Flipping Coins

[oldmangrimis 0]

It's not as tricky as it sounds. It takes just two flips to show the downward spiral beginning.Flip one you win, Bankroll equals $1010.00. Now you must bet $10.10. If you lose second flip, you are at $999.90.or,Flip one you lose, Bankroll equals $990.00. Now your bet is $9.90. If you win second flip, you are at $999.90.So, in both scenarios, you won one and lost one, so it seems you should be even right? But your not. Because of the 1% rule, you are down $0.10. Now play this out a million times, and your are all but guaranteed to go broke.

can we take the other side on this and do the flip of the 1%.Flip one you win, bankroll equals $1010.00 but now you bet $9.90. loss second flip and you are at 1000.10or flip one yo lose, bankroll equals $990.00. Now now you bet $10.01. win secound flip and you are at $1000.01Now play this out a million times and your are all but guaranted not to go broke.

[oldmangrimis 0]

Good call!Not fully believing it myself, I wrote a computer simulation. Somewhere before 1,000,000 flips, you are basically guaranteed to go broke. I guess it's possible that I wrote the simulation incorrectly, but I really don't think so. After doing 1 million flips 100,000 times, I went broke every single time. But in the short term (around 100,000 flips), I would occasionally get some HUGE bankrolls, even though I was still more likely to lose than not. In other words, somewhere between 100,000 and 1,000,000 filps, it switches from +EV to -EV.

I seen this done before and the was a proof. I try to find it and post it

[oldmangrimis 0]

in a series of flips where results are designated as H or T, HTH and THT will come up more often than HTT and THH due to an ability to overlap with the "first" result of the sequence. flip a coin with a piece of paper keeping score and you'll see how this works.

I would bet on THH and you get THT For even $.

[oldmangrimis 0]

This has absolutely nothing to do with your question, but I had this nice little coin flipping hustle that I would pull of back in high school. Basically you and the mark each pick a sequence of 3 coin flips. The mark must ALWAYS choose first. So for example he'd say HTT. Then you choose your sequence and who ever's sequence comes up first wins.The hustle comes in knowing what sequence to choose that will come up more than 50% of the time, as opposed to your mark's sequence. To do this all you do is take the first two picks of the mark's sequence and add the opposite of the second to the beginning.So if the mark's sequence is HTT you take the first two (HT) and add the opposite of the second to the beginning, thus your sequence is HHT. I have no idea how the math part comes into play in all of this, all I know is it works.

Ok for some low $$ bet I will take you up on this kind of bet.I wil take with sequence of HTT and you can have HHT but I get 5% (.05) bounus on my wins.what do you say.

[checkymcfold 0]

you will basically never get to the millionth flip, but the bet would be ever, ever so slightly +ev for you since you make 50 bucks every time you get that far.

[psujohn 0]

The hustle comes in knowing what sequence to choose that will come up more than 50% of the time, as opposed to your mark's sequence.

That's not entirely correct. If your mark picks a sequence with H or T back to back you'll be 50/50 with him. It's only when he picks an alternating sequence (HTH or THT) that you have an advantage. Edit: or if he picks HHH or TTT you'll have the advantage.

in a series of flips where results are designated as H or T, HTH and THT will come up more often than HTT and THH due to an ability to overlap with the "first" result of the sequence.

And that's entirely incorrect. Each sequence will come up exactly the same number of times on average. It's just that the repeating sequences like HTT are going to appear first on average and the alternating sequences like HTH are going to appear in "clumps".Kinda funny that you point to a talk about misunderstanding probability to backup your own misunderstanding.

[ben4808 0]

$br = 1000;$max = 0;for ($i = 0; $i < 1000000 && $br > 1; $i++){	$wager = $br * 0.01;	if (rand (0,1)) {		$br = $br + $wager;	} else {		$br = $br - $wager;	}	if ($br > $max) $max = $br;}if ($br < 1) {	echo 'you lose after '.$i." flips. Your max was $max\n";} else {	echo "remaining br = ".$br." with bonus = " .$br*1.05."\n";}

I ran this 100 times and never got above 400k flips before losing. I got up to a max of $105k at one point before losing it all.That seems pretty definitive. I wonder what the actual probability of winning is.

[CrookedLink 0]

Ok for some low $$ bet I will take you up on this kind of bet.I wil take with sequence of HTT and you can have HHT but I get 5% (.05) bounus on my wins.what do you say.

i say no.but only because i have no money online rite now, lol.

[CrookedLink 0]

By the way I found this link about my hustle with a bunch of mathematical shit that just makes my head explode.

[Balloon guy 158]

A friend of mine mentioned this to me, and I thought I would post it here, because none of us have a life.You have $1,000. A friend says that he will pay you twice your bet amount, every time you flip heads. So, you bet $1, it comes up tails, you lose $1. You bet $1, it comes up heads, you get $2 from him (but lose your original $1). (EDIT: i.e. It's a 2 for 1 payout when you win).However, he decides to make things a bit more interesting. You are required to bet 1% of your bankroll on each of 1 million coinflips, and after 1 million coin-filps, he will pay you an additional bonus of 5% of whatever your current bankroll is. If your bankroll drops below $1.00, the bet is off and you lost $999, but he'll gladly give you the nickel bonus.Assume that 1 million coinflips can be done within a 24 hour period.Assume that the odds of flipping heads is exactly 1 to 1.Do you take the bet?Edited to hopefully be more clear.

I'll bet my BR that you can't flip a coin 1 million times

[checkymcfold 0]

I'll bet my BR that you can't flip a coin 1 million times

if you're serious, i might seriously spend a good deal of the rest of my life trying.you mean life roll, not bankroll, right?

