Thought I had a good roulette strategy - (I'm an idiot)

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I used that strategy once, but with BLackjack. It was back when you could make good money with the sign up bonuses, and it was my first go at it.

It's stupid, doesn't work and will just lose your money quicker than flat betting.

I did loads of 'bonus bagging' in 2007-2009.
I made around £2000 and blew the whole bloody lot.
The hurt of losing far outdoes the high from winning.

I starting matched betting up in December and have made £550 to date.
 
Man of Honour
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Best tactic I had was just not to bother.

Went in a betting shop in 1990 and lost 50p easing my boredom while my best friend lost his weeks wages, that was my last and only attempt at betting of any kind. I never really have understood and watched puzzled as friends lost vast amounts to betting, bandits in pubs and other hopeless pursuits.
 
Soldato
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When i was last at Victoria casino some quite funny occurred whilst i was chatting to my friends near a roulette table. In short, a young couple come walking over to the table near us and quickly proceeded to gamble on black with £100. As the amount he gambled was a lot for one bet i was monitoring his progress and low and behold the ball landed on a red. For the next few rolls this happens:

£200 on black > Lands on red
£400 on black > Lands on red

By this time he was all dried out and proceeded to look for the nearest cashpoint to make the next bet. He went running off for 2 minutes but failed to find the cashpoint and literally as he arrived back at the table the ball landed on black.
 
Soldato
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Basic rules I always enforce with myself when gambling;

- Be prepared to lose the amount you deposit
- If you win a bet, take out what you originally put in and play with what you have made, that way if you lose the lot you're not really down at all
- Don't chase your losses, it's only a downward spiral :p
 
Soldato
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Would never gamble myself, such a nasty addiction. A mate of mine was hooked on slot machines, a few of us would tag along often and just watch. You are all the same, strategies of beating the machines etc.

Funny thing is he would lose hundreds of pounds every weak, and then one in a blue when he won he would treat the money as if it was free and blow it on himself / us lot. Instead of calculating into into his weekly losses which would mean he was still massively down.

In hind sight we were not very good friends, and should really have got him out of there.
 
Associate
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I don't even know if I'm addicted, I'm not wasting money which I need for bills - it's just disposable income and I can happily walk past a bookies/casino without feeling the urge. It's just when I am actually there I just turn into someone I'm not.

/rant over?

It always starts out this way. No one goes all in hell for leather, be it gambling, drinking or smoking. These things slowly take over our lives and we always feel in control.

Not sure about strategy or anything but I got hooked in Las Vegas and nearly blew all our holiday money. Started off so innocent. A few dollars here and a few dollars there. Within a few days I was actually sneaking off after breakfast for a very long coffee :). Things went from bad to worse, then the wildest thing happened. My wife got very lucky on a slot machine and won more than I'd lost. Last time I gambled.
 
Soldato
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Lost over £12k in one night playing a mixture of roulette and blackjack. Good times.

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Soldato
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snip(tm) - brought to you by multi-snip technology inc.

You make some good points I guess, I still can't see a feasible scenario for it unless you have some major capital in the first place (and yes it was a rubbish analogy :p)

There was a precedent for that in the Irish lottery, a syndicate waited for the jackpot to be big enough and then bought tickets like mad. They didn't buy all the combination but they bought enough and they won and came out in profit.

I think at the time the Irish lottery had less balls so the odds were higher than the 14million to 1 that ours is.

Do those +ve odds account for the possibility of someone else also winning the jackpot however?

Basic rules I always enforce with myself when gambling;

- Be prepared to lose the amount you deposit
- If you win a bet, take out what you originally put in and play with what you have made, that way if you lose the lot you're not really down at all
- Don't chase your losses, it's only a downward spiral :p

This, really is imo the only "safe" way to gamble - don't treat it as a way to make money, look at it more like you're paying £X for a night's entertainment, if you win, great, if you lose, oh well, you've still had a few hours fun :)
 
Caporegime
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The way I see it the best way to win is not to get involved at all, if it was that easy for the average punter to make money from gambling then bookies/casinos wouldn't be viable businesses.
 
Caporegime
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You make some good points I guess, I still can't see a feasible scenario for it unless you have some major capital in the first place (and yes it was a rubbish analogy :p)

that's a given really - its not feasible for everyone as you'd have to have sufficient capital to buy up the various ticket combinations

Do those +ve odds account for the possibility of someone else also winning the jackpot however?

yes and no... its trivial to sit down with a particular scenario and work out the risks and whether its likely to be +ev with just one winner or with multiple winners. In some situations it might be overall +ev but there is a risk of taking some loss if the jackpot is split or is missed (assuming you only buy a portion of tickets) in other situations you can have the jackpot split with x winners until you take a loss.

In the Irish example they bought 80% of tickets, hit the jackpot and it was split with two other winning tickets... they still finished in profit - almost half the winnings came from the various other combinations they won on

its dependent on the structure of the lottery size of the prize pool.... but the main point is that the expected value of a lottery ticket can and does change and various scenarios arise with lottery rollovers where a ticket is +ev and in some of those examples it is possible to take advantage of it (obviously only theoretically as far as larger lotteries are concerned)
 
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