AsymBacGuy,

Send me your system by PM and I'll prove it doesn't work. 

Sputnik,

The site is really about financial spread betting, but in some pages he writes about gambling or speculating in general, including casino games, so I suppose that could mean systems too.

QuoteSo we're reduced to being *ugh* gamblers. How depressing.

Actually, not really. This "investor, speculator, gambler" thing is really just an IYOUHE game. I YOU HE. I am creative. YOU are eccentric. HE is an acid-tripping lunatic. See how that works? I am an investor. YOU are a speculator. HE is a gambler. But let's take it down a step further. You get an unhappy feeling when I tell you that you're a gambler. Why? Why is that bad?

What it is, I think, is that a "gambler" is considered to be someone who takes foolish risks without thought, and who is out of control when it comes to money. This is totally wrong. A gambler is just someone who takes risks with money, nothing more. There are a lot of people in Vegas who lose everything they brought to town, even if they went way up before blowing out. There are a lot of people in Vegas who play the various games available without consideration for their chances of success at each one, and without a specific goal in mind. For those who were just there on a vacation, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. For those who went there with the plan or the need to win, this is pretty unfortunate. It's also unfortunate to see folks trading... sorry, betting, and getting into losses way over their head that they hadn't planned on and can't quite afford.

But there are also people who gamble in Vegas who have a risk management plan. They lose small amounts and then stop. They win and pull part of their profits so they make sure they have something to take home. They win for a while, and then stop when the market... sorry, the game starts to move against them. There are also people who gamble successfully for a living. Not too many of them, but they play only specific games with a very specific plan, and treat the entire endeavor (the play, the risk management, the profit management) as a business. It is a business for them; it's the methodical and studied attempt to accumulate income.

In trading, it's the same thing. I went to Vegas once in 1997 (sue me, sitting in smoke filled rooms isn't my thing). I was absolutely blown away at the similarities between playing craps, roulette (heaven help you), slots, etc. and trading. Everybody's got a system, but very few of them are sensible -- at least, very few of them are sensibly and consistently implemented. People talk about luck, about risk and reward, about the huge amount somebody made once, about the big losses somebody had once. Folks win a little, lose a little. Everybody dreams about an absolute killing, and next to nobody gets one. Most folks seem to lose what they came with, but not way more than that. Emotion reigns as king; every sizeable win yields a victory dance and flashing lights, and every long drawdown and big loss produces despair. I played quarter slots. I started with a fixed maximum loss, and as the position increased (it was a Saturday evening, on a machine near but not right at the entrance...) I set a trailing stop onthe amount of money in the machine. I got as high as £475 ahead, but when the trailing stop at £300 got hit, I cashed out. Nice trade; nothing to write home about, but a decent return on quarter slots. Over the next couple of days, I won a little more and then lost steadily. When I got down to £200 ahead on the trip, I stopped and watched everybody else lose money for the duration. Same as being wrong about the same market too often, so you give up and go somewhere else for a while until the market behavior changes.

http://www.financial-spread-betting.com/trading-or-gambling.html

Lots of great info here whatever your game.

He's really nailed it. 

http://www.financial-spread-betting.com/Becoming-a-professional-gambler.html

esoito was neither fair nor impartial. I was muted for no good reason several times, apparently only for being "negative". It makes you wonder what's going on here when members are censored for posting the truth about systems.

Quote from: alrelax on November 23, 2014, 07:23:03 PM
The other thing, and this applies not only to this author-but many others, what makes David Ewing's explanation and thoughts gospel???

Myself, I always ask questions and ask why someone says something when it is published and why that would be gospel, believed or should be followed upon or acted on.

And what makes the gospel "gospel"?

The facts back up David Ewing's thoughts  on the matter, that's why it's reasonable to believe it. Same for anything else you read or hear about. Does it seem reasonable and in line with common sense? And like it or not, we all have to rely on the opinions of experts. In general, gambler's don't quit while they're ahead, but even if they had the discipline, it wouldn't make any difference because games like roulette and baccarat are unpredictable, so you can never know the best time to quit.

You might be quitting just before the longest winning run of your life, but without a crystal ball, you can't know this. And how much is "ahead" anyway? 1 unit? 10 units? So you make 1 unit per session and quit when you have your target, you do this 10 times and have 10 units. On the 11th session, you hit a losing run right from the start and lose your previous profits and more. That's the way it goes, win some, lose some, but you are always fighting a negative trend.

quoted from wikipedia.

