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Old 11-16-2007, 11:40 AM
pzhon pzhon is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2004
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Default Re: Blackjack question about long term (Math Question)

The house advantage on this game is about 0.255%, according to this edge calculator: http://wizardofodds.com/blackjack/ho...alculator.html

If you assume that you decrease the next day's quota in case you overshoot on the previous day, then you can view this as a gambler's ruin problem, where you start with $8k and are trying to win $50k. It's reasonable to use a coinflip model with about the same edge and standard deviation.

You lose 0.255% of $20 per hand, or 5.1 cents. The standard deviation is about $23 per hand, so we'll model this as a coinflip for $23, with a win probability set so that you lose 5.1 cents per hand.

The result I get is a probability of success of 0.0000511153, or the odds against you are 19,563:1. Good luck.

By the way, this assumes you don't tip. Tipping is expected if you play for a while. If you start with $10,000, and bet $20/hand until you go bust or reach $10,200, you play an average of about 4875 hands (and you average $9751 when you finish). Usually, you win in only about a hundred hands, but when you lose, it usually takes tens of thousands of hands.
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