Ask the Wizard #178

I tried to sign up for an account there to check this out but they block U.S. players. I’m told the minimum bet is £2 and the maximum is £50. Even in a zero house edge game like no-zero roulette there is still no betting system that will get above, or below, that 0% figure. No matter what you do the more you do of it the closer the actual house win will get to 0%.

I’ve received lots of foreign checks from Internet casinos. They never came on casino letterhead. Often I didn’t immediately know whom the check was from because they looked more like generic money orders. So if it comes to this I think Bodog would use a generic looking check or money order that your bank wouldn’t be able to easily trace back to the sender. Besides, I don’t think Neteller is going anywhere.

Here in Vegas they always seem to tuck the cards under your bet when you bank and don’t allow you to touch them until everybody else has finished setting their hands. If you try to look at them early the dealer will give you a sharp rebuke. However in your casino I wouldn’t hesitate to try to take a peek if the banking player is setting his hand early. Just try to be discreet. I would liken it to a dealer in blackjack flashing his hole card. That is great information to have and it is perfectly legal to use it.

Yes, that is true. In some states like Oklahoma traditional “class 3” slots are illegal. A way to get around that law is to have a machine pick bingo cards and balls at random. Certain patterns will be mapped to certain wins and the outcome will be displayed to the player like a slot machine win. If done properly, and often they aren’t, the games play just like those in Vegas. If I recall correctly I saw some popular Williams slots like Reel ‘em In when I was at a casino in Tulsa, with just a little bingo card in the corner of the screen. Otherwise they looked the same to me. I don’t know what return they set their slots to in Oklahoma so I can’t help you with that question.

To keep things simple let’s assume that each person has a 1/12 probability of being born in each month. The probability that all five people are born in different months is (11/12)*(10/12)*(9/12)*(8/12) = 0.381944. So the probability of a common month is 1 - 0.381944 = 0.618056.

Note that I reversed the order of the full house and flush.

As I quoted in an earlier question the probabilities in 8-deck baccarat are:

• Banker wins: 45.8597%
• Player wins: 44.6274%
• Tie wins: 9.5156%

So the expected value on the banker bet is 45.8597%*(1-(1/35)) + 44.6274%*-1 = -0.00075. So the house still has an edge of 0.075%. The breakeven commission on the banker bet is 2.693%. If you could bet $37.14 the odds would swing to your favor.

Sex in an elevator? How come these things never happened to me while I was single. It took me about six months of dating just to get to second base. As I have said numerous times before, forgiveness for cheating the first time is optional but never a second time. Since you say he seems sincere and remorseful I’d get past this if he otherwise has no major faults.

I wouldn’t bring it up. It will at best accomplish nothing and at worst cause a big argument. Over time you will start to get past this. This also just goes to show that if you do cheat, stop it, but don’t confess.