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Thread: Long term and short term

  1. #1
    Forgive me if I'm asking an elementary question but I see in your discussions you use long term and short term.

    My question: is there really a long term? Isn't most gambling nothing but short term decisions?

    Example #1 Craps

    The shooter throws the dice. No matter what the previous result was the shooter has, for example, a one in 36 chance of throwing 12. The previous roll has no impact on the current roll and the current roll has no impact on the roll to come. So isn't craps just a series of short term, one roll decisions?

    Example #2 Video Poker

    The electronic deck is reshuffled with each play. Each play has 52/53 cards. Since each hand is independent where is the long term?

    Example #3 Six Deck Shoe in Blackjack

    Here it's different. After each hand the remaining cards will have different totals. So as you approach the cut card for the reshuffle you could argue that you are nearing the long term because there is a finite number of cards available.

    Help me out here.

  2. #2
    .......................



    quote - Andrew G - "is there really a long term? Isn't most gambling about short term decisions?"





    there is no exact definition of what the long run is



    gamblers who say they are playing only in the short term ignore one thing - all those short sessions combined usually come close to approaching what long term mathematical expectations would be

    and I want to exclude video poker because the variance is over the top - it's much harder to analyze - so we'll go with your craps example

    so, it can be calculated that if a guy makes the lowest house edge bets on a dice table the longer he plays the more likely his results will approach the true mathematical expectation for the long run

    for example, it can be calculated if he rolls 100 outcomes there is maybe a 90% chance (I'm estimating) that his final result will be within 1% of the true expectation

    but if he rolls 10,000 outcomes there may be (I'm estimating but this can be calculated exactly by a mathematician) a 99% chance that his final result will be within 1% of the true expectation

    so a gambler who plays many short sessions and rationalizes by saying he is not in or near the long run is kidding himself




    as to the question you posed to KJ - yes, certain things may not be impossible - but they are very, very unlikely and not worth betting on unless its purely for entertainment
    please don't feed the trolls

  3. #3
    Thank you Mr Half Smoke but in craps the odds of any result never change no matter how many rolls you have. On each and every roll of the dice you have, for example, 1/36 chance of rolling a hard six.

    Where is there a long term in craps?

    In video poker you have 1/629740 chance of being dealt a royal on each and every hand. Where is there a long term?

  4. #4
    Originally Posted by AndrewG View Post
    Thank you Mr Half Smoke but in craps the odds of any result never change no matter how many rolls you have. On each and every roll of the dice you have, for example, 1/36 chance of rolling a hard six.

    Where is there a long term in craps?

    In video poker you have 1/629740 chance of being dealt a royal on each and every hand. Where is there a long term?

    I'm going to recommend that AndrewG, rather than surveying a bunch of anonymous forum posters, simply take the matter up with his local university's math professors. As I have said many times, and Andrew G is beginning to sound amazingly like "Singer" redux, if the matter has meaning to you, if it's important to tease out the reality of it, then it's worth the hundred dollars to buy a 20-session DVD probability course and also to consult your local math professionals.

    Asking these questions on a forum is just silly. Go consult established name brand experts.

    I argued this ad nauseum with Alan, and with all of his resources and contacts, he never bothered. If AndrewG can't be bothered, it must be because he really doesn't want to know the answer. If you don't want to know the answer, if you do not want to consult actual credentialed experts accepted by scholars everywhere, that's okay. People can believe in God, country, and that the moon is made of cheese. I have no issue with preferring to believe whatever you want to believe. Just please don't couch it in terms of some pseudo-objective questioning. If you want to actually know answers, it's not hard to go directly to experts who will answer them.

    Yoda doesn't live on a forum.

    It's that simple. Go ask someone who teaches probability at a university level. Not a difficult thing to do.

  5. #5
    Originally Posted by AndrewG View Post
    Thank you Mr Half Smoke but in craps the odds of any result never change no matter how many rolls you have. On each and every roll of the dice you have, for example, 1/36 chance of rolling a hard six.

