1155: Size Matters

[thepetek]

Originally Posted by BrownEyedBtch

Pro Hawaii rant.

Plus: Magnum.

[McNally]

I just noticed that on this cereal box, under "Complete a road trip coast to coast", it says:

"Only 7,821 km from Victoria, B.C., to St. John's, Nfld.!"

So Chemda was right, it is a canadian list. Damn, we're retarded.

[Carruthers]

Originally Posted by gamblinjo

The machine genuinely messed up, so I wouldn't call it a misdeed.

Why is that the gambler's problem?

The gamblers already pay for the upkeep of the machines out of the enormous profits the house makes on them. Are the odds of the machine's upfuckery to be included in the act of gambling?

If so, then I'd say the chances of the machine's fucking up are considerably greater than pretty much any but the smallest wins from such machines - they're complicated devices - and so the house has an immediate advantage even before the 'conventional gambling' kicks in.

If it is not to be included then the house is obliged to keep the machines in perfect working order at all times. This is probably impossible, but it's the sort of thing that insurance is for. The gambler would surely be justified in making a claim against the house that they're not doing what they say on the tin. And that's where the house's insurance policy would cover the (substantial, one would hope) award.

[HanSolo69]

I've been to Hawaii. I was there for a solid week, stayed in a fancy hotel paid for by someoneelse, flew for free, ate and drank for free. That was great. Otherwise the entire place is a shithole. Sure, there are beautiful parts. Bust most of it looks like the worst, most rundown warehouse districts of anywhere else.
But there were penguins at the hotel. That was all right.

[DWarrior]

Originally Posted by Carruthers

Why is that the gambler's problem?

The gamblers already pay for the upkeep of the machines out of the enormous profits the house makes on them. Are the odds of the machine's upfuckery to be included in the act of gambling?

If so, then I'd say the chances of the machine's fucking up are considerably greater than pretty much any but the smallest wins from such machines - they're complicated devices - and so the house has an immediate advantage even before the 'conventional gambling' kicks in.

If it is not to be included then the house is obliged to keep the machines in perfect working order at all times. This is probably impossible, but it's the sort of thing that insurance is for. The gambler would surely be justified in making a claim against the house that they're not doing what they say on the tin. And that's where the house's insurance policy would cover the (substantial, one would hope) award.

I'm not sure your argument applies to this case. The point is, whatever the amount she was supposed to win was the thing included in odds computation, the 42mil or the max 200k were not it, so if the casino pays out what the machine was supposed to pay, they'd be keeping with their end of the bargain. Similarly, if a machine prints "-$100" while the person was supposed to win $20 or something, I hope they fix the error and give the $20, and don't just void the whole thing. The only times this would suck is when the real and printed amounts differ but the printed amount looks legit (like $5 on a $100 win), but that seems highly unlikely, and can quite possibly favor the player (if we say the error $ is uniformly distributed between some reasonable-looking wins where the casino won't go to verify it, say $1-$5000, then because the low payouts are more probable, it's more likely that an undetected error will pay out higher than what the player won), but I digress.

I do agree with you that if a machine eats your money, you should deserve a refund (otherwise that would sway the odds), but since I haven't played enough slots to break one, I can only hope they already do that. That's different from the machine misprinting what the real win should have been and having casino fix the printout error, although I admit it looks shady.

[Carruthers]

Originally Posted by DWarrior

I'm not sure your argument applies to this case.

I think it applies rather more than your walmart case - which I'd dismiss purely on the grounds that walmart is not a gambling institution promising great reward to the lucky for little outlay. We need not be disingenuous about what gambling houses 'promise'.

Originally Posted by DWarrior

The point is, whatever the amount she was supposed to win was the thing included in odds computation, the 42mil or the max 200k were not it, so if the casino pays out what the machine was supposed to pay, they'd be keeping with their end of the bargain.

Yes of course you're right. The actual probability of any particular win need bear no relation to the payoff per dollar (though one assumes the house does not pay out more than the actual odds would indicate as a fair return). I imagine most gamblers are already 'happy' with this though, so I'm not sure that this is a particularly convincing counter argument.

(Even there, the gambler's tolerance for the house's edge is rather variable. Roulette payoffs are very nearly almost what they 'should' be, but state lottery ticket payoffs are orders of magnitude lower than they 'should' be. But if the punters accept this ...)

