It also makes me think of Blaise Pascal, who I think would have happily taken my money as I played roulette over and over again, delighting in the small chance of winning huge amounts from me.ġ. I’m on an epistemic quest to sharpen my intuitions about low-probability events. So now I have a good excuse to keep going to the casino. I think having played roulette will help me when thinking about things like existential risks, risky but high-impact ventures, and the existence of aliens. This is the first time I’ve been confronted with tail risks in a way that feels salient. And this tail risk had a disproportionally large consequence - losing more than $600. In finance / probability, these are known as “tail risks”. But in real life, things with 4% probability happen about 1 in every 25 times. In my mind, 4% rounded down to “basically zero”. Even with only a 4% chance of losing that much, this potential loss outweighs the 96% chance that I win $20 (3). The thing I hadn’t really considered was that if I lost 5 games in a row, I would have been losing around $600. This wasn’t a viable career option for me Jesse was a genius! I was half considering simply quitting my job and moving into a mattress in the corner of this casino to make my way as a roulette player.īefore making any final decision on my career and housing, I decided to crunch some numbers and calculate the expected value of carrying out the Martingale strategy into infinity.Īs I should have expected given that casinos remain in business, the house still wins in the long run even if you use a Martingale strategy. I had won back at roulette the $20 I had lost at poker! I lost the first bet, but then bet again at $40 and won.

So I cashed in with $100 worth of chips and put $20 on red.

The odds of this were 4% - practically zero!! (2) Given the table limit, the only way I could lose was if I lost roulette 5 games in a row (1). This was clearly the only way to climb my way out of this $20 hole I was in. Just keep betting red, doubling your bet each time, and eventually you are bound to win, taking home $20 If you lose again, double your bet to $80…

If red comes up, you lost $20 the first round, but then won $40 the second round, so in total you won $20. If you lose, double your bet to $40 and put it on red. Then I remembered when my friend Jesse had told me about the Martingale system which guarantees you to win at roulette! It goes like this:įirst bet $20 on red. I was down on my luck, having lost $20 at the 7-card poker table. Kropka Kropka Kropka Zaznacz i kopiuj Zamknij okno index.html roulette.css js Go for a beer Go for a beer Go for a beer Go for a beer Go for a beer Go for a beer GO TO WORK Go for a beer Go for a beer Go for a beer Go for a beer Go for a beer.

Simple cartoon roulette wheel