    Where is there a long term in craps?


    if a gambler makes 10,000 bets on the pass line at craps - it may not meet a dictionary definition of the long run - but that gambler is very likely to lose very close to 1.41% of his action (all the money he has wagered) - which is the house edge on a pass line bet

    if all of his bets are of an equal amount - if they are of different amounts the same would hold true but it would take much longer to approach the results of a long run

    again, a mathematician could tell you exactly how likely it is that he would be within 1% of his expected dollar loss


    again, I don't want to write about video poker because it is too complex for me to give a satisfactory explanation in a forum such as this - but the very same principles hold true
    Last edited by Half Smoke; 11-21-2019 at 09:24 AM.
    please don't feed the trolls

  6. #6
    Learn N-zero

  7. #7
    In one of the 2 books about the MIT blackjack team that I read (the books came out just as I was getting started, the movie about 3 years into my career), there was a reference made to the Law of Large Numbers. It was a loose reference to the long term. Getting to the point that the short term oddities that can occur, no longer matter and the math takes over. They placed this number at 50,000 rounds.

    That is the only reference to Law of Large Numbers that I have seen in blackjack. More common is the term N0. That is N-zero, which is credited to Don Schlesinger. The N0 also represents a number of trials in which the short-term oddities of variance no longer matter and the math takes over and results fall in a range that the math says the will. Long-term. Now there is no set N0 for blackjack. The N0 varies according to rules and conditions. So N0 often is used in identifying better games. Games with a lower N0 are the better games.

    So, my personal style of play really challenges the concept of N0 or Law of Large Numbers, because my play is not consistent. I use different bet spreads, different bet ramps and different Max bets for different games, or even almost identical games at different locations. For me these things are determined by what I call each casinos comfort or tolerance level, which is all about my top priority of longevity.

    So I am almost intentionally increasing my N0, which I don't think any other player does, in the name of longevity. My bankroll can handle it....it is just a matter of increased variance, which I have learned to handle.

    So my Law of Large Numbers, number is probably somewhat higher than that 50,000 number mentioned. Maybe my number is 75 or 80 thousand. Maybe closer to 100,000. And 80,000 rounds played is just about a years worth of play for me. I average between 80,000 and 85,000 rounds played. And while my results of 16 years are a very small sample size, they fall almost perfectly within what is to be expected by the math of Law of Large numbers or N0.

    - I have had 5 different 5-6 month losing periods. That would 40,000 ish rounds or short of the LoLN or N0. But have never had a full losing year which would be the point that LoLN or N0 is achieved. Granted I had one year way below expectation, but generally that math works! The math always works! You get to the longrun, LoLN, or N0 and results are generally where the math says they should be.

    Now lets switch from blackjack to video poker. In VP you have an occurrence, the Royal Flush which occurs every 40,000 trials or so. So that is going to play havoc and raise considerably the LoLN target, or what is needed to be considered longterm, to account for running several Royals ahead or behind expectation. That is variance. So the N0 (term not really used for VP) ot LOLN number will be higher....BUT there is still a number that constitutes longterm, where the math takes over and results fall with a range the math dictates. And Rob's claim results contradict this. Rob's claim contradicts the mathematics. He is talking about unusual short term results being repeated over and over but it just doesn't work that way. At some point (long-term) the math kicks in and cannot be defied.

  8. #8
    Originally Posted by kewlJ View Post
    Rob's claim contradicts the mathematics. He is talking about unusual short term results being repeated over and over but it just doesn't work that way. At some point (long-term) the math kicks in and cannot be defied.
    The best example of this continues to be Roulette. While the math says Black should hit what 40-something % of the time (50% less the 1 or 2 green), it is very possible to walk in bet black 3 times and win 2 (67% win rate) or bet 5 times and win 3 or 4 (60 and 80% win rate) or even bet 10 times and win 7 (70% win rate).

    Let's go with bet 5 and win 4. You would have some artificial above expectation short term win rate of 80% (4 out of 5 trials). I'll bet this happens every day in every casino. Maybe every hour. That is a short term result above expectation which is known as variance. But you simply cannot do this day after day for a hundred days. After 100 days and 500 trials you will not be hitting at 80%.

    And this is exactly what Rob's claim is that he can defy the math and hit 4 out of 5, over and over and over. It simply defies the math.

  9. #9
    Originally Posted by jbjb View Post
    Learn N-zero
    Damn jbjb. This reference was made while I was making my long post on the subject.

