Skip to main content

The Problem with Probability

I lost $124 gambling.

Statistically speaking, it was not meant to work that way. The first time I came across the game, roulette, was at casino in New Orleans when my friend explained it to me. One simply bet on which color the dice would fall on, red or black. If the bet was in my favour, the winnings would double. If not, I lost everything. I theorised, based on my years of probability education, that it was possible to win the game, as long as the stake was raised by double every time I lost. 

Therefore, if the game had worked out the way I predicated, when I bet $4 for the first throw on red and lost, I had to bet $8 on the next. If I lost that, next bet would be $16. Do the math and eventually when one wins, which was a guarantee at some point because one always had a 50% chance of winning, one would have made $4. 

Just that I lost every single round from $4 all the way to $64. 

Call it sheer rotten luck. I bet on red and it did not turn up the 5 rounds I put my money on it. Losing $4, $8 and $16 was alright, but as the stakes got higher, I could very much feel the heat in my face and my heart beat getting more voluminous. I could literally cut through that tension around me with a knife. While I recognized that the key to the game was patience (one had to be brave enough to carry on doubling the bet if one kept losing), I forgot that at some point, this figure could probably become ridiculously high for me to stake. With the next bet at $128, I had to painfully drag myself away from a game that had pulled me in deeper and deeper into it with every throw of the dice, like no other game before.

A 10 minute precisely calibrated game had torn into pieces 10 years of my probability education. While ruminating on the loss, I wondered how was it that almost every game gave the gamblers at least a 50% chance of winning and consequently gave the casino a chance to simply break even, it was always the casino reporting its billions in profits? Perhaps it was because that if one played long enough, one would eventually break even. However, in line with our greedy human nature, when one won, instead of pulling oneself away from the game, one kept betting to further increase the return, something that was statistically impossible with a greater number of attempts. On the other hand, when one lost, instead of patiently carrying on with the game till one at least broke even, with a lack of cash, one had to just stop playing.

To the casinos, that was perhaps their greatest source of revenue, not probability, but greed and poverty. Probability in itself was a very sound concept, but combined with human condition, there was always only going to be one winner. As I sauntered out of the place with my friends who had both lost as well, I realized that it did not matter if my probability of winning was 0.01, 0.5 or 0.99. All that eventually mattered was if I won.

And to think that all I wanted to win for $4.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Fool's Pride

I was rolling up the sleeve of my uniform, preparing for a call up that might never come, when I realised that somehow I was overcome by a strange sense of pride, a pride that wanted the length of my sleeve to be precise as I have always pictured in my mind. Any longer, I would look shabby. Any shorter, I would look amateur. Then I donned the green, tightened the velcro around my waist and looked in the mirror. It was just like before and the memories started flooding me. I never really liked it when I donned it for 2 years in a row. Then I was in a place where I detested the culture, the harsh discipline, the unreasonable demands and the lack of purpose in everything I did. But now that it was over, when I look back, it was perhaps the greatest time of my life. The suffering, the digging, the starving, the cold, the banter, the rowdiness, the jungle, the marches,the mountains, the food, the stories, the friendships, it was all worth the 2 years. A girl friend of mine once asked...
2 comments
Read more

Clubbing

Somebody up there do not want me to club. It has been one experience that has eluded me despite my multiple visits, that has brought as much excitement as me sitting in a meditative pose.  This is all the more interesting because my intention was simply to get a feel of it, and not kickstart a career as a party animal, that would either way not work for a person who dared not even to dance in the shower. Perhaps  though, it is not the circumstances, but the person to blame. I should have known I was not the party kind the very first time I set off. As I was tying my shoe laces, my father would politely enquire where I was going to. “Going to club”, I responded. “What? Like a community club?”, he carried on. I am not the most superstitious of persons, but when you are about to do something, it has to start off on the right tone. There and then, my father set the expectations of me, and all the stamps I received on my waist before entering the club became but so...
1 comment
Read more

Marriage and All That : Part 2

"How about I get married?" "Are you serious?" "Yea" "No really. If you are serious, I can start looking for one" "Uhh....Nah. I was just kidding" After a while, she stopped asking me if I were serious. Instead, she would laugh it off every time I suggested it, which was the original intention of my question. For me it was just comic relief, this idea of marriage that parents back in India would pester their children with once they reached just about where I was right now; young, working with a steady income and of totally no use at home. Though when she did ask me if I was serious, I do remember feeling a palpitation in my heart, the kind one gets when having to make a yuge decision (#trump2016 #makeamericagreatagain), knowing very well that she, along with an army of aunts, waited for my green light to start searching for a bride for the most promising of their nephews. A NRI (non residential Indian used to refer to the ...
2 comments
Read more