View Poll Results: How much did you lose?

Voters
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  • I lost $1,000.

    7 58.33%
  • I lost $2,000.

    5 41.67%
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Thread: Bankroll Management

  1. #1
    Here's the situation:

    You come to a casino with $1,000 and you get lucky. When you pause to count you now have $2,000. You continue playing and you are hit with bad luck and lose all $2,000.

    Question: Did you really lose $2,000 or did you lose only the $1,000 you came to the casino with?

    Please state your case and respond to the poll.

    Thanks.

  2. #2
    It depends on whether you have a long term outlook or a short term outlook. When playing positive games I find it more useful to have a long term outlook and each session becomes an entity. From that point of view it would be a $1000 dollar loss. However, I can see that when playing negative games a player could look at it differently. Their long term outlook is always to lose. So, whenever they do get ahead temporarily it might be tempting to count that as a win and then compute your loss from that point.

  3. #3
    My position: when you win money it becomes your money. When you lose your winnings you lost your money. So my answer is $2,000.

    Businesses and the IRS don't work that way and they say the session or daily loss was $1,000.

  4. #4
    Here's another thought. You go to a casino and play 1000 hands at $5/hand. You start with $1000 and you leave with $1000. Did you win $5,000? Did you lose $5,000? At what point is money your money?

  5. #5
    Stanford Wong once wrote (in regards to +EV blackjack card counting), "If you are only happy when at your overall high point for your gambling career, you will be a very unhappy person, because you will only be at your high point about 4% of the time."

    Or something like that. The quote and figure above weren't exactly what he said, but it was very close to this.

    He was saying that your edge in blackjack is so small that it will be a slow, long climb, and that many losses will happen along the way -- so much to where you will spend well over 90% of the time playing being poorer than you were at your peak.

    This is also because of variance. So even if you have a great session and run your bankroll to a new, much higher peak, that becomes the new baseline, and the second you lose one hand, you are below that peak again.

    So as a gambler you should never get too obsessed with where you are compared to your absolute lifetime peak -- or even the peak of that particular session.

    The converse gives the -EV gambler hope that things can turn around. A long, steady gambling loser can get excited when he goes on a small winning streak, figuring, "I've won money since my low point 2 weeks ago, so if this continues, I can get back in the black!"

    While it is correct that any money won is definitely your money, you can't look at it that way unless you want to drive yourself crazy every time you lose a hand.

    For me, it's easy to deal with losing money back in VP, because I have an exact number of hands I have committed to play, win or lose (for tier credit purposes). So even when I start off well and chunk it all off by the time I earn 5000 tiers, I can tell myself, "I came to play 5000 tiers, win or lose. So I can't be mad at myself for not quitting. This is what I committed to do."

    At the same time, I do admit I sometimes have regrets when I win a lot of money in regular poker, considering calling it a night, and then play more and lose it all back.
    Check out my poker forum, and weekly internet radio show at http://pokerfraudalert.com

  6. #6
    Originally Posted by arcimede$ View Post
    Here's another thought. You go to a casino and play 1000 hands at $5/hand. You start with $1000 and you leave with $1000. Did you win $5,000? Did you lose $5,000? At what point is money your money?
    I would ask this: when did you stop to count? When you stopped to count you in effect took inventory and the money you counted belonged to you.

    Shuffling money back and forth between you and the casino can mean a higher level of action or sales or revenue but it's not profit until you stop and count.

    Let's say you and I make 101 bets at $1 each. After our 101st bet I am up $1. I had $101 of betting but a $1 profit.

  7. #7
    Dan you are the only person I know who admits to playing for tier points win or lose. No one should criticize you for that since that was your plan.

  8. #8
    My forte is football betting, so each season is its own segment. Games are not really independent events because spreads vary based on prior outcomes that season. I commit to a season, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't pull the plug on all betting if I thought all of the value had been extracted from those teams I wanted to take. I use a percent of bankroll unit gradation that varies bet sizes based on whether I've won or lost to that point, but I would never start micro-analyzing how much I'm ahead or behind in the middle of a process. That's distracting and counter-productive.

    I'm not doing it for entertainment. Maybe part of why people track their wagers moment to moment is that it provides an entertainment component. I don't know. I don't see the utility in keeping moment-to-moment score. That would be like doing won-loss projections every five minutes when you have a dozen football games in progress. There's no point to it.