  10. #10
    Originally Posted by redietz View Post
    Originally Posted by AndrewG View Post
    Thank you Mr Half Smoke but in craps the odds of any result never change no matter how many rolls you have. On each and every roll of the dice you have, for example, 1/36 chance of rolling a hard six.

    Where is there a long term in craps?

    In video poker you have 1/629740 chance of being dealt a royal on each and every hand. Where is there a long term?

    I'm going to recommend that AndrewG, rather than surveying a bunch of anonymous forum posters, simply take the matter up with his local university's math professors. As I have said many times, and Andrew G is beginning to sound amazingly like "Singer" redux, if the matter has meaning to you, if it's important to tease out the reality of it, then it's worth the hundred dollars to buy a 20-session DVD probability course and also to consult your local math professionals.

    Asking these questions on a forum is just silly. Go consult established name brand experts.

    I argued this ad nauseum with Alan, and with all of his resources and contacts, he never bothered. If AndrewG can't be bothered, it must be because he really doesn't want to know the answer. If you don't want to know the answer, if you do not want to consult actual credentialed experts accepted by scholars everywhere, that's okay. People can believe in God, country, and that the moon is made of cheese. I have no issue with preferring to believe whatever you want to believe. Just please don't couch it in terms of some pseudo-objective questioning. If you want to actually know answers, it's not hard to go directly to experts who will answer them.

    Yoda doesn't live on a forum.

    It's that simple. Go ask someone who teaches probability at a university level. Not a difficult thing to do.
    Weird. Just plain weird.

  11. #11
    Originally Posted by kewlJ View Post
    Originally Posted by kewlJ View Post
    Rob's claim contradicts the mathematics. He is talking about unusual short term results being repeated over and over but it just doesn't work that way. At some point (long-term) the math kicks in and cannot be defied.
    The best example of this continues to be Roulette. While the math says Black should hit what 40-something % of the time (50% less the 1 or 2 green), it is very possible to walk in bet black 3 times and win 2 (67% win rate) or bet 5 times and win 3 or 4 (60 and 80% win rate) or even bet 10 times and win 7 (70% win rate).

    Let's go with bet 5 and win 4. You would have some artificial above expectation short term win rate of 80% (4 out of 5 trials). I'll bet this happens every day in every casino. Maybe every hour. That is a short term result above expectation which is known as variance. But you simply cannot do this day after day for a hundred days. After 100 days and 500 trials you will not be hitting at 80%.

    And this is exactly what Rob's claim is that he can defy the math and hit 4 out of 5, over and over and over. It simply defies the math.
    Again you lie and don't want to see it.

    I never say I defy the math. You are the one who does that with your uneducated, closed mind.

    What Andrew seems to be saying is that if one roll of the dice has a 1 in 6 chance of coming up with X, every subsequent and previous roll does also. He therefore deduces that this short term EV never changes no matter how many rolls occur and how much time has elapsed. A roll of the dice, a flip of the cards, the spin of a ball. That is, essentially, how the theoretical long term is reached. Most games fall into this category. Video poker, played the way I play it, does not.

    Why not? Well, if you play vp the way most ap's approach it with that grind-away mentality, there absolutely is a long term somewhere down the long road ahead. No one can precisely define it, but I see it as the day a person stops playing forever. So it is a different amount of time and hands for everybody.

    Not so with my play strategy....which irritates kew no end because he hasn't the capacity to figure it out. The "Law of Large Numbers" (which kew likes to present as his pet knowledge because he read it in some book somewhere) requires unaltered input on a continuous basis. The argument in such a case can be made for the math becoming predictable somewhere reasonable down the line.

    In SPS videopoker with each and every session, the procedural changes, volatility changes, variance changes, and ER changes obliterate any chance of this type of play EVER entering anything remotely resembling the long term. No one in today's environment could live aslong or play as MN any hands as that would take, and even then, it's very possible and highly probable that the results would STILL be in the positive.

    Read the right books kew, then come back with something other than agitation, theory, and emotion.

  12. #12
    Can’t recall where I read it but thought this was very interesting.

    Read that in a large, busy casino with a lot of players playing the long term is about 10 minutes from the casino’s perspective. So under 10 minutes the casinos results may be above or below expectation, but above 10 minutes the actual results will most often be very close to expectation.

    Remember this would be for a large casino with hundreds of people playing all the different casino games simultaneously.

