By the way..

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John Kerr:

I have played in casino poker games where the "dealer" (house), also played the game when there were not enough players to make up a game. They not only contributed to the pot, they also raked it. I might add that they were generally pretty damn good players also! That was in California card rooms, and I think it was probably not legal, but they did it. They were indeed "players", and the "house" as two seperate enities. Just like the buy bet game in craps!
JB

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MoneyLA:

John, if they the player/house in your poker example raked the poker game, the rake removed this game from a zero sum game.
just like the fee or vig for a buy bet removes the game from a zero sum game.

cheers, alan

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Gregg Cattanach :

[nq:1]John, if they the player/house in your poker example raked the poker game, the rake removed this game from a zero sum game.[/nq]
Right.
[nq:1]just like the fee or vig for a buy bet removes the game from a zero sum game.[/nq]
Wrong. The fee isn't removed from the game. It's in the houses rack waiting to be won by the players.

Gregg C.

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John Kerr:

Re: By the way..
Group: rec.gambling.craps Date: Wed, Dec 1, 2004, 1:17pm (CST+6) From: gcattanach-SKIP-@prodigy.net (Gregg=A0Cattanach)

John, if they the player/house in your poker example raked the poker game, the rake removed this game from a zero sum game. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Right.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
just like the fee or vig for a buy bet removes the game from a zero sum game.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Wrong. The fee isn't removed from the game. It's in the houses rack waiting to be won by the players.

Gregg C.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
But Gregg, the rake that the dealer was pulling for the house in that poker game was in fact waiting to be won by the other players...he was wagering with the house bank (with their permission of course). JB

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MODiceDealer:

[nq:1]John, if they the player/house in your poker example raked the poker game,the rake removed this game from a zero sum game. just like the fee or vig for a buy bet removes the game from a zero sum game. cheers, alan[/nq]
But unlike the rake in poker, the vig for the buy bet does not get dropped down a hole in the table and taken out of the game. It remains in the "pool of winnable goods" that I've heard so much about.

When I take someone's dollar for the vig, I put it in my working stack.

Think of it this way:
Let's say my casino has a "going out of business" sale: The floor supervisors are not going to do any fills (i.e. add more chips to the table's bankroll). If the players run the table out of chips, good for them. The table closes.
The money I collect from the vig would go right into my working stack. The box doesn't tally this money, or have me segregate it from the rest of the chips, or drop it down a hole.
If the players are able to clean that table out with a hot roll or rolls, part of the money that will go into the rail are all the dollars I collected as the vig on buy bets.
How is that not a zero sum game?
Jeff
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MoneyLA:

Jeff, we are really arguing side issues here when it comes to the "vig" as removing money from the "pool of winnable goods."
The debate really comes down to one issue and one issue only:

Do you consider the "casino" to be a "player."
If you do, then all casino games are zero sum games.

If you do NOT, then no casino games are zero sum games.

UNLV says the casino is not a player, and the players (customers) are playing against the house/casino/bank.
Several of the experts presented by Mason in his threads have said that whether or not the casino is a player is a "modeling choice."

So, choose your "model."
If you choose the casino as a player making decisions and not reacting to the players' bets then you have zero sum games.

If you choose the casino as a non-player but as a bank reacting to the bets of the true players, then these are not zero sum games.

cheers, alan
Jeff wrote, in part:
When I take someone's dollar for the vig, I put it in my working stack.

Think of it this way:
Let's say my casino has a "going out of business" sale: The floor supervisors are not going to do any fills (i.e. add more chips to the table's bankroll). If the players run the table out of chips, good for them. The table closes.
The money I collect from the vig would go right into my working stack. The box doesn't tally this money, or have me segregate it from the rest of the chips, or drop it down a hole.
If the players are able to clean that table out with a hot roll or rolls, part of the money that will go into the rail are all the dollars I collected as the vig on buy bets.
How is that not a zero sum game?
Jeff

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Mason:

[nq:1]Several of the experts presented by Mason in his threads have said that whether or not the casino is a ... non-player but as a bank reacting to the bets of the true players, then these are not zero sum games.[/nq]
Dr. Levine is the only expert that I contacted that referred to a "modeling choice".
MoneyLA fails to note that Dr. Levine also stated that regardless of "modeling choice" games played against the house are zero sum games.

I refuse to let the record of my posts be distorted by MoneyLA, regardless of his evident profound personal problems.
[nq:1]The debate really comes down to one issue and one issue only: Do you consider the "casino" to be a "player." (?)[/nq]
Now the "debate" has morphed through MoneyLA's progressive reductionism and revisionism into just a matter of terminology ... an equal choice of models ... just a matter of point of view.
Pathetic.

Onward thru the fog,
Mason

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Stacy Friedman:

[nq:2]If you choose the casino as a player making ... the true players, then these are not zero sum games.[/nq]
[nq:1]Dr. Levine is the only expert that I contacted that referred to a "modeling choice". MoneyLA fails to note that Dr. Levine also stated that regardless of "modeling choice" games played against the house are zero sum games.[/nq]
Only if they're games at all. I've already pointed out that game theory considers non-strategic games in a different category. A coin flip between you and me, where Heads you win and Tails you lose, would be considered a "gamble", not a game. It would still be zero-sum, but it's just not a game. To wit, Dr. Levine's quote that "the game between you and me in which you pay me 5 dollars no matter what isn't much of a game, but it is zero sum." Contrast this with the archetypical coin-matching game from Dr. Levine's website, where you and I first decide which side of the coin to display, and I win if they're equal and you win if they're opposite. That *is* a game by any definition.
Craps is fundamentally the same thing as the coin flip. Neither opponent makes any decision whatsoever (other than the decision to wager). Whether craps is a "game" in the true sense is up for debate. What's not up for debate is whether the sum of all opponents' winnings and losses for every craps wager always equals zero. It obviously does, even for buy/lay bets.

Of course, Alan's position that the casino is not the opponent of the gambler is ludicrous. Of course the casino is the opponent of the gambler. Equally ludicrous, he thinks that craps isn't zero-sum because all gamblers can walk away from the table as winners indicating by his flawed reasoning that money is created out of thin air. In truth, the money won by the gamblers is lost by the casino, and the sum of all those opponents' winnings and losses is zero (hence, zero-sum). It's really not a hard concept unless you're just being argumentative for the sake of getting attention behavior that my 10-year-old neighbor often displays.

"Chance favors the prepared mind."
Louis Pasteur

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Gregg Cattanach :

[nq:1]Jeff, we are really arguing side issues here when it comes to the "vig" as removing money from the "pool ... Do you consider the "casino" to be a "player." If you do, then all casino games are zero sum games.[/nq]
I am glad that you finally agreed that casino games are zero-sum if you stipulate that the casino is the other player. In this model of the game, the HA, commissions and non 1 to 1 payoffs disturb nothing about the zero-sum nature of the game.
Congratulations!

Gregg C.

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Cymbal Man Freq. :

I've looked at clouds from both sides now...which 2 sides those are, are a personal modelling choice. When it rains on me, which side is that?

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