Читать книгу Casino Gambling For Dummies - Swain Scheps - Страница 80

To be a successful gambler, you must understand the intersection of statistics, probability, and the odds. In simple terms, that means you need to understand how often something is to happen (statistics), how likely that it can happen to you (probability), and what you’re going to get out of it if it does happen (payout odds). With a grasp of these concepts, you’re ready to tackle the casino with realistic expectations, and you can understand why some games should be avoided.

Let’s return to our trusty coin flip. You probably know that heads and tails each have a 50-50 shot at turning up. You can communicate the probability of the flip in terms of odds. In the case of a two-sided coin, your odds of flipping heads are 1-to-1. In other words, with two possible events (outcomes), you have one chance to fail and one chance to succeed. Clear as mud? Here’s another example. Consider rolling a 6-sided die. What are the odds that you’ll roll a 3? The ratio is 1-in-6, so the odds are 5-to-1.

When the true odds are greater than 1-to-1, that event has a less than 50 percent chance. The higher the first number, the lower the chance, so a 500-to-1 event is much less likely to turn up than a 10-to-1 event. You can also express odds for events that have a greater than 50 percent chance of occurring. If you had a bag with three black balls and one red ball, your true odds of pulling a black ball would be expressed as 1-to-3.

Odds is a word with two meanings in the casino. Don’t confuse payout odds with odds in the probability sense, which will sometimes be referred to as true odds. And when you start comparing payout odds with true odds, you’ll start to understand how casinos can afford lavish lobbies and waterfalls and Bengal tigers.