The Unexpected Rewards: When More Infrequent Events Do Not Correspond to More Valuable Payouts
Session Title
Session 1-3-B: Gambling Behaviors
Presentation Type
Event
Location
The Mirage Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada
Start Date
7-6-2016 2:00 PM
End Date
7-6-2016 3:30 PM
Disciplines
Probability | Statistical Models | Statistics and Probability
Abstract
Video poker machines provide excellent models to study mathematical expectation in a classroom setting. Mechanical dice and spinner games from the early-to-mid 1900s provide an even richer resource for such investigations. These games, which often paid according to a schedule of gum or cigars, were often modeled on popular games of the time. For such games there are occasions for which more infrequent events do not correspond to more valuable payouts. This paper considers such instances through two particular examples: (1) On The Level, a popular mechanical dice machine of the 1900s related to tavern game of the time,Twentysix; and (2) Video poker with wild cards or jokers.
Keywords
mathematical expectation, models, games, probability, education
Streaming Media
The Unexpected Rewards: When More Infrequent Events Do Not Correspond to More Valuable Payouts
The Mirage Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada
Video poker machines provide excellent models to study mathematical expectation in a classroom setting. Mechanical dice and spinner games from the early-to-mid 1900s provide an even richer resource for such investigations. These games, which often paid according to a schedule of gum or cigars, were often modeled on popular games of the time. For such games there are occasions for which more infrequent events do not correspond to more valuable payouts. This paper considers such instances through two particular examples: (1) On The Level, a popular mechanical dice machine of the 1900s related to tavern game of the time,Twentysix; and (2) Video poker with wild cards or jokers.
Comments
Audio recording of this presentation is attached as a downloadable MP3 audio file, 47.3 MB.
This presentation starts at 14:20.
This work grew in part from previous research of John Emert and Dale Umbach presented at the 14th International Conference on Gambling and Risk Taking (Lake Tahoe, 2009) and subsequent research of our student Daniel Widmann, as reported in his 2013 Honors Thesis, The Risk of the Roll..
This paper builds in part on these publications: “Inconsistencies of ‘Wild-card’ Poker” (J. Emert and D. Umbach) Chance, Vol. 9 (1996) No. 3, pp. 17—22; and “The Risk of the Roll: A Mathematical Analysis of Casino Dice Games” (D. Widmann with advisor: D. Umbach) Ball State University Honors College Thesis (2013).