Regression Avoids Depression Part 17

Today we are heading into an advantage-play area that will allow you to extract not only more profit from the same level of play, but also help you understand how the slimmest of margins over the house can offer all kinds of profit as long as your other non-advantage bets are minimized.

 Developing Your Edge and Then Exploiting Your Advantage

As an advantage-player, your edge-per-hand determines how much profit you can expect to extract, on average, from each dice-shooting opportunity. 

We establish that advantage by first determining the average number of times you will roll the dice (on average) during a typical hand.  We call that the “point-cycle roll-duration”, and we use that while factoring in the global-bets that you typically make.  In doing so, we can calculate your approximate dice-influencing edge over each of these respective multi-number wagers.

Your “edge-per-hand” also dictates what your starting session-bankroll really should be in order for a given betting-method to have the best chance of successfully exploiting your current advantage over the casino.  We’ll be exploring that subject in intense detail (with easy to follow charts) in Part Eighteen of this series, but for now I’ll tell you this:

It is critical to note that…

• If your bankroll is under-funded or your money is too thinly spread over too many low-advantage or negative-expectation bets, your chances for success are radically diminished even if you have a dominant edge over the house.

• Equally, your edge-per-hand also controls how many properly-sized geared-to-skill hands you will have to throw, on average, before doubling your current bankroll.

Again, your dice-influencing skill on its own is not enough to guarantee a profit. 

You have to wager your properly-sized bets on the numbers where you have developed the strongest validated edge…and I hate to tell you this, but any other non-advantaged bets are just a waste of your money because they not only cut into your profit-margin, but they also erode the very bankroll that you’ll need in order to properly exploit your edge on the bets where you do have the advantage.

• Your advantage over the house and your average roll-duration dictates not only the best bets
• to make, but also the proper size of each of them and the overall size of bankroll you’ll need
• in order to properly utilize that edge.

Okay, that’s enough of a preview of this and the next couple of chapters in this series; let’s jump right in.

Bridging the Skill-to-Profit Gap

As we’ve seen thus far in the first sixteen chapters, your advantage over the house is not static on a roll-to-roll-to-roll basis during any given hand.  Rather, the over-riding threat of a 7-Out is an ever-present danger that has to be recognized for what it is…it is part of the game.  As a result, we generally only get a certain number of rolls per hand to weave our precision-shooting magic.  That point-cycle period is dictated by our Sevens-to-Rolls Ratio (“SSR”), and although I’ll readily admit that our SRR isn’t the be-all and end-all of dice-influencing; it does figure very prominently into reconciling what it is we can actually do with our precision-shooting skill once we have developed a slight edge over the house.

We also know that our Sevens-to-Rolls Ratio (SSR) dictates the average number of point-cycle rolls that we will throw before 7’ing-Out; so obviously if we ignore that; then we are likely ignoring all kinds of profit-making opportunities too…and doing that will likely leave you feeling short-changed when you compare the amount of profit you actually end up with versus the amount of skill you know you have. 

The whole idea behind this series is to help you bridge the gap between your skill and your rightful profit.  We do that by properly structuring our bets in a size and proportion to our current skill-level.  As such, it would be silly if we didn’t figure the 7’s appearance-rate into our advantage-play bet-calculations or if we ignored how long our wagers generally stay in positive-expectation territory before combined probabilities casts them back into negative-expectancy.

Let me put that into bumper-sticker speak:

Get your work done in time…make a profit. 

Too slow on your advantage…produce a loss. 

 Casino Battle or Business Encounter?

What most players perceive as a casino battle, is in fact just a down-to-earth business encounter where

we are simply using our dice-influencing skills to derive a net-profit from the wagers that we place on the layout.

As I mentioned, the life-expectancy of each hand is obviously quite limited, and therefore our bettin -method has to recognize the limited time during each hand in which a consistently predictable profit can it also minimizes the overall profit we are likely to emerge with from any given hand that we throw.

In other words, the bets that remain on the layout when our hand ends obviously have to be deducted from any bet-payouts we received during that hand in order to determine net-profitability for that particular turn with the dice.

The Deadly Sins of Advantage Play

Many players either start out with wagers that are way too small, hoping that they’ll turn their matchstick into a lumberyard by way of a once in a lifetime roll; or they leave way too much money out on the layout for far too long without first locking-up a relatively substantial retained profit (in relation to the overall size of their total exposed wagers).

As precision-shooters, we have to use the average point-cycle roll-duration juncture to determine where the optimal regression-point for our particular bets actually is, and then ideally we would lock in a net-profit at that point.  If our roll continues beyond there; then we simply continue to harvest a profit from our remaining wagers and we can even start to increase them if we choose to.

Now clearly, many of our hands will go far beyond that average roll-duration point, and since we still have active, albeit lower-valued bets on the layout; we are still be able to reap the benefit and even ramp them up if the hand continues. 

Most importantly though, regression-betting allows us get to the net-profit point in more of our hands more often than any other style, form, or method of wagering. 

The added benefit of reaching net-profit at an earlier point in nearly every hand; is that many regression-style bettors find that they are better able to relax about the money-anxiety they used to feel, and instead they are now more fully able to focus on the task of actually de-randomizing the dice even further.  Since the net-profit comes to them sooner and on a much more consistent basis than before; the anxiety that they used to feel, has been replaced with a higher level of shooting confidence and income reliability. 

So Is It A Casino Battle or a Simple Advantage-Play Business Encounter?

Instead of fearing or loathing the 7; many dice-influencers have wisely adapted their betting-methods to recognize and match its overall appearance-rate in order to take full advantage of the fattest, most frequently occurring part of their roll-duration curve…all the while profitably emerging from the whole process with a highly predictable revenue stream.

