Volume VI : Issue #9 | |
In This Edition: | A Word From Soft Touch Ed Wants to know… Can You Have Your 6 and 8 it Too? Today’s Wisdom… The Dumbo Paradox… Queen Bee’s Buzz… A Labor of Love… Newsletter Archive Links |
Soft Touch Say’s
Play Shop – Party update –
Your time to register for our family reunion dice party on Sept. 30, 2006 is coming to a close very soon. RSVP’s are due by the 10th of Sept.
If you should receive this newsletter after our deadline, you can still call and find out if we have room. Here’s the number:
DICECOACH.COM
TOLL-FREE
(US Only)
1-(866) DICEMAN
1-(866) 342-3626
Between the 10th and 15th of September, we will be circulating a questionnaire to you utilizing the email address you gave us when you registered.
Please be sure to complete this and send it back to us. This will make the most of your party time spent with us. Kindly ship the questionnaire back to us no later than Sept. 20th.
I am very excited about our goal oriented theme party. We’re calling this one:
Playing For Supper
How well do you like to eat?
Our party will focus on win goals and betting strategies to complete those win goals.
There are schedules we have to arrange to give you the most “one on one” time possible. So, filling out the questionnaire will –
Help us help you achieve your win goals
This is where the adage, “planning your play and playing your plan,” along with, completing the questionnaire becomes so important. The evening of our party, we will gather together to enjoy a feast, paid individually, based on how well each of us achieved our win goals.
We will also focus on those wishing to qualify for the Hilton Tournament. A couple of our party goers have experience placing in the money in previous tourneys. I am sure they will be happy to share their insight to winning.
We also have some goodie bags. What’s a party these days without the “swag.” Yes, come for the swag filled goodie bags containing useful things.
I will share a few words about the spirit of our generosity.
We feel that our valuable time, effort, attention and energy are important to share with one another. In giving, we expand our hearts. This party is our way of giving back to our dice community. My philosophy to creating positive outcomes at the tables has everything to do with expanding our heart energy.
And, it is our way of appreciating the friendships we have created as we move along our journey, whether these friendships were for a “reason, a season or a lifetime.”
By offering this party to our friends, students and acquaintances, we set up a situation in which we create wonderful energy for abundance that can easily bless us positively in more ways than we can imagine. Well, maybe we can imagine.
And, while in the casinos, we will always encourage you to think of our hard working craps dealers and stress that we give generously for their attention and service at the tables. A kind “thank you” even if you do not tip is important to the process. Your game will expand in more ways than you may ever really know.
A reminder. This party, it is only open to our students or my forum members. Sadly, we wish to have had an association with you in order for you to attend.
Thank you for your understanding.
Keep smiling at the tables and remember –
Always plan to make your next craps session, no matter what the outcome, your best ever!
See you at the tables,
Soft Touch
PS If you have any suggestions for the new dicesetter.com website or newsletter please send them to me at Ed@dicesetter.com and I’ll have a look and see how we can incorporate them into our future plans.
Ed Wants to Know, if You Know?
Here are the questions for this issue:
1. What is Bugsy Siegel’s claim to fame?
2. Who were the members of the “Rat Pack”?
3. What is the name of the show room and the casino where the “Rat Pack” played?
4. Who said it? “…the only way to make money in a casino is to own one.”
Send your answers to ed@dicesetter.com
In the last issue of Dice Setter Precision Shooter’s Newsletter, I asked the following questions:
1. Gambling in Nevada was not always legal. The laws for and against gambling went back and forth. What year did gambling in Nevada finally pass and stands to present day?
2. Reno was home to the early Nevada casinos. Contrary to popular belief, Bugsy Siegel’s Fabulous Flamingo was not the first licensed casino in Las Vegas. Name the first licensed casino to operate in Las Vegas.
