Beating the house at craps
Saw a documentary on Discovery today about these guys that learned how to throw dice as to make certain numbers much more likely to come up. The best guy at this and his partner called themselves "The Golden Touch" and apparently made a killing off the casinos. This guy would go on streaks of 30 never rolling a 7 when the odds of doing so are 1:6. I thought it was really interesting how you could learn to throw dice like that, it did take the guy a couple years of practice though.
Comments
Ok, Ok here's what happened at last year's WSOP. We're on our way to Ceasar's talking about the craziness of the folks thinking they could control dice and pay for courses to do it. After a pause in the conversation, Dave says "I'm an excellent War player". I don't say anything, thinking Scharf has done some incredible mathematical theorm to beat War. I'm thinking and I'm not saying anything. Finally, Dave says "Lou, you know there's no advantage in War". I'm thinking "cool, glad I wasn't the only one who didn't know there could be an advantage in War".Â
And, off to Ceasars we went for the biggest badest giant jack daniels and seven.
I was reading an article about the interest in craps slowing. I wouldn't doubt Vegas paid for the documentary.
Cheers
Magi
I tend to give the Discovery channel a bit of credit here. The premise seemed to be that the dice would be set in such a way either to increase the probability of a certain number landing or decreasing the odds of a certain number landing (ie. 7). The sets would be such that if either die rolled only a quarter turn or so then certain numbers would be more likely than others. Thus the endeavor would be to throw the dice in such a way as to minimize the momentum of the dice such that they wouldn't roll as much. I agree it sounds pretty far fetched, but this isn't some random informerical on how to get rich quick, it "seemingly" is a reputable documentary on Discovery (part of their "Breaking Vegas" series that apparently is on this month). Moderately amusing anyways...
http://discoverychannel.ca/on_tv/releases/breaking_vegas/
But this has to have some truth in it you would think for discovery to air this.. MMM maybe this would be a good thing for mythbusters to work out.. Could be interesting..
Why not have a really, really simple experiment. Set dice. Have something mechanical which grips dice in exact same position every time and drop them 12 inches. No forward motion, nothing to interfere. Then see if there's any correlation with setting the dice to certain numbers coming up. I would expect there isn't any. But then again I didn't believe Dave S. was an excellent War player.
Cheers
Magi
You're kidding, right? I'm sure Newton would have something to say about that.
Not sure if you saw the show, but the theory the guys on the show presented was that if you could reduce the forward motion force on the dice, so that only only gravity was acting on the dice, you could influence the outcome of the role. My theory is that if you reduce all forces to just gravity, the roll of the dice is still random. Hence Newton's thingy still makes it random, in my view.
They had a practice crap table in their home. Some basic thoughts come to mind:
a) do you think the they are practicing rolling or they are really practicing cheating by substituting loaded dice?
b) do you think that TJ Cloutier, Ted Forest and Phil Ivey would beat a path to these guys doors? The dice rollers could make more by having Ted pay them 100,000 to roll. They wouldn't draw the attention of the Casino, since Ted's a known contributor in the game and someone who plays the max. And, they could sub in other dice rollers. I think this would be a far better scheme than playing $5 on the pass line -- yes that's what the team was playing (they didn't want to attract attention -- lol)
c) these guys played as a team -- why on earth would you need a team to seriously beat the game? Won't more players draw more attention? Would it be easier to cheat as a team?
Hence my vote for "on something".
Cheers
Magi
Do you want to bet me money on the next flip? Â Because I can tell you the odds are still 50%.
The reason you have to hit the back wall is because the rubber pyramids randomnmize the roll of the dice. Â You can practice all you want but no way you could control where dice hit the back wall from 10 feet away. Â
Maybe. Is your name Persi Diaconis?
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/2004/diaconis-69.html
http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~cgates/PERSI/
http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~cgates/PERSI/papers/headswithJ.pdf
From the abstract of the PDF file:
"We prove that vigorously-flipped coins are biased to come up the same way they started. ... For natural flips, the chance of coming up as started is about .51."
Of course, another key academic reference on repeated outcomes of heads when tossing a coin is:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100519/
ScottyZ
EDIT: I just read one of the articles Scotty posted. I guess this post is pointless after you read it, but its good to know what I wrote qas right
They always have one article a month on gambling - counting systems, sports book betting systems, poker articles etc
http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar/CA_Archives/CA_Show_Article/0,2322,1597,00.html
Here's the conversation I envisioned happened:
Wynn:Â Hey guys, how's business.
New Mirage Guy: Never been better. It's amazing how much we're making on the food we used to give away.
Nugget Guy:Â That's funny, and we still haven't cleaned our kitchen since you sold us the place Steve.
Mirage Guy:Â Steve, did you give those guys information for that Article Casino Gaming did?
Wynn: Yeah, craps is going into the crapper. Our table revenues are in decline and we're thinking of making our poker room bigger and taking out some craps tables. And, we'll toss in some more of those big jackpot slots. The revenue per square foot will go through the roof, with all those poker guys trying to get unstuck and there buddies killing time.
Nugget Guy: We can't take out craps tables, that would be killing the sacred cow of Vegas. Remember when Black Jack was dying out. We got those guys to do a documentary on how those card counters beat us out of millions. That was huge. We couldn't put enough Black Tables in the casino. Everyone could count cards and we gave them the "basic strategy" cards. Man that was a nice boost.
Mirage Guy: Hey, I know of some guys running classes on dice tossing. We tossed some of them out of the casino when we caught them with the loaded dice. Do you think they'll do a documentary on those guys?
Wynn: My marketing firm has contacts with some guys doing documentaries. This will be perfect. And, we can get some timely articles in some cool magazines. We just need to give them some amazing comps and bam, we'll get some huge exposure on this. Everyone will start learning how to beat us at craps.
