do and so we now have a chance to test money management skills without having to worry about strategy. It is a shame that Betfair will not take penny stakes (then we could play almost for ever); the minimum bet on zero roulette is £1 and the maximum £25.

Even better, you can do this for free as Betfair will match your initial deposit up to £50. So if you are disciplined enough to not risk 'your' £50 then there is no downside other than the time wasted.

I reckon it should be possible, if this thread is popular, for at least one person with an aggressive enough disposition to make a grand or two. For what it's worth I'm £96 up so far, my 'strategy' being to bet £1 on 9 and (lately) 23. Should I reach £150 up then I will have £2 on 9, and so on...

If you don't already have a Betfair account, you can sign up using the link below, which will also get me some cash :clap: under certain circumstances (not if you're just signing up for the zero casino)

 

[arabianights]

whoops, blew the lot

 

[rawrschach]

lol

for anyone about to do this - the £50 bonus doesn't apply to the zero casino.

 

[arabianights]

yup, was my own money I blew

 

[MrGecko]

hmm.... if the odds are gone, is this an opportunity to martingale?

 

[N Rothschild]

knowing what SB firms get up to would anyone ever actually trust playing heads up games on an online casino?

 

[Masquerade]

I'm pretty sure I can beat the blackjack - Just I fail to see where the zero edge bit comes in. What's the min/max blackjack bet?

 

[TomTom]

Love casino's
Personley I only ever play roulette.
Start with £10 on black if it wins another 10 on black if it looses another 20 on black if it looses 40 on black if that looses 80 on black if that wins start over again with £10 on black.
The casino dose not like this method, however you will be come well knowen and have plenty of freebies if you dont take the **** out of them when using this system.
All the system dose is use avarages and double up when one looses to break even when it comes in.
Its a free night out for me and some friends most of the time, out of roughly 20 times useing this method my cash ran out only once.
Come to think of it taking in to account the atuall loss on that night and the winings over the other 19 nights the out come may of been a couple of hundred down. Then again 19 good nights out for 200 quid is good value ehh ?

 

[timsk]

Love casino's
Personley I only ever play roulette.
Start with £10 on black if it wins another 10 on black if it looses another 20 on black if it looses 40 on black if that looses 80 on black if that wins start over again with £10 on black.
The casino dose not like this method, however you will be come well knowen and have plenty of freebies if you dont take the **** out of them when using this system.
All the system dose is use avarages and double up when one looses to break even when it comes in.

Tom,
If I've understood you correctly, what you describe is the Martingale strategy (as opposed to an Anti-Martingale strategy). Contrary to your assertion that casinos don't like punters who use this betting strategy - they love 'em! You're given plenty of freebies because the casino knows that the odds are heavily weighted in their favour and they'll get their money back - and then some. The reasons are explained here in this article copied from Wikipedia:

"Originally, martingale referred to a class of betting strategies popular in 18th-century France. The simplest of these strategies was designed for a game in which the gambler wins his stake if a coin comes up heads and loses it if the coin comes up tails. The strategy had the gambler double his bet after every loss, so that the first win would recover all previous losses plus win a profit equal to the original stake. Since a gambler with infinite wealth will with probability 1 eventually flip heads, the Martingale betting strategy was seen as a sure thing by those who practised it. Of course, none of these practitioners in fact possessed infinite wealth, and the exponential growth of the bets would eventually bankrupt those who choose to use the Martingale. Moreover, it has become impossible to implement in modern casinos, due to the betting limit at the tables. Because the betting limits reduce the casino's short term variance, the Martingale system itself does not pose a threat to the casino, and many will encourage its use, knowing that they have the house advantage no matter when or how much is wagered."
Tim.

 

[rawrschach]

'Since a gambler with infinite wealth will with probability 1 eventually flip heads"

Doesn't sounds right to me...

plim -> 1 maybe, but definitely not = 1

 

[Hotch]

Doesn't sounds right to me...

...but it is, if you assume that having infinite wealth means you play an infinite number of flips, which I think is what the article is implyingThe concept of infinity is a fickle thing.

Anyway, in this case it's a moot point really. I never really got why somebody with infinite wealth would want to gamble anyway.

EDIT* not sure if that is what the article is implying, but never mind, I still think it's moot

 

[Nitwit]

You can't use martingale because you don't have infinite money and there is a limit on the min/max stakes. If you use fixed amounts to bet you will at some point in time be broke, and the game ends.

You could bet a fixed percentage of your budget and never run out of cash. Let's assume that you play black/red for 50/50 odds. The fraction of your fortune to bet is D and you bet N times, then the expected result would be: (1+D)^(0.5N) x (1-D) ^(0.5N) = ((1+D) x (1-D)) ^ (0.5N) = (1-D^2)^(0.5N). The result is maximised by choosing D equal to 0, which means: don't bet. The game needs to be unfair and in your favor to win in the long run.