3. First called Boulder Dam, it drew tourist to southern Nevada that spurred the growth of Las Vegas. By 1939 the desert train stop with just over 5,000 residents, had over 600,000 tourists visit that year and the game was on. Completed in 1935, what is the name of the dam that attracted so many tourists?
4. If Bugsy Siegel’s Fabulous Flamingo what not the first casino on the strip, why is it recognized as being Las Vegas’s first Strip resort?
Here are the answers:
1. Jonah answered correctly: 1931… Gambling in Nevada became legal in 1931. Republican state assemblyman Phil Tobin sponsored a bill to legalize gambling to help supplement revenues due to the depression and because mining in Nevada had played out. Legalized gambling in Nevada has existed ever since.
2. Jonah answered correctly: Reno was the hub for casinos in 1931. Las Vegas was just a train stop. Mayme Stocker received the first a gaming licenses in Las Vegas. Together with her son Harold, she opened her Northern Club Casino on Fremont Street.
3. “Hoover Dam is answer to # 3 ……. I would answer the rest, but I got to find my handcuffs so I can meet the Queen Bee over at Wynn… Great August letter! Thanks, HarleyHorn”
(Harley Horn nosed out Jonah with this correct answer 13.5 minutes sooner than Jonah)
4. Jonah, with nearly a sweep said: The Flamingo was the first class act in Las Vegas offering more than a dude ranch atmosphere. The Fabulous Flamingo hotel and casino offered the best of everything from restaurants to accommodations and live entertainment. The days of the cowboy gambling halls were numbered and the twenty-four hour, seven days a week non-stop party had begun. In 1946, the “desert oasis” in the middle of nowhere, was open for business just fifteen years after gambling became legal in Nevada. They never looked back.
Thanks to Harley Horn and Jonah for your correct answers and for playing the game!
Guys, if you are reading this, send an email to ed@dicesetter.com with your mailing address
and you will receive new precision dice as a token of appreciation.
Ed
Can You Have Your 6 and 8 it Too?
By D.C. Wizard
Some new place-betting systems for the 6 and 8? It was raining here. I must have been bored. So, this weekend I decided to take another look at the collection of place-betting systems that I have in my library. Then, I compared these systems to some of the place-betting systems that have been written about here. (DiceSetter.com) I discovered nothing new. As expected, I found mostly run of the mill “up and pull” systems that have sustained casino profits for years.
With place betting, “winning” more bets than pass-line bettors comes at the cost of greater risk and larger losses. The “fuzzy math” that I’ve seen to support 6/8 systems misses this unpleasant fact. Yes, if one bets both the six and eight, chances are that either the six or the eight will hit before a seven is rolled. However, when the seven does roll, (and it will roll on average once in every six rolls no matter how many bets are on the table), the player who places both the six and eight is going to lose both bets (or 2 units). Likewise, the player, placing all six numbers is going to lose 6 units to the seven out while the largest possible win is limited to 1.8 (9 to 5 which is paid when hitting either the four or ten). In my opinion, it is much better to risk (and to lose) 1 unit rather than to risk 2 or more units. And, if he confines himself to betting the pass line and the pass line alone, 1 unit is the most that the pass-line better will ever lose on one roll of the dice.
From time to time, I hear place bettors suggest that their increasing the number of bets helps overcome the nasty seven. For example, place both the 6 and the 8 … Ten ways to win and 6 ways to lose…Sounds good to a novice player, I am sure…However, here is the skinny. Placing more than one number increases both the chance of winning a little and of losing a lot. No place-betting system can rectify this.
Another serious problem with place betting is that when the place bet does win, it pays less than the true mathematical odds. (In the case of the 6 and 8, the pay-out is 7/6 instead of 6/5). Bad player odds and increased player risk explain why the casinos best customers are place bettors. Hits on the six or eight, are only going to pay about 1.17 units (7 to 6), while a hit on the seven is going to cost 2 units. On the other hand, while pass-line bettors who parlay naturals and take the odds “win” less often than place bettors, pass-line bettors lose much less money to the inevitable seven.