We have to keep in mind that while our precision-shooting skill itself may remain constant throughout a hand, the math of dice-influencing dictates that that skill can only be considered in context with the ever-looming presence of a roll-ending 7-Out. 

Savvy precision-shooters understand that you simply don’t need to throw mythical unending hands of or 100 or 300 rolls in order to prove your manhood or emerge with a net-profit; rather, they understand the importance of structuring their bets in such a way so that their average non-headline-making hand produces a steady and reliable profit too.  Now THAT is what any mature adult would consider to be an accomplishment. 50

Your long hands will take care of themselves and you should make as much money off of those as you possibly can, but the bread-and-butter of dice-influencing revenue is generated by using your EVERY DAY, EVERY SESSION hands to make a profit nearly every time you pick up the dice. 

In the simplest terms, properly structured regression-bets that are optimized for your current skill-level, means that you can derive consistent profit from your low-average short-duration hands and not just from the exceptional long ones.  To my way of thinking, that isn’t so much “a battle” as it is a common sense business exchange.  You are simply investing a small portion of your gaming bankroll at the craps table in order to get a profitable return on your dice-influencing skills.

To an advantage-player who uses regression-style betting, the casino battle that most gamblers think they are fighting; is instead just a straight-forward positive-expectation business encounter.  An A-P dice-influencer regards the wagers that he makes on his own validated bets simply as investments in his own verified and confirmed dice-influencing skills.

Like I said, if you ignore your point-cycle roll-duration; then there’s an excellent chance that significant profits are also going to continue to ignore you. 

• If the dice-influencer gets his work done in time, by having his strongest-edge bets produce net-revenue before the 7 shows up; then he makes a profit. 

• If he is too slow to capitalize on his advantage because his bets are too widely spread or too thinly wagered; then he produces a loss.

Or as that A-P D-I bumper-sticker should read:

Get your work done in time…make a profit. 

Too slow on your advantage…produce a loss. 

 Simplifying Your Bet-Investment Decisions

If we have to regard our bet-decisions as “investments”, and we restrict our wagers to the ones where we have the strongest-edge; then how do multi-number global bets likeInside, Across, Even, Outside and Iron Cross wagers fit into that equation?

To figure that out, we first have to consider what each hit on one of these global-type bets willtypically pay, and how many flat-bet hits it will require to pay for itself (before reaching profitability); then we have to figure out how many hits our current dice-influencing skill is likely to generate during an average hand.

Armed with proper information, we can then make an informed decision regarding various betting- methods we might be considering.  So let’s look at these global-bets to see exactly what each of them requires in terms of making them net-profitable under various SRR skill-rates.

Now keep in mind that this chart shows FLAT-betting (where you neither regress nor increase your bet at any time during a hand).  It shows how many same-bet hits are required for each of these global-bets to pay for themselves, and it shows how much profit-per-hand a player is likely to end up with at the end of each hand. 

Now obviously these are averages and you’ll likely encounter quite a bit of fluctuation from hand to hand, session to session and casino visit to casino visit; but overall, this chart shows the amount of net-profit you are likely to derive from each of these global bets, when averaged over a reasonable number of in-casino trials.

What Else Does That Chart Tell Us?

The next thing that the chart tells us, is that even when you have multiple numbers covered at the same time, and even though you are shooting with an advantage over the house; you only have a slight advantage when you are flat-betting (or calling for the “same bet” when you get paid); and you only have a limited amount of time (as measured by point-cycle rolls) in which to extract a net profit from most of the hands that you throw. 

The figures on the chart include everything from the super short point-then-7-out hands to the seemingly unending ones that go on and on.  However, when you look at your profit-making opportunities when measured over the expected roll-duration and the expected hit-rate for each of these respective global-bets for your particular skill; it is easy to make a very compelling argument for the use of regression-type bets in order to safely get the maximum amount of net-profit off the table as soon as possible.

Now some people will tell you that regression-betting merely redistributes your wins to the early part of your point-cycle roll and minimizes it in the unlikely event that your hand goes on and on and on; and that would be true if your average point-cycle roll-duration lasted much, much longer than it actually does.  Sadly though, your point-cycle usually only lasts for a very short period of time, so it makes sense to make money from it as soon and as often as you can. 

•       Regression-betting is designed for “average” conditions where your global-bets enjoy their normally expected appearance-rate.

• If you bet like every hand will be THE hand of the century, then your bankroll will likely be exhausted long before your baseless optimism is.  

Regression-betting is designed to put more profit into your hands more often and more efficiently and on a much steadier basis than same-bet flat-wagering ever will. 

In other words, a properly structured regression-bet takes much of the guess-work out of wondering if this hand will be THE hand.  Instead, by using your current skill-level to extract net-profit out of most of your hands, you don’t have to worry or hope or wish; you simply have to shoot the same way you normally do…and the profit is yours for the taking.

The Untold Story of Compound Multi-Number Bets

Since we now know exactly what it takes to turn multi-number global-bets into net-positive winners; we can use that information to precisely figure out the true-edge we have over the casino when we optimally regress our bets at the right time during the point-cycle; and therefore we can calculate not only how much of a bankroll we should be armed with in order to properly exploit our advantage, but also how many hands it will likely take to double our current bankroll.

That’s the untold story of compound multi-number global-bets, and you are going to be hearing all about it for the first time in Part Eighteen of this series.  I can promise you this…

It is one of my most important articles that you will ever read. 

I hope you’ll join me for that.  In the meantime,

Good Luck and Good Skills at the tables…and in Life.

Sincerely,

The Mad Professor