Latest Cronley Article- "hitting 17 with dealer showing a 5-spot"

[hockey2315]

Originally Posted by Dunbar

The article said "Many horse bets are the equivalent of hitting 17 with the dealer showing a 5-spot, of letting it ride on green at the roulette wheel."

I take exception to the 2nd half of that claim! The vast majority of horse bets are way worse than "letting it ride on green at the roulette wheel". Even with a double zero wheel, those roulette bets only lose at 5.2% on average. How many horse players (with the exception of absolutely everyone at derbytrail!) have cut the house edge to less than 5%?

But when we bet with a semi-informed (at least perceived) opinion aren't we taking what we think is an overlay? No rational person bets 0/00 and thinks they have an edge. . . So, is it really worse to at least try to extract some value from a bet than to take a documented underlay simply because, over time, we're more likely to lose less from the standard roulette house edge than our inept handicapping/betting?

[Dunbar]

Originally Posted by hockey2315

But when we bet with a semi-informed (at least perceived) opinion aren't we taking what we think is an overlay? No rational person bets 0/00 and thinks they have an edge. . . So, is it really worse to at least try to extract some value from a bet than to take a documented underlay simply because, over time, we're more likely to lose less from the standard roulette house edge than our inept handicapping/betting?

That's an interesting question. The capper is using his/her brain more, but in the vast majority of cases the roulette player is getting the better ROI. So who's "smarter"?

What if the roulette player is deluded enough to think that a betting system (like Martingale) will give him/her an edge. Does thinking like that make the roulette player smarter than a -10% capper? Note they both THINK they have an edge.

As an aside...by far the biggest hourly edge I've ever had was during a 2-hour roulette promotion. In 2001, the online casino Casino-on-Net offered double the usual payout on "00" and "7". (in honor of James Bond). That turned the game from -5.2% to +87%. My 4 partners and I won over $300K in those 2 hours. Casino-On-Net paid out $4 million in total. (see http://www.winneronline.com/articles.../con_promo.htm)

Perhaps the most amazing thing is that the casino didn't lose more than it did. Casino-on-Net was the biggest online casino in the world at the time. Yet my little group took home 8% of the total win from that promo. My theory was that most people didn't look twice at the promo once they saw "roulette".

--Dunbar