Equally important, when the pass-line bettor does win, he wins more money than he has put at risk. Following our pass-line system, a win on the pass line will either represent completion of a parlay (that parlay will pay either 3 or 7 times the original amount put at risk), or payment of a pass-line bet in which we have taken double odds. In either case, the payout will always exceed the amount put at risk to a seven-out.
So why do so many players find place betting alluring? As a pit boss once told me, “all systems work some of the time”. And, when place betting is working, everyone knows it! When the seven disappears for 15 to 30 minutes, it is almost like an all-you-can-grab money buffet. Hot tables are certainly a memorable event, one where place bettors are making more than almost anybody else at the table…Including, pass-line bettors…My estimate is that during hands where there are say 20 to 30 box numbers between sevens, the place bettor will make 3 to 5 times to that of a pure pass-line bettor.
The trouble is, hands with 20 or 30 box numbers between sevens, don’t occur often enough for the place bettor to keep his head above water. One can go days without seeing such a hot table. The seven is a diligent worker that rarely takes much time off. More often than not, the seven is showing, and when the seven is showing, the place bettor is going to lose far bigger than pass-line bettors.
A friend of a friend of mine has coined a term he calls “selective memory”. In my opinion, “selective memory” is the perfect term for what goes on in the mind of a place bettor. It’s easy to remember everything about the hot shoot…The guy who placed all the numbers could well make 50 or 100 times his original buy in. Or, how about the guy who parlayed the hard eight three times? Why that paid over 500 to 1!!!
“To the moon” systems, however, seem much less inviting when we consider how much cash the place bettor blew through either waiting for that hot hand, or over-betting a hand that he thought was hot. The old song “Memories” comes to mind. Specifically, memories “too painful to remember we simply choose to forget…”. [Gosh to think I’m quoting Barbara Streisand. I really am old!!!]
Here’s a bit of the math. Most everyone that has ever read a book on craps must have seen this somewhere. It’s the old cumulative probabilities that most every beginning craps book offers. See the table below for the probabilities of each number and each number expressed as odds. It is the wins to losses that I want to focus on.
Number | Expectation Out of 36 | Chance of Rolling | Expressed as Odds | Number of Wins To Losses | |
2 | 1 | 1/36 | 35:1 | 0 | 1 |
3 | 2 | 2/36 | 17:1 | 0 | 2 |
4 | 3 | 3/36 | 11:1 | 1 | 2 |
5 | 4 | 4/36 | 8:1 | 1.6 | 2.4 |
6 | 5 | 5/36 | 6.2:1 | 2.27273 | 2.72727 |
7 | 6 | 6/36 | 5:1 | 6 | 0 |
8 | 5 | 5/36 | 6.2:1 | 2.27273 | 2.72727 |
9 | 4 | 4/36 | 8:1 | 1.6 | 2.4 |
10 | 3 | 3/36 | 11:1 | 1 | 2 |
11 | 2 | 2/36 | 17:1 | 2 | 0 |
12 | 1 | 1/36 | 35:1 | 0 | 1 |
Total | 36 | 36/36 | — | 17.74546 | 18.25454 |
Now, for the fun part. Add up the total ways to win and the total ways to lose.
Total Ways to Win in 36 Rolls = 17.74546
Total Ways to Lose in 36 Rolls = 18.25454
Player’s Negative Expectancy
Without Odds (18.25454 – 17.74546)
36 = 1.41%
Have you ever seen that percentage?
Here is a little secret tid-bit. The great Sam Grafstein recognized the play, but I am sure any math he did was done on his fingers. Still, the math affirms the greatness of the Dice Doctor’s system. See if this adds up?