[uncooper 1]

if you're serious, i might seriously spend a good deal of the rest of my life trying.you mean life roll, not bankroll, right?

Sure, maybe under Bush taxes, but who the heck wants to bother getting rich under an Obama administration?

[BaseJester 1]

if you're serious, i might seriously spend a good deal of the rest of my life trying.

I figure it would take about 9 months at 40 hours per week, assuming 5 seconds per flip.1000000 flip * (5 seconds / flip) * (1 minute / 60 seconds) * (1 hour / 60 minutes) = 1390 hours

[UncleHoot 0]

After running the simulation in various ways (e.g. giving a 1.01 to 1 payout) and still betting 1% of my bankroll, the ultimate lesson here is that even in +EV positions, you WILL eventually go broke given enough time, even when using a very small percentage of your bankroll. But, you can drastically reduce the chances of that happening in the short and long term, by betting a smaller percentage of your roll.e.g. #1Bankroll: 1,000Payout: 1.01 to 1Bet: 1%Flips: 1,000Trials: 100,000Heads came up: 50001016 <--- Note that there were even more heads than tailsTails came up: 49998984You end up ahead: 48,725 timesYou end up behind: 51,275 timese.g. #2Bankroll: 1,000Payout: 1.01 to 1Bet: 0.5%Flips: 1,000Trials: 100,000Heads came up: 500006501Tails came up: 49993499You end up ahead: 53,833 timesYou end up behind: 46,167 timesYes, in these two examples, there were more Heads than Tails both times, but the numbers do not change much due to that very small percentage difference.

[thebottomline 0]

"You have $1,000. A friend says that he will pay you twice your bet amount, every time you flip heads. So, you bet $1, it comes up tails, you lose $1. You bet $1, it comes up heads, you get $2 from him (but lose your original $1). (EDIT: i.e. It's a 2 for 1 payout when you win)."Read this carefully. Think about it.You are getting scammed. And he is not your friend.

Wow you're making me feel really dumb, and Maths was one of my best subjects. In the bet, they're saying you bet $1, and lose $1 if it's tails, and get $2 back if it's heads (but lose your original $1, your stake) so if it comes in tails you're -$1, if it's heads you're +$1. Apart from that, I can't see the scam, and it's making me feel dumb as you make it seem really obvious.. I thought the scam came entirely from the addition of the 1% rule.

[jkalib 0]

Does this thread mean that I shouldn't play Pai Gow?

[BeaverStyle 1]

This sounds like an exam question from my Game Theory course I took last year. Can't for the the life of me remember how to figure it out. Interesting thread.

[Balloon guy 158]

if you're serious, i might seriously spend a good deal of the rest of my life trying.you mean life roll, not bankroll, right?

Leave it to checky to think he might have found a way to help himself while taking from a poor guy trying to point out the sillyness of a 'bet' that in't possible.Does it bother you at all to think you would leave me broke and facing an angry wife if I took your bet?Probably not you unfeeling heartless liberal bastage

[checkymcfold 0]

Leave it to checky to think he might have found a way to help himself while taking from a poor guy trying to point out the sillyness of a 'bet' that in't possible.Does it bother you at all to think you would leave me broke and facing an angry wife if I took your bet?Probably not you unfeeling heartless liberal bastage

look on the bright side--if i won all your money, then you could vote for the good of the world AND your own interests at the same time!

[Gallo 1]

I'll bet my BR that you can't flip a coin 1 million times

if you're serious, i might seriously spend a good deal of the rest of my life trying.you mean life roll, not bankroll, right?

Leave it to checky to think he might have found a way to help himself while taking from a poor guy trying to point out the sillyness of a 'bet' that in't possible.Does it bother you at all to think you would leave me broke and facing an angry wife if I took your bet?Probably not you unfeeling heartless liberal bastage

Awww damn!!

[oldmangrimis 0]

By the way I found this link about my hustle with a bunch of mathematical shit that just makes my head explode.

That artical is not entirely correct

[oldmangrimis 0]

That's not entirely correct. If your mark picks a sequence with H or T back to back you'll be 50/50 with him. It's only when he picks an alternating sequence (HTH or THT) that you have an advantage. Edit: or if he picks HHH or TTT you'll have the advantage.

I take HTT and give you HHT and I give you .3% bounus (.003) when you win.

[Merby 3]

Wow you're making me feel really dumb, and Maths was one of my best subjects. In the bet, they're saying you bet $1, and lose $1 if it's tails, and get $2 back if it's heads (but lose your original $1, your stake) so if it comes in tails you're -$1, if it's heads you're +$1. Apart from that, I can't see the scam, and it's making me feel dumb as you make it seem really obvious.. I thought the scam came entirely from the addition of the 1% rule.

The scam is that once you take the bet, you're committed to doing all million flips before you can stop (unless you go broke first). So you are *really* betting on the probability that a sequence of random flips will never cross the -$1,000 line over the course of one million flips. The probability of this happening is miniscule.

[thebottomline 0]

The scam is that once you take the bet, you're committed to doing all million flips before you can stop (unless you go broke first). So you are *really* betting on the probability that a sequence of random flips will never cross the -$1,000 line over the course of one million flips. The probability of this happening is miniscule.

I did say in my first post that if he meant you would eventually lose as many flips that you had $, but that's not a guarantee of going broke, it could go the other way. He's saying the scam comes from the boldened part of his post, which didn't mention the 1 million flips, just the betting odds.

[profxavier9 0]

i call pre flop 100% of the time here