  13. #13
    Originally Posted by Rob.Singer View Post
    Originally Posted by kewlJ View Post
    Originally Posted by kewlJ View Post
    Rob's claim contradicts the mathematics. He is talking about unusual short term results being repeated over and over but it just doesn't work that way. At some point (long-term) the math kicks in and cannot be defied.
    The best example of this continues to be Roulette. While the math says Black should hit what 40-something % of the time (50% less the 1 or 2 green), it is very possible to walk in bet black 3 times and win 2 (67% win rate) or bet 5 times and win 3 or 4 (60 and 80% win rate) or even bet 10 times and win 7 (70% win rate).

    Let's go with bet 5 and win 4. You would have some artificial above expectation short term win rate of 80% (4 out of 5 trials). I'll bet this happens every day in every casino. Maybe every hour. That is a short term result above expectation which is known as variance. But you simply cannot do this day after day for a hundred days. After 100 days and 500 trials you will not be hitting at 80%.

    And this is exactly what Rob's claim is that he can defy the math and hit 4 out of 5, over and over and over. It simply defies the math.
    Again you lie and don't want to see it.

    I never say I defy the math. You are the one who does that with your uneducated, closed mind.

    What Andrew seems to be saying is that if one roll of the dice has a 1 in 6 chance of coming up with X, every subsequent and previous roll does also. He therefore deduces that this short term EV never changes no matter how many rolls occur and how much time has elapsed. A roll of the dice, a flip of the cards, the spin of a ball. That is, essentially, how the theoretical long term is reached. Most games fall into this category. Video poker, played the way I play it, does not.

    Why not? Well, if you play vp the way most ap's approach it with that grind-away mentality, there absolutely is a long term somewhere down the long road ahead. No one can precisely define it, but I see it as the day a person stops playing forever. So it is a different amount of time and hands for everybody.

    Not so with my play strategy....which irritates kew no end because he hasn't the capacity to figure it out. The "Law of Large Numbers" (which kew likes to present as his pet knowledge because he read it in some book somewhere) requires unaltered input on a continuous basis. The argument in such a case can be made for the math becoming predictable somewhere reasonable down the line.

    In SPS videopoker with each and every session, the procedural changes, volatility changes, variance changes, and ER changes obliterate any chance of this type of play EVER entering anything remotely resembling the long term. No one in today's environment could live aslong or play as MN any hands as that would take, and even then, it's very possible and highly probable that the results would STILL be in the positive.

    Read the right books kew, then come back with something other than agitation, theory, and emotion.

    Good thing video poker "does not." Good thing "Singer" is the only dude who has figured it out. We are truly blessed.

    What I suggest, AndrewG, is to print up the above and take it to your nearest university prof teaching probability. Ask him or her what they think. Should take a half hour to set up an appointment, and a half hour to an hour for the appointment.

  14. #14
    It does appear to be that I'm the only one who has ever figured this out.

    Red why don't you give out the names of these "university math professors" you habitually keep mentioning? You should know them personally--they're all libtards who just can't get over the fact that crooked Hillary and her pervert husband aren't in the White House ....while the greatest president in our nation's history, is!

  15. #15
    Mr Singer wrote this which accurately described my point in craps:

    "What Andrew seems to be saying is that if one roll of the dice has a 1 in 6 chance of coming up with X, every subsequent and previous roll does also. He therefore deduces that this short term EV never changes no matter how many rolls occur and how much time has elapsed."

    To Mr Redietz: I don't think I need a university professor for this -- just a craps dealer.

    I posted my comment after a brief casino visit. A player walked up to the craps table and asked the dealer "when was the last field number?"

    If you don't know the field numbers are 2,3,4,9,10,11,12.

    At that point the dealer responded: it doesn't matter what the last roll was. The 12 (pays triple at this casino) has a one in 36 chance of showing on the next roll.

    There was no comment about long term, only the next roll.

    And since each new hand in video poker comes from a fresh shuffle and each spin of roulette has no influence from the previous spin aren't these also only short-term games?

    It seems to me there is no long-term application.

    Now, I do not know of this controversy regarding Mr Singer and please forgive me.

  16. #16
    Originally Posted by AndrewG View Post
    Mr Singer wrote this which accurately described my point in craps:

    "What Andrew seems to be saying is that if one roll of the dice has a 1 in 6 chance of coming up with X, every subsequent and previous roll does also. He therefore deduces that this short term EV never changes no matter how many rolls occur and how much time has elapsed."

