play games of chance for money; bet.
Questions tagged [gambling]
24 questions
40
votes
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Are you more likely to be struck by lightning than to win the lottery?
A common claim about how unlikely it is to win a multi-million dollar lottery jackpot is that one is more likely to be struck by lightning than to win the lottery. Is this claim true? Assume our player is playing the Powerball lottery in the United…
Daniel
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votes
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Is Leicester City winning the English Football premiership the most improbable single event in betting history?
Leicester City were recently confirmed as winners of England's top football (soccer) league. Last year they were facing relegation a dozen matches before the end of the 38 game season and, at the start of this season, betting odds on winning the…
matt_black
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Do some casinos use extra oxygen to increase gambling, or is this a myth?
(Image: Source)
It's no secret that casinos are designed to encourage visitors to stay (and hopefully gamble). But how far do casinos really go?
10 Tricks Casinos Use On you:
free drinks
no clocks
no windows
labyrinth design
alluring…
Oliver_C
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Is a coin toss fair?
I've just seen a referee use a coin toss to decide who will start a match which got me thinking, coins aren't perfectly symmetric. Our euro coins have the value on one side, a country specific image on the other side so does this change the…
Carra
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Are the chances of dying on the way to get lottery tickets larger than the chance of winning?
I encountered the following claim:
The chances of you dying on the way to get your lottery tickets is greater than your chances of winning
Of course, whether is is true depends on the lottery, on the demographics of participants in the lottery,…
gerrit
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Are people who win the lottery more likely to go bankrupt?
It's been suggested that people who win the lottery are more likely to go bankrupt than if they had not. For example, an article on Smartmoney states:
More than 1,900 [lottery] winners went bankrupt within five years. That number implies that 1% of…
Brian M. Hunt
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Are slot machines purely random or do they pre-calculate every spin?
Being a computer programmer I assumed that every single spin of a poker machine was pre-calculated by the machine thus avoiding the chance of multiple large pays being payed out in a short period of time. e.g Some guy puts in 5 bucks but spins 3 x…
going
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Internet Gambling Linked to Terrorist Financing?
Currently there is a debate in the United States over the legal status of Internet Gambling; specifically, playing Poker for "real money" over the Internet.
Many of those who are opposed to Internet Gambling in the United States claim that Internet…
John Dibling
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14
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Did this US judge rule that poker is a game of skill and not chance?
I just read a NY Times article which claims that a US Judge ruled that poker is a game of skill and not one of chance.
In a ruling that goes to the heart of what it means to play poker,
Judge Jack B. Weinstein tossed out the conviction and…
Kenshin
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13
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Do casinos have a negative economic and social impact on the neighborhoods they are located in?
In a recent article of the Toronto Sun that discusses a proposed waterfront casino for the city of Toronto, the author Christopher Hume makes the following statement:
Experience around the world shows that casinos are the kiss of death for the…
Brian M. Hunt
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Is there a statistical advantage in playing KENO for a long period of time?
When I was in high school there was a story about a man who won millions of dollars playing keno.
The amount of money and the location appear to be true based upon this wikipedia article:
In 1994, Ranogajec reportedly won a
$7.5 million Keno…
going
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Did a casino in Las Vegas suffer its worst week in history after hosting a physicists conference?
According to The Crime of Reason: And the Closing of the Scientific Mind:
In March 1986, Las Vegas newspapers buzzed with rumors that the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino had suffered its worst weekly take in history – including the week of its terrible…
JonathanReez
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Is poker more a game of skill than chance?
I just read a NY Times article which claims that a US Judge ruled that poker is a game of skill and not one of chance.
In a ruling that goes to the heart of what it means to play poker, Judge Jack B. Weinstein tossed out the conviction and vacated…
Kenshin
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8
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Are Lottery Quick Picks independently and uniformly distributed?
Let's set aside the argument that computers have a pseudo-random number generator.
I'm interested in knowing if a lottery terminal generates each quick pick independently from all previous picks and draws each from an identical uniform…
Tim Reddy
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Is it possible to gain an edge in roulette through physics?
I just stumbled across the following article:
http://genuinewinner.com/science.html, which makes the following claim:
There's no way of knowing exactly which number will spin next. And
there's no way of knowing exactly which AREA of the wheel…
Kenshin
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