Atton Rand & miscellaneous names (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
suitably_heroic) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2016-09-26 03:28 pm
suitably_heroic) wrote in fandomhigh2016-09-26 03:28 pm
Entry tags:
Game of Chance, Monday
"The house always wins," Atton said, as the students poured into the Danger Shop. It was set up as a casino floor, with a ridiculous amount of slot machines... and one really weird pachinko machine that Atton hadn't managed to scrub from the simulation.
Just ignore the pachinko machine.
"Some - or most - of you will know that line," he said. "It refers to the way casinos - professional gambling dens - handle your money. A casino is a business. It wants to make money. So in the long run, gamblers always lose, and the casino always wins. You can look at life like that, too. Even the greatest escapist or survivalist is - unless they're from a particularly hardy species - going to lose some day. We are all going to die."
Long pause.
"...So yeah. The intro sessions of this course are over. Over the next few weeks, we're going to focus on when to quit, instead." He nodded at the slot machines. "Taking it back to regular gambling, casinos work with something called a house edge. The house edge is the ratio of the average loss to the initial bet. That means that, say, for blackjack, which has an average house edge of 0.28%, for every ten bucks you put in, you'll lose at least 28 cents on average-- so the best you can hope to get back, on average, is nine bucks and 72 cents. For the slot machines, the house edge can be anywhere between 2 to 15 percent. For anyone counting along, yeah, that means you can lose a lot of money at slots. On a long enough timeframe, you're going to lose two to fifteen percent of every bet. You put in a hundred bucks, you're going to go home with 85."
He shrugged. "Of course, those are averages," he said. "If you're lucky, maybe you make double your bet after a few spins. At that point, you have to ask yourself: when do you stop? Because the longer you keep going, the more that average is going to loom over you."
He clapped his hands. "So you're going to go try that, and we're going to see," he said. "You each get ten chips. Any chip count over ten at the end, you get a pumpkin-flavored beverage of your choice, or... I dunno. Something pumpkin shaped. Go!"
Just ignore the pachinko machine.
"Some - or most - of you will know that line," he said. "It refers to the way casinos - professional gambling dens - handle your money. A casino is a business. It wants to make money. So in the long run, gamblers always lose, and the casino always wins. You can look at life like that, too. Even the greatest escapist or survivalist is - unless they're from a particularly hardy species - going to lose some day. We are all going to die."
Long pause.
"...So yeah. The intro sessions of this course are over. Over the next few weeks, we're going to focus on when to quit, instead." He nodded at the slot machines. "Taking it back to regular gambling, casinos work with something called a house edge. The house edge is the ratio of the average loss to the initial bet. That means that, say, for blackjack, which has an average house edge of 0.28%, for every ten bucks you put in, you'll lose at least 28 cents on average-- so the best you can hope to get back, on average, is nine bucks and 72 cents. For the slot machines, the house edge can be anywhere between 2 to 15 percent. For anyone counting along, yeah, that means you can lose a lot of money at slots. On a long enough timeframe, you're going to lose two to fifteen percent of every bet. You put in a hundred bucks, you're going to go home with 85."
He shrugged. "Of course, those are averages," he said. "If you're lucky, maybe you make double your bet after a few spins. At that point, you have to ask yourself: when do you stop? Because the longer you keep going, the more that average is going to loom over you."
He clapped his hands. "So you're going to go try that, and we're going to see," he said. "You each get ten chips. Any chip count over ten at the end, you get a pumpkin-flavored beverage of your choice, or... I dunno. Something pumpkin shaped. Go!"
OOC