  9. #9
    If you can provide accurate coin-in figures it could technically be said that you lost:

    ((total coin-in)+(bankroll amount spent))/2

    EXAMPLE: You spend $1,000 bankroll in a VP session over $10,000 coin-in.

    $10,000 + $1,000 = $11,000
    ---------------------------------
    2

    You had $5,500 worth of losing hands and $4,500 worth of winning hands in that session, so it could be said you "lost" $5,500 and "won" $4,500.

    The above simple formula can be used for Alan's 101 $1 bets example above: ($101 in action)+($1 profit)/2 = $51 "won" and $50 "lost"

    Most people don't look at it this way, so I expect this example to be "lost in the shuffle". (pun intended)

  10. #10
    This is so simple, but just like the mensas on WoV, everyone's making it way more complicated than need be.

    You walk in with a thousand/you walk out with zero. You lost $1000. How much you won or lost in between is completely irrelevant.

  11. #11
    I keep daily records. Only when I get home does it matter.

  12. #12
    I would think if you regard the $1000 as recreational money, that is, you can get more to play if you want to, then the loss is $1000. But if you regard it as your bankroll, that is, you use it to play, the larger your bankroll, the bigger the game you can play or branch out to, the the loss is $2000.

  13. #13
    I look at it as losing only $1,000. I don't look at the roller coaster between when you showed up and when you left the casino.

    By way of example, if I buy a vacant lot for $1,000 (assume no property taxes and I paid the prevailing price) in 2005. In 2007 it's worth $3000 on the market. In 2009 it is worth $500. In 2015 I sell it for $1,000.

    Did I lose $2000 since it was that much lower than was the price it was worth in 2007? Did I make $500 since that was the price appreciation since 2008? No, I broke even because I bought if for the same price I sold it for. BTW, the IRS I believe will agree with me.

    FAB

  14. #14
    FAB yes the IRS will agree with you.

    But this is more of a philosophical question than a tax or business or accounting question.

    In the case of the vacant lot, you never realized a profit. You held an asset which fluctuated in price and value.

    In the case of the gambler, a profit has been realized and that profit is real cash that can be cashed out and taken home. It is money that doesn't have to be risked again.

    And that's the difference between winning a bet at a machine or at a table -- when the money is won it is actually your money.
    In the investment world it's not really your money until you find a buyer who will pay you that price -- and this is important:

    Suppose you buy a piece of art that skyrockets in price from $1,000 to $25,000 and then you decide to sell. But when you read online that your piece of art is worth $25,000 and you start calling galleries you don't find any real buyers.

    This is exactly what happened in the collapses of the art market in the 1970s, and in the condo market in Miami in the 1960s. "Prices" got ahead of "reality."

    And that what makes investments different from the meter on a slot or video poker machine or the stack of chips you have at the table. In the investment world you are dealing with "expected dollars" but in the gaming world those are "real dollars."

    So when I start playing with $1,000 and double up to $2,000 and then lose all $2,000 -- I really lost $2,000.

  15. #15
    So let's say bring $1000, lose $995, then run your last $5 back to $1000, and quit.

    Are you saying that you won $995?
    Check out my poker forum, and weekly internet radio show at http://pokerfraudalert.com

  16. #16
    Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    So let's say bring $1000, lose $995, then run your last $5 back to $1000, and quit.

    Are you saying that you won $995?
    Gross or net? And in what time frame?

  17. #17
    I suspect Alan is really an actuary for the federal government. Yes, I know, that would explain a lot.

  18. #18
    Originally Posted by jbjb View Post
    I keep daily records. Only when I get home does it matter.
    We do the same. To us, what we won or lost amounts to what we brought back home (and/or deposited on the way home) vs. what we came with.

  19. #19
    I think if you look at it from an economics perspective and the opportunity cost of the actual money that was available to you, you lost $2K.
    Due to the alternate choice of continued play as opposed to taking it home, you lost $2K. The out of pocket loss may have been $1K, but you actually lost $2K.

  20. #20
    If you would have stopped / considered stopping (at the $2K point), then you could say you lost $2K. But, you'd also have to book a $1K win. Perhaps you count your money, you're at $2K, decide to eat dinner or take a break. You come back later to continue playing and lose it all.

    However, if you would not have considered quitting at that $2K point, then you'd say you lost $1K. For example, if you're playing BJ (counting cards), are at the $2K point, but you've still got half a shoe remaining with a nice high positive count, then you would not (should not) consider quitting, and would continue playing.

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