Wins Due to
Naturals = 8 (22.22222% of total occurrences and 45.08% of total wins)
Natural 7 = 6 (16.66667% of total occurrences and 33.81% of total wins)
Natural 11 = 2 (5.555556% of total occurrences and 11.27% of total wins)
Wins Due to Shooter Making
the Point = 9.74546 (26.5959 % of total occurrences and 54.92% of total wins)
Adds up: 8 + 9.74546 = 17.74546
Losses Due to Crap Rolls = 4
Losses due to the 7-Out = 14.25454
Adds up: 4 + 14.25454 = 18.25454
So, now you know where those numbers come from and why the house advantage is what it is. Wadda mean? No!
Okay, here is how it comes about. The blue numbers refer to the number of times over 36 rolls that a decision will be won and the red numbers represent decisions lost. This is the mathematical break down for any individual number that can be rolled on a come out.
Let’s look first at the six. As we know, 5 times out of 36, the shooter will establish
six as a point. If he does roll a six for a point, there are 5 ways to roll a six before a seven (the shooter wins) and 6 ways to roll a seven before a six (the shooter loses). So the chance over 36 rolls of a shooter winning on a six is (5×5/11), or, 2.27273 times.
The chance that a shooter will seven-out (having established six as the point) is
(5×6/11). Or, 2.72727 times. Note that 2.27273 + 2.72727 = 5 and recall that 5 is the number of times over 36 rolls that a shooter will establish 6 as a point. Cool?
The math for the eight is, of course, the same as the math for the six.
As for the five and nine, we expect to roll both the five and nine 4 times each over 36 rolls. When a five or nine is rolled, there are 4 ways to make the point, and six ways to lose to a seven. So, the number of decisions over 36 rolls that will be won on a five or nine is ((4×4)/10) or 1.6. The number of times over 36 rolls that a shooter will lose on a five or nine is 2.4 ((4×6)/10).
I trust by now, you can figure out the math for the four and ten. There are 3 ways in 36 rolls to establish either the four or the ten. Having rolled the four (or a ten) as the point, there are 3 ways for the shooter to roll a four (or a ten) before the seven, and six ways for a shooter to roll a seven before a four (or a ten). So over 36 rolls, there will be 1 decision won with four or ten as the point (3×1)/3, and 2 decisions where the shooter sevened out with four or ten as the point (3×2)/3.
Lastly, there are come out naturals and craps. A come out seven or eleven will occur 8 times (six times on the seven, two times on the eleven). So, 8 out of 36 rolls will be instant pass-line winners. A come out crap will occur four times. (1 in every 36 rolls for both the two or twelve), and 2 in every 36 rolls for the three.) So 4 out of 36 rolls will be immediate pass-line losers.
I originally developed the chart as a tool to demonstrate the power of naturals, and to illustrate the number of pass-line decisions that are won by seven and eleven. (Many crap players are unaware of this, but naturals, on average, account for just over 45% of pass line wins!) This chart, however, could also help your understanding of place betting.
Place bettors get no benefit from come out sevens or elevens while sharing all the risk from the shooter sevening out. And, place bettors get shorted more on the payout than do pass-line bettors. For example, instead of getting 6 to 5 odds on the six, place bettors receive 7 to 6. Over 36 rolls, if a place bettor bets $12 on the six every roll, he will win 2.27273 times. He should receive a payout of $14.4 ($12 x 1.2). Instead, however, the place bettor gets a payout of $14.00. Over 36 rolls this amounts to a ($0.4 x 2.27273) or $0.91 tax for the $12 place bettor on the six or eight… Do you see how it is a game of numbers? Do you see how over a lifetime career of playing craps the house-advantage works against the player on every roll?? The higher the house odds, the higher the tax the player pays. Even though I live and make my living in the land of big government (Washington DC), I still cringe when I hear the word tax! At least when I am the guy paying the tax. How about you?
D.C. Wizard
© Copyright 2006
Today’s Wisdom:
“The more you try to force something for your own benefit,
the less you will enjoy what you are seeking.”
