Gambling Guide
Ask the Wizard #118
"Anonymous" .
For those who aren’t familiar with the game, Risk is the greatest board game ever made. Those who haven’t played haven’t lived yet. To answer your question in the common 3 on 2 battle the following are the possible outcomes:
- Defender loses both: 37.17%
- Each loses one: 33.58%
- Attacker loses both: 29.26%
"Anonymous" .
It is true that in general you should stand on 16 vs. 10 with three of more cards. So if my chart was based on the casino offering the surrender option then you would be right. However that assumption is not made. If I changed the key to Rs (surrender if allowed, otherwise stand) then that would imply that the player should stand on a 2-card 16 against a 10 if surrender was not allowed.
"Anonymous" .
First, the vast majority of Internet gambling is unregulated. So there is likely no higher authority you can turn to. The word of the casino/sport-book is final. I would imagine that somewhere in their lengthy terms and conditions is a rule that says that wagers made after the beginning of an event are not official, even if accepted by the system. Even without that most have a general rule that if a line is obviously in error then even if the system accepts it can be voided. Such I think could be the situation here.
"Anonymous" .
I do not know the effect of rain on the total. However I do know that sharp handicappers consider the weather very seriously and move the line to reflect the temperature, precipitation, wind speed, and things like that.
"Anonymous" .
Yes, I wrote a gambling book manuscript four years ago. I shopped it around and only Huntington Press agreed to publish it. However three years and four revisions later and it still isn’t out. There is already a glut of gambling books on the market so I agree with Stanford to not waste your time. Since I wrote my original manuscript I have learned that the name of the author is much more important to selling books than the content of the book itself. A no-name has almost no hope of publish a book on gambling, or anything. If you want to publish a book you should do something else to become famous first.
[Update: The Wizard’s book Gambling 102 was published in Spring 2005.]
"Anonymous" .
There is a similar question asked in Ask Barney: An Insider’s Guide to Las Vegas by Barney Vinson. He says there is a $10 million chip on display in the London Club high limit room at the Aladdin. However I agree with Barney that is probably more about bragging rights and has never actually been bet. In another question Barney says most major casinos keep special chips in the vault up to denominations of $100,000, in case they get an especially high roller.
