Bobby Vegas — How To Look for Advantage Plays (and Van Halen) – Las Vegas Advisor

This post could also be titled, “The One That Got Away.”

Treasure hunts require patience and lots of false starts. Discover an opportunity that gets shut down by the house? Join the club. But finding that elusive 102% game or major house miscalculation? JUMP! (My nod to Van Halen.)

I didn’t jump. I found it. Then missed it. That’s the VIP lesson today. Find. Confirm. Jump.

I’d been studying non-linear recurrence theory and discovered the Birthday Paradox. This is a counterintuitive expression where, within a surprisingly small group of people, two can have the same birthday.

Most people assume, okay, two people, 365 days, half of 365 would be 183 people. Right? Wrong. The correct answer is 23. From 365.

The birthday paradox is Any X = ANY X.

With each pair, the match percentage increases exponentially, because ANY 2 can match. It’s not two people matching one number; it’s any two numbers matching.

With 23 people, its breakeven is a 50% chance of a match. With 30 people, it’s 100%. Believe it or not.

So what does this have to do with advantage play?

Double-zero roulette has 38 numbers. A new game, Double Action Roulette, was introduced at the M years ago. It had two wheels, one inside the other. You could bet on either wheel or both. You could also bet on when one number lands on both wheels. Max bet $5. Payout 1,200-to-one. Massive house edge (17%). And major house mistake.

They’re thinking: two wheels, one number, 1,444-to-one — and not any two numbers matching with just 38 numbers. Jackpot. I’m very excited, but am leaving that day. So I called a roulette AP associate, with whom I was working on another roulette project. “Go to the M right now and hammer this! It’s going to pay off 5 to 10 times a day!” (In other words, $24K to $60K. A day.)

Due to other time commitments, he declined. My plane took off. I looked down at the M, sighing.

Back a few weeks later, I headed straight to the M. Double Wheel Roulette was nowhere to be found. Innocently, ahem, I asked the floor manager, “Where’s Double Wheel?”

“Oh, we had to take that out. It was hitting at least five times a day.”

Go ahead. Hit me. Again. Harder.

My mistake? I never should’ve left town. I should’ve confirmed and jumped. I’d identified a major opportunity. Great! But I also missed a potential $24K a day. Not so great. Painful lesson learned.

Still, that’s the nature of the beast. Keep seeking. And when you find, confirm, then go ahead and … JUMP !

Note: Maybe I was spared. To overcome the massive edge, you’d have to eliminate seven numbers through charting wheel bias. Aspects of live roulette that no longer exist allowed for wheel bias to overcome the house edge. Roulette manufacturers eliminated that possibility with shallower wheels, which are now much more random.

An updated lower-payout Double Wheel version exists at El Cortez. Don’t play it. Also, don’t play Quad Roulette at Palazzo.

And remember, “Friends don’t let friends play triple-zero roulette.” Ever.