Mirage Guy:Â Done, let's get Emeril to make us some decent steaks, not that crap they serve up in his restaurant.
For more background check out these links:
http://pub35.ezboard.com/fthedealersloungefrm26.showMessage?topicID=319.topic
http://www.dicedealer.com/kilby_part_one.htm
Cheers
Magi
So after getting a bit messed up my buddy and I decided to try this system and approach down stairs. Our voyage started at about 12:30 PM we went down and went to the $10 Min craps at harrah's I would only jump in for my roll then move on if we won and when we lost the experiment was over. We combined our money to start with $100 total (I know big spenders) Anyways I would take the dice and set them in a V shape with the three's up and hit a spot in the corner of the box to minimize the effect of the wall on the dice. During this experiment I always placed money on 5689 and bet hard ways and never pressed my bets, subsequently I never took any bets down and I also never counted the number of rolls just went by money results.
So we had two drinks each and left Harrah's with $280 total. We took $180 back and went to the Casino Royale. They had a $5 sit down table which was small and should be an advantage for "dice controlling" I sat down and waited to place my bet when it was up to my roll. I cashed $100 bet and did my thing after 30 mins we left the Royale with $185 of their money and a couple more drinks in my belly.
So far up $365 and 4 drinks later we were at the Venetian. Ordered the usual doubles and jumped on to a table. Just myself and a high roller on the other side. Yikes $15 minimum. Well we are up let's go for it. I roll for about 20 mins or so and leave the Venetian with $285 of their dollars. Although I think the cashier stiffed me $10 but I was not worried.
So 6 drinks $650 up. To the Wynn we go. Well this was a fun place to look at we didn't actually play had a drink and crossed the street to the Frontier. The Frontier is old and well should be the next to be replace IMO. So we get into a $5 table again and I get to roll within 5 mins. I set the dice and hit 1 then 2 then 3 points then the stick man asks me not to set the dice. I laugh and set then anyways he then gets a little louder and say not to set the dice. "If I want the hard 6 up I will send them over like that" So I ask for them to be sent that way. I hit 3 more numbers and then the dice come over with a 5 and 6 up. I look up and send them back to him and ask for them to be sent as hard 6 he honours my request but huffs and puffs about it. About 5 rolls later he sends them over again but there is now 2 pitbosses watching and I am feeling a bit uncomfortable as I go to throw the dice one of them actually turned in my hand and when I threw them the weren't as they should have been and well there was the 7. We cash up the house didn't seem to happy but another take for $380.
So now we are at $1030 and heading to the Treasure Island. Laughing at the fact that this "controlling thing is actually working we try to sneak into to hot craps tables at the Treasure Island. They were both jammed so we had a couple of drinks but could not get in. So we stumble to the Mirage. 5 AM now and the craps table is pretty dead. One old fellow at the other end and we took the south side. He rolled for a good 15 mins as I watched although tempted to get in on the action. he finally sevened out and it was my show.
$10 min table and I set up the point and place my numbers as usual. I ended up rolling about 15 to 20 times but a lot of 12s, 10s, and 2s. The end result was $24 profit before the seven came.Â
We were across the street from Harrah's so we decided to stop there and call it a night. We went back to Harrah's got a couple more drinks and sat in the sportsbook counting the funds. Our end result was just over $510 each. There was a few bucks we tipped throughout the adventure but a successful experiment.Â
I am not sure if this was a rare fluke but it worked for us and I will use it again in April and report again when I return. Â
 Â
By April the casinos will have shut down all the craps games.
Seriously folks, if someone could throw dice like this documentary claims... they wouldn't be in a documentary... they'd be on the beach on their own private island.
Anyways, point is that these are indeed ads for Vegas, although I have yet to watch the rest of the episode.
During the WSOP "coverage" they say that the tourney is going bad for the writer and he is down to his last $100k or so, yet he gets into a hand with TJ and somehow calls for over $700k in chips and winning that hand makes him the chip leader. Where did all those extra chips come from?
I think when the producers were selecting actors they confused TJ Cloutier with TJ Hooker and hired an actor in the mold of William Shatner. I've never seen an actor so overplay his character in my life plus he looked nothing like TJ.
But if you can't resist that, at least resist posting their reply to you on here.
And if you do win and end up becoming a professional craps player, you'd be the first.
Thanks I hope I win some money in Vegas also. We all know the casinos are rigged as all the games have a house advantage built into them. If you search the internet you may find exactly what % the house advantage is for each game. I don't have any web sites in mind so you may have to actually do that research yourself. Usually the emails I send the casinos are to thank them for comps that they gave me over my stay. So I will spare you their response.Â
Also I do not think I would be the first professional craps player in the world as it looks like there are a few people out there that can take claim to that.
Good Luck SOS in your poker and gambling endeavours.
I always laugh when I hear people talking about how to beat the house - over the long period if you are playig a game that is agianst the house you lose!
Casinos are not in the business of losing money - but people continue to flock to them as strategies continue to exist.
Casinos make a little of your regular vacationers looking for a good time and a little gambling - but they are no different than bars - they make money of the regulars - the guys that claim to be able to throw dice, beat sic bo or out play the slots - mathematically the house has the edge and over the long run will win. It would not be designed any other way.
That is why I am drawn to poker - you are not playing the house you are playing other players and the house facilitates for a fee. Although poker is gambling it is not a gamble that is guaranteed to loose over the long run.
Imagine if you could take your bet back on black jack when the dealer was showing an ace - or move all-in if you were dealt 21 blind without the dealer knowing??
YOU CANNOT BEAT THE CASINO - just try the math!
Now where did I put my loaded dice........