    To Mr Redietz: I don't think I need a university professor for this -- just a craps dealer.

    I posted my comment after a brief casino visit. A player walked up to the craps table and asked the dealer "when was the last field number?"

    If you don't know the field numbers are 2,3,4,9,10,11,12.

    At that point the dealer responded: it doesn't matter what the last roll was. The 12 (pays triple at this casino) has a one in 36 chance of showing on the next roll.

    There was no comment about long term, only the next roll.

    And since each new hand in video poker comes from a fresh shuffle and each spin of roulette has no influence from the previous spin aren't these also only short-term games?

    It seems to me there is no long-term application.

    Now, I do not know of this controversy regarding Mr Singer and please forgive me.
    I think you need a university professor for this. What possible reason would you have for not consulting one? It'd take two hours? A fear of professors? An odd proclivity to know the answers to questions you ask before you ask them? LOL.
    Last edited by redietz; 11-21-2019 at 06:07 PM.

  17. #17
    Originally Posted by Half Smoke View Post
    again, a mathematician could tell you exactly how likely it is that he would be within 1% of his expected dollar loss
    Here are the 99% confidence intervals (1% chance of being outside this confidence interval) of the house edge (-1.41%) as a function of the number of pass line (or come) bet resolutions:
    Name:  passline_craps_99percent_CI.jpg
Views: 2213
Size:  56.1 KB

  18. #18
    Originally Posted by tableplay View Post
    Originally Posted by Half Smoke View Post
    again, a mathematician could tell you exactly how likely it is that he would be within 1% of his expected dollar loss
    Here are the 99% confidence intervals (1% chance of being outside this confidence interval) of the house edge (-1.41%) as a function of the number of pass line (or come) bet resolutions:
    Name:  passline_craps_99percent_CI.jpg
Views: 2213
Size:  56.1 KB
    Thanks for this information but it has nothing to do with my question or my point. Don't the stats in the chart posted by Mr Tableplay relate to all "points"?

    I'm simply saying that each roll of the dice is resolved with each roll, so there is no long term.

    Set the point of 6 and you have a five out of six chance of winning on the next roll. It's that simple.

    I'm starting to suspect that you are all very smart people who cannot look at the simple question and must report a complicated answer.

    Ask an expert if it's raining and you'll get a dissertation on precipitation.

  19. #19
    Originally Posted by AndrewG View Post
    Originally Posted by tableplay View Post
    Originally Posted by Half Smoke View Post
    again, a mathematician could tell you exactly how likely it is that he would be within 1% of his expected dollar loss
    Here are the 99% confidence intervals (1% chance of being outside this confidence interval) of the house edge (-1.41%) as a function of the number of pass line (or come) bet resolutions:
    Name:  passline_craps_99percent_CI.jpg
Views: 2213
Size:  56.1 KB
    Thanks for this information but it has nothing to do with my question or my point. Don't the stats in the chart posted by Mr Tableplay relate to all "points"?

    I'm simply saying that each roll of the dice is resolved with each roll, so there is no long term.

    Set the point of 6 and you have a five out of six chance of winning on the next roll. It's that simple.

    I'm starting to suspect that you are all very smart people who cannot look at the simple question and must report a complicated answer.

    Ask an expert if it's raining and you'll get a dissertation on precipitation.

    The long term is why casinos stay in business. If they did not have a long term advantage they would have to close their doors.

    The short term is why people keep gambling. You can win against the house edge on a single roll of the dice, but the casino will always (99.99999999999999999999999999999999999% of the time) come out ahead over billions of rolls.

    Honestly not sure what it is you are having trouble understanding.

  20. #20
    Originally Posted by AndrewG View Post
    Thanks for this information but it has nothing to do with my question or my point. Don't the stats in the chart posted by Mr Tableplay relate to all "points"?
    In a manner of speaking, yes - it is for the pass line/come bet as a whole.

    Originally Posted by AndrewG View Post
    Set the point of 6 and you have a five out of six chance of winning on the next roll. It's that simple.
    No, I'm afraid it's not that simple. The probability of making your point of 6 on the next roll is 5/36 not 5/6.

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