Notes on the arithmetic and the history of casino games
5 entries filed under this category
12 April 2007
Posted 12 April 2007 at 09:14
Two numbers sit beside every wager on a table layout, and they are not the same number. One describes how often an outcome arrives. The other describes what is handed back when it does. The gap between them is the whole arrangement in miniature.
Posted in Probability | Permalink
1 April 2007
Posted 1 April 2007 at 17:41
Some games are built on numbers so large that intuition stops working entirely. Writing the denominators out longhand is the only reliable way to feel their size.
Posted in Probability | Permalink
20 February 2007
Posted 20 February 2007 at 11:30
The house edge is quoted constantly and defined rarely. It is a single per-unit average, and knowing exactly what it averages over is what makes it useful.
Posted in Probability | Permalink
19 December 2006
Posted 19 December 2006 at 22:40
A sequence of independent trials has no memory. The persistent belief that it does is old enough, and stubborn enough, to have earned a name of its own.
Posted in Probability | Permalink
24 October 2006
Posted 24 October 2006 at 19:35
Almost everything worth saying about dice follows from one small grid. Drawing it once by hand is worth more than reading a dozen tables of probabilities.
Posted in Probability | Permalink