Dr. Wayne W. Dyer Everyday Wisdom
The Dumbo Paradox
By Mike From Hawaii
How is it possible to win with any consistency at craps? How can there be any system that “works”? House advantage is against you at a banked table game.
Selective memory causes people to remember the hits and suppress the memory of the losses. They like to talk about how they hit SEVEN with three blacks! Anyone would. To make a crazy bet like that and have it pay off and the expression on everyone’s face as it goes from contempt for the idiot betting on SEVEN to envy as that stack of blacks gets pushed over.
So many systems appear to feature lots of bets to create lots of action. Many systems seem to try to use the high payback bets in some way because when they hit they really ratchet you forward. If you get lucky before you get seriously hurt, they can really throw you into the plus column fast. As opposed to systems that grind along with the lower return safer bets.
Higher volatility systems are attractive because they hit big! The system I looked at unraveling recently involved betting the SEVEN when “sevens were due”. That is a big 4:1 payout when it hits. You really scoop up the chips when you are lucky. Of course it is a killer on the downside. Unfortunately “sevens are due” is a totally bogus concept, at least mathematically;
If someone has the discipline to quit while they are ahead, high volatility systems can even appear to work. If one has the discipline to quit when you reach “the threshold of pain” loss level and step away, you can limit your downside sessions and have some nice upside sessions. With fuzzy book keeping, forgetting a nice percentage of these small loss sessions, and emphasizing the big lucky sessions, one might even become convinced that overall you have a winning system.
The ONLY winning system is one that manages your money and your betting patterns, is very conscious of house advantage, taps into some kind of (OK I like Metaphysical) metaphysical sense of the flow of the game or similar guidelines, uses iron discipline to step away when the Karma of the game says it “ain’t your time” and sharply limit losses, and ratchets forward profits when lady luck is your personal guest. Finally, realizes when she leaves or changes partners and your personal session “maxes out”.
All of my reflection on systems has come down to that.
Math says professional gamblers cannot exist! Not those which play banked casino games, Nope they cannot exist, anymore than elephants can fly. But yet they do exist! Call it the Dumbo Paradox. So the above paragraph summarizes the only explanation I have been able to come up with to start resolve this paradox.
Finally the theory of large numbers.
The gambler’s loophole! It is in the theory of large numbers that professional gamblers can exist. But virtually everyone mistakes the implication that creates the loophole.
1. Given an infinite craps game we know the math. We know it with absolute, God like precision of any number of decimal places. Casino’s approximate this somewhat because they look out on an ocean of players at multiple tables operating extended 24/7 periods.
2. The real world is NOT infinite. In fact with 36 outcomes, the number of rolls of the dice to get the numbers to zero in on the “correct” math from statement #1 is almost beyond belief! Think in terms of well over 1 million rolls of the dice. How long is that at one roll per minute?
Ergo, a given real session of craps is as likely to be lopsided as it is to be mathematically accurate. In one session how many hands? Assume one per minute and a four hour session. We have not even snuk up on 1000 by a LOOOONG shot. The averages from that session can be off by a mile in any direction. You could easily see a shooter crank out a dozen hardway fours while holding the dice for half an hour. Or any other major deviation.
So sessions will be “Hot” or “Cold” or more specifically lopsided far more often than they are mathematically square, often by a large amount. When viewed from the individual player’s viewpoint. In fact the theory of large numbers actually says the longer you play, the more extreme sessions you will see.
So if you want to win, if you want to be a professional, there is one simple task and any “system” design has to take it into account.
Identify “what is wrong with this picture” as soon as possible and then apply a betting strategy to capitalize on the current session’s deviation from mathematical norm.
There is no need for dice memory in this. There is no “sevens are due”. It is just a realization that any given session contains WAY!!! too few rolls to give good math.
Metaphysics is something I can believe in because I believe we have two sides to our brain. One side is digital and uses language. It yaks away at us all the time and explains everything in wordy detail. It also does calculator type math. It is where you learned to read and do arithmetic.
