Gambling question

[featheroflead]

Comments

[josh_in_610]

i think slot machines are sincerely less random than "matter-of-happenstance," so i think the two can't be compared. (slot machines, i believe, are designed to be random, but still probably follow some sort of pattern with the cutsomer in mind ... take a lot, give a little to keep your interest, take some more, give a lot, take a lot more). Cards, at least, are shuffled and whatnot, and there is no determination who will get what and when. So to say, your luck is bound to run out, but there is no possible way that you can say your chances of having a band hand would be increased.

Watch "Intacto." It's fun.

well..hookay..

[skavacado]

two different analogies. the probability of you losing with the hand of cards can increase but is not set in stone. there is a math problem for that one. As for the slot machine the chances are greater because they are programed for certain sequences to hit...or a code..for example if a person puts 3 quarters in then two then five...it can trigger the spinners to land on a win. I know this only because I watched a special on the guy who made the programming for the machines..then later would cheat the system and make money off of those sequences by playing the machines he made the codes to..but who knows they may be different now because of him...novel complete.
-Dani

[msgrannypanty]

Statistically speaking, your chance of getting a bad or good hand is the same everytime. I mean, think simply about flipping a coin. Even if you've flipped heads five times in a row, the next time you flip the coin you still have a one in two chance of getting heads. Poker is more complex because of the number of cards and rounds and all, but the basic principle still applies.

[featheroflead]

Hmm. Your analogy of the coin flipping does make this all easier to understand. Using the coin flipping analogy suppose we're going to run a test of ten coin flips. Logically speaking you would expect that there would be about an even 5 heads and 5 tails turn out, right? Now suppose that by some strange chance your first 5 flips are all heads. You would have a 1 in 32 (2^5) chance of that happening. Your chances of then getting another heads on your 6th flip becomes less likely because the odds of getting 6 heads in a row is even more scarce (1 in 64, right?). From this couldn't we say that if someone has been luckly playing cards the more lucky they get the less likely it'll be that they are lucky in the future?

[fihnny]

By your reasoning, each time you flip a head, you're only half as likely to flip another one. This would mean that the chance of flipping six heads in a rows is:

(probability of first head)*(probability of second head)* ... * (probability of sixth head) = (0.5)*(0.25)*(0.125)*(.00625)*(.003125)*(.0015625) = 0.000000048%.

Whether or not you've already been lucky enough to flip five heads, the probability of the next one is still 50%.

[ljvscmr]

1.) Slot machines are for suckers and the already-dead.

2.) Yeah, what Ms. GrannyPanty said: cards (or coins-for-flipping) don't have memories. That's part of the enjoyability/frustration of poker -- trying one's best to predict an outcome.

Cards is fun. We should do that at 509 more.