Inertia Posted:

probability and statistics make heads hurt

Inertia Posted:

Cause well, it’s originally about covering my loss of flezz from gambling… Well, forum placement is not a big deal.

I’ve thought about how the chance gets smaller over time. So given infinite time, the probability of me covering my losses may actually be infinitesimal instead of 1.. Is that correct?

The chance would potentially come toward that very small number that comes directly before zero. If you continue, you expose yourself to more chances of a loss. There still is the chance of making it all up, but it’s so small that it’s highly unreasonable.

Adapt Posted:

This is the important part here, since it doesn’t really matter how many games are play, when you play enough games the actual results become very close the the predicted results. So if you have a better chance of losing at gambling than winning (which is what we are bumuming here), then yes, overall you will lose more games, thus you will lose more money and eventually return to 0.

Sorry if I misunderstood you here, but the goal isn’t to return to 0 Flezz, but to return to 0 LOSSES.

Bill_Murray_Fan_7383 Posted:

Sorry if I misunderstood you here, but the goal isn’t to return to 0 Flezz, but to return to 0 LOSSES.

whats the difference? I mean, if you’re going to be losing, say 75% of the time, you are going to, again overall, lose 75% of the time. However, if I may complicate it even more, statistics still do not work that way. It is conceivable, but VERY unlikely that you could in fact return to 0 losses, but the more games you play, the less likely this is, unless the win/loss rate is exactly 50%, which I think, we are bumuming it is not.

Inertia Posted:

I’ve thought of something.

To make simple bumume the win/lose chance is 50/50

Immediately after the first loss, I have a 50% chance of breaking even

after the second loss, 25% (2 wins in a row)

after the third, 12.5% (3 wins in a row)

and so on

So after the first loss, I have (50+25+12.5+6.25+...) % chance to break even if I keep playing to infinity. That adds up to almost 1.

Immediately after the second loss, (25+12.5+6.25+3.125+...) %. which adds up to almost 50%

3rd, ~25%

4th, ~12.5%

and so on

Reverse Zeno’s paradox?

my head hurts again.

srtop it. This makes my head hurt more and I don’t want to dig up my statistics notes But I do remember that you can’t add them like that, that’s not how it works. The other numbers are right though, two wins in a row [(.50)(.50)], three wins in a row [(.50)(.50)(.50)] are figured out in this way. But basically if you had a 50% chance of winning you would win ~50% of the games. The more games you play, the closer you get to a true value of 50%. (you might flip a coin 10 times, and get 6 heads, that 60%, not very close to 50%. If you fliped it 1000 times, you might get 525 heads, that’s ~52%, and a lot closer)

Adapt Posted:

whats the difference? I mean, if you’re going to be losing, say 75% of the time, you are going to, again overall, lose 75% of the time. However, if I may complicate it even more, statistics still do not work that way. It is conceivable, but VERY unlikely that you could in fact return to 0 losses, but the more games you play, the less likely this is, unless the win/loss rate is exactly 50%, which I think, we are bumuming it is not.

Nobody’s saying it’s impossible for Inertia, just that it will probably never happen. Probably being an understatement.

Inertia Posted:

I was unsure about that but I thought:

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It can be done like that right?

sorry the drawing tablet is unplugged

until you lose one, then you have the figure the probability of losing, say three, and winning one, which is a different equation and ultimately entirely more practical, but not for this. You can’t really look at it as the odds of winning a certain number, that wouldn’t really do you any good, since then you would only know the odds of winning a certain number.

If each and every game you play have a 50% chance of being won, you will see you have won close to 50% of the total games, when you go BACK and look at the total number of games you have won/lost.

Inertia Posted:

I was unsure about that but I thought:

Log in to see images!

It can be done like that right?

sorry the drawing tablet is unplugged

Pretty much.

Let’s take the 50/50 chance. You lose the first one and you now have a 50% chance of making up the loss. If you miss the 2nd time, you have to win two times, aka two rounds of 50/50 chance, leaving you with a 25% chance of making up the whole thing. As you keep losing the chances of making it up shrinks. It’s easier to use exponents:

You lose 4 times with 50% chance, .5^4=.0625 or 6.25% chance of making up. Of course, there isn’t the factor of actually winning and not getting a straight loss streak. But you will eventually get to 4 losses or more, especially with Gamble-Bot’s rigged Blackjack.

Pavilion Posted:

Pretty much.

Let’s take the 50/50 chance. You lose the first one and you now have a 50% chance of making up the loss. If you miss the 2nd time, you have to win two times, aka two rounds of 50/50 chance, leaving you with a 25% chance of making up the whole thing. As you keep losing the chances of making it up shrinks. It’s easier to use exponents:

You lose 4 times with 50% chance, .5^4=.0625 or 6.25% chance of making up. Of course, there isn’t the factor of actually winning and not getting a straight loss streak. But you will eventually get to 4 losses or more, especially with Gamble-Bot’s rigged Blackjack.

It’s not really like that. The question being asked is worded weird, and were all interpreting it differently. P much every post moves my view of what equation you should be using around.

Every time you lose you are going to have a differently probability, based solely on the way you guys are interpreting the question. If you lose four games, then you need four more to make it up. Should they be 4 in a row? I guess not because if you win one and lose three more, you suddenly need a new probability. Ultimately that won’t actually TELL you anything.

Stop think of it as ‘making up’ what you have lost, it is much much simpler, and just as correct to look at ALL the games you play. Like I said before, if you have a 50% chance of winning one game, you will win ~50% of ALL the games, effectively breaking you even. So you will only ‘make up’ for all of your losses if you chance of winning a single game is 50%, any less and you will lose more, and higher chance and you will win more.

zagerblag Posted:

Geez, you all suck at math. I should probably go away before I start ranting about it and sound like an elitist jerk.

do rant. I want to know the answer to my question