The other side of our brain is an art student and uses analog, about this big, and red, and fuzzy, and feels good and can only communicate in gut feelings, emotions, colors, shapes and pictures. It knows and understands colors, pictures, feelings, urges, relationships. It can do certain kinds of math. It can do Geometry for instance, but cannot do Trig.
It is just as reasonable and logical as the other side of the brain, but it cannot use language and words to explain itself. But it reasons very fast, it sees things the digital side of our brain does NOT and it is just as logical with its own tools.
If we open up, we can tap into what this other half of the brain is trying to tell us. When the gut tightens up, when suddenly something feels wrong, when colors seem to dim and grey out, or get vivid and clear, when the hand moves before the mind can think, when something starts “bumming you out” for no good “reason”. It is your other half of your brain “yelling at you” in its own way with its own communication tools.
Isn’t it possible that “Metaphysics” is simply learning to view the game as the session progresses and listen to both sides of your brain? The digital “math guy” and the analog “flow guy”?
Mike from Hawaii
© copyright 2006
Queen Bee’s Buzz
Instead of a question and answer from her Majesty of Dice, the following email note sent to the Queen Bee of Dice was chosen in place of our regular question and answer feature. It is sure to arouse much discussion on the Dice Setter Fourm.
For the skilled dice influencers with a separately dedicated bankroll for these entertaining prop bets, playing these opportunities can prove to be profitable. It has for me and I have been witness to numerous members of our community who have successfully collected chips from completing these wagers.
Now I know there is some controversy out there over whether we should be promoting these types of betting opportunities. Still, true dice influencing suggests that the skilled dice influencer can minimize much of that house edge. After all, what’s the vig on a bet that gets paid?
Queen Bee
Dear Queen Bee, I have found More Ways To Play In The City of Dreams…
You have to know where to look, but in the City of Dreams, there is at least one casino offering four interesting proposition bets directly above the Hardway bets in the center of the felt. These four bets may be considered “crazy bets” by most patrons. However, as a skilled dice influencer, I have found them to be so much fun to play that they are hard to pass on.
Four Rolls No Seven
The bet wins if the shooter can go four throws without rolling a seven. A win pays 1 to 1. The odds are as follows. Current house rules (unwritten and not posted) allow bets from $5 to $500 on this prop bet.
Four Rolls no Seven: | |||
Event | Pays | Probability | Return |
Win | 1 | 48.2 % | 48.2 % |
Loss | -1 | 51.8 % | -51.8 % |
Total | 100.0 % | – 3.6 % |
Small, Tall Bet
The Small bet wins if the shooter rolls a 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 before rolling a seven. The Tall bet wins if the shooter rolls an 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 before rolling a seven. A win pays 34 to 1, or 35 for 1. The odds on both bets are the same as follows. The lower right cell shows a house edge of 7.76%. Current house rules (unwritten and not posted) allow bets from $1 to $100 on these prop bets.
Small, Tall Bets: | |||
Event | Pays | Probability | Return |
Win | 34 | 2.6 % | 89.6 % |
Loss | -1 | 97.4 % | – 97.4 % |
Total | 100.0 % | – 7.8 % |
All Bet
The All bet wins if the shooter rolls a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 before rolling a seven. A win pays 174 to 1, or 175 for 1. The odds are as follows. The lower right cell shows a house edge of 7.99%. Current house rules (unwritten and not posted) allow bets from $1 to $25 on this prop bet.
All Bet: | |||
Event | Pays | Probability | Return |
Win | 174 | 0.5 % | 91.48% |
Loss | -1 | 99.5% | -99.47% |
Total | 100.0 % | -7.99% |
I would suggest that it is hard to find so much fun and entertainment for as little as $1 anywhere else in the world, especially for craps players.
Submitted Anonymously by one of the boys in the hood, err, make that bees in the hive.