QuoteGambler's conceit is the fallacy described by behavioral economist David J. Ewing, where a gambler believes they will be able to stop a risky behavior while still engaging in it. This belief frequently operates during games of chance, such as casino games. The gambler believes they will be a net winner at the game, and thus able to avoid going broke by exerting the self-control necessary to stop playing while still ahead in winnings. This is often expressed as "I'll quit when I'm ahead."[1]

Quitting while ahead is unlikely though, since a gambler who is winning has little incentive to do so, and is in fact rewarded for continuing to do so by their winning. Once in the throes of a winning streak the individual may even become convinced that it is their skill, rather than blind chance, causing their winnings, or good luck on their side, and thus it seems especially senseless to stop while continuing to win.[2]

Apart from the psychological aspect, you are never really "quitting" if you plan to play again, because all random outcomes in casino games behave like an unbroken stream. In other words, it doesn't matter how many outcomes you skip, or where you enter or exit the stream, because the distribution is the same. And of course, the gambler forgets the times he never actually gets ahead, and has to break off with heavy losses.

The moral of the story is: quitting when ahead offers no advantage whatsoever.

RouletteKEY,

No ruffled feathers here. I was just pointing out the truth, for those who can apply a modicum of logical thinking, which appears to be in very short supply around here.

And that last part was intended to be neither witty nor flippant, or even facetious, but serious.

Oh cripes, another round of hackneyed cliches from the clueless.

In the first place, no online  casino tracks your playing style and works out the patterns, that would be absurd, because (a) they would be merely guessing, and anyone could change their pattern of play at any time, and (b) it's totally unnecessary because all they have to do to cheat you is to spin a number which isn't covered by your bet.

And "one foot pointed toward the door" is just "hit and run" style of play, or "quit while you're ahead", which is so ridiculous that it beggars belief. Quitting while ahead only works once. Having got ahead, quit, and never set foot inside a casino again.

Rolex-Watch,

I hear what you're saying, but the point is that the rules say no four-letter-words, and it shouldn't be one rule for one and another for someone else.

Mods are necessary, I agree. But I don't think impartiality is too much to ask of a mod.

Exactly right, greenguy. I'm glad I'm not the only one who's noticed!

Granted, it may not be an easy job being a mod, but the bias here is blatant.

Sorry, but I don't see how stopping after 1 unit profit in any way reduces the risk of a loss. It would only be so if you had solid grounds for making an individual bet in the first place, or you could predict the future. This is the hit and run fallacy rearing its ugly head again.

From the proposition "if you make many bets, you will lose", people seem to be inferring: "therefore, if you don't make many bets, you won't lose". But this latter proposition does not follow. The only conclusion you can validly draw from the first is  "if you haven't lost, you haven't made many bets".

The apparent advantage is an illusion. You are consoled because if you only make 7 bets per week, it will probably take longer to lose than if you made 7 per day. The end result is the same, but in the first case it will take longer to get there.

Quote from: wannawin on August 10, 2014, 12:55:42 AM
My prediction is that in the end all roulette programs will be free because people do not like paying.

People haven't liked paying for anything ever since money was invented, but money hasn't become obsolete yet, so the fact that no-one likes paying is hardly grounds for the prediction that everything will be free. Of course superman is correct, why would anyone put in the considerable amount of time and effort it requires to create good software only to give it away?

There is a large and growing free software movement, but this is focused more on core utilities, not niche software, and for that there will always be sellers and people willing to pay. If someone wants to give away their software, fine, but don't expect it to become the norm.

My prediction is that programming will become more and more a core skill, so to that extent there will be more programmers in the future, and therefore more free software, but there will always be market, and that's as it should be. I don't understand the mentality that everything software related should be free. A computer program is an engineered product  just like a car, and just because it doesn't have a physical element doesn't mean that it shouldn't be paid for.

Peter,

Whilst I agree that most casino punters do give it all back, the solution cannot be merely "quit while you're ahead". If it were, a huge number of otherwise undisciplined punters would have "converted" immediately, having realized the error of their ways, and the casinos would have gone out of business many moons ago.

That's apart from all the mathematical considerations, of course. Having said that, I do like your website, and I'm not entirely unconvinced that there isn't some merit in diversifying, ie; employing a number of diverse systems in a playing session.

The key word here is capable. Any system is capable of delivering 1 u profit, but none can guarantee 1 u profit. You might start losing from the get-go and never recover. It does happen, and more often than you might think.

Actually, esoito is correct about diversification. It's a basic principle of any speculative venture that you don't put all your eggs in one basket. I'm not saying that it would amount to a grail, but it may help to reduce the roller-coaster effect and put you more on an even-keel, maybe even to the extent that some kind of progression becomes viable for those without balls of steel.