Chancer's Guide

Helps You Take A Chance ... probably



 

Chance

Taking a chance - we do it in so many different ways.  Money, fun, travel, love, life ... everything from the trivial to the vital can contain an element of chance.  I guess most people would immediately think of gambling as chance-taking and I'll say right away that gambling is an interest of mine, particularly horseracing, which I love and will feature in this site.  But the same basic principles apply to any form of chance.

What's your point, Chancer?

The point is this: WINNING.

When we take a chance we want to win, but sometimes we lose.  These are the two possible outcomes.  Apart from the third possibility, which is somewhere in between - i.e. the partial loss or partial win, depending how you look at it.  Minimising losses (or the down-side) is an important part of successful chance-taking but it is not the aim.

WINNING is the aim.

Winning can develop into a habit but losing is addictive. Winners take less chances, losers take more.  This is because only a fraction of chances are worth taking and these are the ones winners seek out.  Losers take poor chances while they are waiting for the good one to come along, perhaps because of the lure of high rewards or their belief in the so-called 'law of averages'.

The 'Law of Averages'?

Ah, yes. The 'law of averages' provides much-needed comfort to the loser.  It is supposed to ensure that, no matter how much losing you do, there will come a day when you win and it all balances out.  I think not.  Not unless you take the right chances: and this requires some way of estimating the risks and uncertainties but no doubt you already know that they are not always obvious enough to estimate.

So far I have been referring to chances taken in general.  Now I get specific and look at chances that can be estimated.

Time for an example.  Yes, the good old coin-tossing experiment.  The 'law of averages' says that if you toss a coin enough times, it will come up heads exactly half the number of times and tails the other half.  In a perfect experiment where there is no bias (evenly weighted coin, random tossing mechanism, no cheating), this outcome will happen.

So I just proved the 'law of averages' works?  Well just remember two things. First, to guarantee success you have to toss the coin enough times, which basically means doing it for ever and ever, and then some.  Second, you haven't taken a chance yet.  If you could gamble on the outcome of an eternal coin-tossing experiment, you'd bet on a 50/50 split (I hope) and you would be right, but of course you could not win anything from such a bet.  I'm trying to emphasize the need to get a practical view. OK, so let's be really practical and bet on the outcome of a single toss.  You bet ten matchsticks on heads ... up it goes ... it's heads!  What did you win?  Excuse me, you were expecting to gain ten matchsticks? Get real. Why would I lay a bet like that?  They may be just matchsticks but I still want to win, so the very best I would have offered is nine to your ten.  You would not place this bet at those odds, would you? unless ...

  1. you feel lucky
  2. you fancy the fun of a gamble and will get a thrill from winning, whatever the odds
  3. you have been watching the previous tosses and you've spotted a trend
  4. you really need 19 matchsticks so 10 are no good to you anyway
  5. you are down to your last 10 matchsticks and you are due for a win
  6. you forgot to agree the odds first
  7. you don't understand how the bet works
  8. you think the odds are reasonable for a one-off bet
  9. you accept that my desire to win is greater than yours
... in which case, thank you very much.  Yes, even if you answered #3, because I know that no real trend can exist in a perfect coin toss even if the pattern of results indicates otherwise.  Actually the best answer is #8 because at least you've thought about it and reckoned that, at 9-to-10, the odds are not that bad and if you do win you will stay in profit because it's a one-off (I'm still happy with this because, even if I lose, I am fairly certain you won't be able to resist another bet sometime so I'll win in the long run).

Odds

Bear with me and consider the case of 10 coin tosses. As you are a good customer, I'll offer good odds against an even  split (5 heads, 5 tails) coming up.  It is the most likely outcome, more likely than any other chosen split, but I'll still offer you 2-to-1.  Tempted?  Well you should already know that any odds I offer you are in my best interests, not yours, but the point is that you need to know what your real chances of success are.  If you have worked it out, you will know that I could go as high as 3-to-1 and still (just) be a long-term winner.  If you can't be bothered to work it out or look it up, shame on you!  If you don't know how to work it out or find it out, then you will not know when you are being beaten by the odds.

I happen to like working these things out for myself but I know a lot of people don't like it and will have to find a place to look it up, or ask someone who knows.  If I get enough requests, I will add a page to this site that deals with these questions as they arise.

Oddly

Oddly enough, coin-tossing is not a great public gambling medium in any part of the world that I know.  So we need to extend the principles to the real world (including betting).  Bring on the horses!  This will be included in the expanding Chancer's Guide.

More

In time this site will be expanded and become more informative and entertaining.  I have come to realise that doing the first page is the easy bit but then you have to plan the pages!  In attempting to do this, I have been collecting information and deciding what to include so there have not been many major changes.  OK, so it's taking longer than I thought!  Remember to come back if you are interested - this page can be Bookmarked (Added to Favo(u)rites).

Further additions to the content of this site will depend on various things, especially in response to your requests.

Let me know if you want to see anything in particular on these pages.  Or if you disagree with anything I say here.
I will also consider including your contributions if I like them, whether they agree with my views or not!  To date, I have not received a single contact.  I have my own ideas on how this will develop but it would be nice to get some input or feedback from you, too.

.... and here's a quote I came upon while researching on the 'Net

"All life itself represents a risk, and the more lovingly we live our lives the more risks we take...."
(from  "The Road Less Travelled")
Do you think this conflicts with what I said under WINNING, above?

Contact

Please contact me through the e-mail link:  chancer@a-hull.dircon.co.uk
 
 
copyright A.Hull 1999