Originally Posted by DWarrior

Similarly, if a machine prints "-$100" while the person was supposed to win $20 or something, I hope they fix the error and give the $20, and don't just void the whole thing. The only times this would suck is when the real and printed amounts differ but the printed amount looks legit (like $5 on a $100 win), but that seems highly unlikely, and can quite possibly favor the player (if we say the error $ is uniformly distributed between some reasonable-looking wins where the casino won't go to verify it, say $1-$5000, then because the low payouts are more probable, it's more likely that an undetected error will pay out higher than what the player won), but I digress.

But doesn't that rather favour my position? Most gamblers pretty much have to trust what the machines are telling them. They won't have any idea of what any particular win should be, but they do expect it to correspond exactly with the instructions on the particular game. If the gambler appears to get more than they think they're due then they're unlikely to challenge the machine's apparent generosity. This is fine. It may seem unfair to the house but I don't think anybody's losing sleep over it. It's actually just another argument supporting the case for keeping their machines in good (or insured) fettle - it's just as likely to benefit the house.

Originally Posted by DWarrior

I do agree with you that if a machine eats your money, you should deserve a refund (otherwise that would sway the odds), but since I haven't played enough slots to break one, I can only hope they already do that. That's different from the machine misprinting what the real win should have been and having casino fix the printout error, although I admit it looks shady.

I was perhaps premature in stating that the house was 'obliged' to keep its machines in 'perfect working order' (or otherwise insuring against it). Of course they're under no such obligation. This is merely a choice they can make. As you pointed out earlier, "if [they, the gamblers] don't like it they can go elsewhere". I keep forgetting that capitalism allows for (at least) two value systems. The conservatives favour market choice as your way out of a bad deal, whereas it's only the non-conservatives who favour some kind of natural justice.

[DWarrior]

I'm really confused by what you're saying.

[quote=Carruthers;642495]I think it applies rather more than your walmart case - which I'd dismiss purely on the grounds that walmart is not a gambling institution promising great reward to the lucky for little outlay. We need not be disingenuous about what gambling houses 'promise'.

Yes of course you're right. The actual probability of any particular win need bear no relation to the payoff per dollar (though one assumes the house does not pay out more than the actual odds would indicate as a fair return). I imagine most gamblers are already 'happy' with this though, so I'm not sure that this is a particularly convincing counter argument.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean. Casinos must disclose payout %s by law, which I believe are certified by the state commissions when the machines are developed. I was merely saying that imagine the company developed a machine that paid out 42mil with probability of 1/100,000,000 and then some other payouts for a total of 95% payout, but then slapped a 200k max and voided any payments over that, that would be illegal. That's not what happened here.

Of course most casino games are -EV, that's got nothing to do with this. I'm just saying this isn't an attempt by them to manipulate their reported payouts.

But doesn't that rather favour my position? Most gamblers pretty much have to trust what the machines are telling them. They won't have any idea of what any particular win should be, but they do expect it to correspond exactly with the instructions on the particular game. If the gambler appears to get more than they think they're due then they're unlikely to challenge the machine's apparent generosity. This is fine. It may seem unfair to the house but I don't think anybody's losing sleep over it. It's actually just another argument supporting the case for keeping their machines in good (or insured) fettle - it's just as likely to benefit the house.

So because players won't know when they won more than they should is an argument for making casinos pay out whatever the machine prints? That makes no sense. If it's an obvious glitch, it should be investigated and fixed. All I was saying is following this rule won't automatically screw the players over.

Your argument seems to be that if we follow this and investigate glitches, the players will lose expected $ value because they'll be screwed out of money. I think I gave a pretty good counter argument. First, the obvious glitch payments were never included in the $EV calculations, so fixing them doesn't affect what the player was expecting to win before they played. Second, unreported/uncaught glitches are more likely to benefit the player, so in fact following this policy is more likely to raise the player's $EV if anything. Third, following your rule of "the printout says" is absurd, because if a ticket accidentally prints -$100 or some buffer overflow -$40,000,000, the player will clearly not be obliged to pay the sum.

The last point is that this still preserves incentive to keep machines in working order. First is my argument that players actually benefit. Second, perceived transparency / reputation, since nobody's gonna gamble at a place where you're not sure you'll even get paid if you can go across the street to a reputable place.

IMO, the only sound argument for your proposition is preserving the industry's reputation. That is, pay out what the ticket says, or the machine max, so people keep gambling.

All other arguments just demonstrate your confusion. The arguments of "this seems right because that's what the printout says" is absurd. I cannot believe you dismiss my Walmart argument just because this industry relies on variable payouts whereas a grocery store cash back is a fixed transaction. You go to a store and ask for cash back, the implicit contract is $X for $X. You go to a casino, the implicit contrat is $X for a predefined distribution of payouts with expected value of some fraction of $X, say .9$X.

[Carruthers]

Can we deal with the walmart case separately? I genuinely could not understand why you imagined that walmart was even in the same universe of discourse. It's not there to provide a 'gambling service'. Expectations of 'change' or 'cashback' or whatever are taking place in the space of 'real life' cash transactions where - roughly speaking - you expect x for x. Casinos on the other hand are in a partially fantasy universe where you buy and sell illusions of 1000x for x. Promises are made, and they are very unlike the 'value for money' promises that are made in places like supermarkets. We know they're not real - legally bindable - promises, but everybody is complicit in this get rich quick fantasy - the casinos, the players and yes, the 'lottery guys' too.

I think the rest is pretty much my fault in getting bogged down in detail. For instance I don't know here in the UK for example that casinos are legally obliged to disclose payout percentages. I'd suppose it to be true but I don't know it is. But why would it matter anyway if payout percentages aren't required to be based on actual probabilities? Folk here know that the odds against winning our national lottery are about 14 million to 1. This doesn't mean that they expect to win 14 million quid for their pound stake. The actual prize varies, draw by draw, and is usually rather less than that. I certainly did not mean to imply that casinos were attempting to manipulate their reported payouts.

All I'm getting at is that if - as seems to be the case over in your neck of the woods - that the casinos are slapping notices everywhere saying 'if our machines are misleading you then tough cookies' that this is breaking the gambler's contract. Fantasy though everyone knows it is, it was never (imho) intended to include probabilities of unexpected machine behaviour. For the purposes of gambling the machines are assumed - by the gambler, and quite reasonably in my view - to be in 'perfect working order'.

I think then it may be negotiable what to do about it when machines go wrong. All parties might agree to take it outside of the realm of the 'gambling fantasy' (where the gambler could say "it sez 42 million so give me my goddam 42 million ya bastadz") and more into the mundane prosaic realm of insurance payouts.

The 'disclaimer stickup' is lazy (though very convenient for the house) and ultimately counter-productive (perceived as unjust by the gambler). If all casinos do this then the 'choice' option (in conservative redress economics) flies out of the window and there's nothing there at all.

[sagzy]

Well I don't have the gambling bug but hey if the fucking slot machine said I won, I would need ma shit there and then. Pay me injuns

[DWarrior]

I actually had something along the lines of "The problem here is most people think of casinos as some fantasy land and fail to see how their business is similar to ordinary businesses", literally the words "fantasy land" included. Then I reconsidered and hoped that seriously wasn't the case, and you just had some other misunderstanding.

So here is the problem: you lack the mathematical grounding in probability to really grasp concepts like expected value. This is why you say stuff like "Folk here know that the odds against winning our national lottery are about 14 million to 1. This doesn't mean that they expect to win 14 million quid for their pound stake."

What in the world does this even mean? By payout schedule, I mean either the breakdown of the payouts ("probability space" in math speak), so people know that $10mil comes once out of 20,000,000 times, $100k comes once out of 500,000 times, etc. Or maybe display the expected return on the dollar, for example $.60 for $1 of expected value. I have never even once implied that casinos should be offering break-even odds, as you constantly seem to think.

The second part arises out of the first. Because you lack the familiarity with concepts, you cast casinos out to "fantasy land" where your common sense breaks down. You fail to see how an "X for X with probability of 1" and "X for {1000X with probability of .0005, 100X with probability of .004}" are similar. If it helps, you can form a conceptual bridge, go from Walmart to Insurance to Financial Planners to Casinos. You can think of Insurance trading chances of big risk for comparatively small amounts of money, whereas Casinos trade chances of big reward for comparatively small amounts of money. An insurance company buys risk from you, a Financial Planner helps you manage risk, a casino sells you their risk.

They're not fringe fantasy lands, they're legitimate forms of business.