When I was a physics student in the late 80s, there was a conference in Reno, held in one of the casinos. I think it was just one of the divisions of the APS, and we certainly didn't occupy the entire place.
I recall an amusing anecdote. Of course we didn't gamble. But after the conference banquet, my friends and I were standing around talking shop, and another guy accused us of being nerds for not at least trying out the slots. So he bought us a bucket of quarters and led us into the fray.
After some time spent in sheer boredom, winning little bets and losing little bets, my friend decided to dispute the result of a machine. The attendant came over, and we got to see the insides of a slot machine. It was a garden variety IBM PC-AT with a color CRT, inside a fancy case with buttons and a pull handle. The attendant pulled the keyboard out of its slot, started typing commands, and showed us the result of our game. The machine was of course right, and the attendant smugly shut the lid and walked way.
Eventually we ran out of quarters and all went to bed.
And I have sat many times beside a guy who has no qualms against pumping $2,300/min into $100 slot machines, only to walk out of the casino with far more than he came in with.
He talks to the VIP slot hosts, and to other VIP players. Then he picks the machines that are "loaded up" and "are due to pay out". I've tried to explain that this means nothing. But in his mind, it makes total sense.
In the limited experiences observing him, I cannot say his (unfounded) beliefs are not accurate. That said, I've explained that slots are designed to pay out a certain percentage in a year, based on millions of plays. One high roller weekend is just a drop in that bucket, so _anything can happen_.
It's quite a scene to have several machines tied up because they're on the jackpot, and the slot host is busy working on 1099 forms while you play another "due" machine.
None of this is near as exciting as the MIT blackjack stories, but it is still pretty cool to see what $161k looks like in neatly wrapped stacks of 10k.
If they had a convention of HN commenters in Vegas, it would probably be their best week ever. So many people sure they've found some secret way to beat the odds. It's a casino boss's dream come true.
I've usually left Las Vegas with more money than I started with. I don't try to beat the odds, I try to find a $5 table that's full of drunk and/or newbie poker players. These players won't play the expensive tables but are also reasonably good losers when the stakes are lower. Don't try to game the house's portion ... if you do something against the rules they'll spot you. They won't bat an eye if you're taking money from the other guests though.
They had RailsConf in Vegas in 2008. I spent half of my time in the poker room, breaking even, but made a key networking connection in a limo that jumpstarted my startup's success.
If you don't have a very high opinion of HN commenters, you'll probably assume that they get their opinions from Wikipedia. But that means they'll have a pretty good idea of whether a given game is good or bad in terms of odds.
Besides, casinos will often give you free booze simply because you're sat at a table gambling. You don't have to actually win money to profit! You just need to start sensible, and then keep it going long enough to get drunk.
You must have missed the article and discussion this morning about a now (but not then) YC Alumni that beat the Massachusetts Cash Windfall lotto and literally made millions off it.
They are proof enough that some games can be beaten.
funny, whenever I'm stuck at a casino (I've had an inordinate amount of "retreats" for work at casinos), I take $100 out of the ATM and hit up the lowest deck table of blackjack I can find, and spend the evening entertaining myself.
when the inevitable "are you counting cards?" question comes, I simply answer, dryly, "no, I just understand math". it's usually at that point they close the table for the night.
The only career advice we got in my physics undergrad was when the quantum professor told us few if any would go on to PhDs, but we could get jobs in Vegas or Wall Street. It was at that moment that I learned to stick with index funds and never, ever gamble. There's no way one of me for a few hours can possibly beat 100s of me working on a problem for decades.
Playing craps is a bunch of fun for me personally. I treat it like entertainment and just play the pass line plus odds. The pass line is just a 1.41% house advantage. And there is 0% house edge on odds. It's actually cheaper than buying drinks if you are planning to. Also much more fun than staying in your room and staring at your mutual funds the entire night!
I've known about a dozen people over a decade who make a living gambling. Apparently it's not as hard as it sounds. Most people just don't try. It takes effort and discipline like anything else. And a healthy appetite for risk.
Surprisingly, most physicists I've talked to also seem to have a healthy appetite for risk. Maybe this is a generational thing. The current generation has one eye on wall st and the other on startups.
In 2001, one of the premier theoretical CS conferences, Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS), held its meeting in Las Vegas at the Tropicana. Only about 200 people attend, but it was memorable:
(1) The conference hall right next to the FOCS conference room was hosting the international lingerie trade conference ! Still, the talks were more interesting and well attended.
(2) I, like many others, didnt gamble, but I watched my office mate from MIT (now a brilliant scientist who recently won the Godel Prize) lose his 40$ (a big amount for grad students back then) at the blackjack table in literally 3 hands (35 seconds).
He said, "I cant leave vegas without at least trying" and he proceeded to show exactly how LV works.
"The year was 1986 ... ended up settling on Las Vegas's MGM Grand."
This immediately made me think this story is made up: the MGM Grand as described and pictured opened in 1993. As noted in the comments, the actual year is more likely 1988 and the casino likely Bally's.
"...a documentary I’d seen a while back, where some science-minded gamblers proved that a roulette wheel could reliably be beaten with a timer and a pocket computer.."
I suspect those two gamblers were Claude Shannon, founder of information theory, and Ed Thorp, a physicist who developed a card counting method for blackjack [1].
"It was an unmitigated disaster for the Grand. Financially, it was the worst week they’d ever had. After the conference was over, APS was politely asked never to return—not just by the MGM Grand, but by the entire city of Las Vegas."
Gambling is entertainment, not an investment strategy. I assume physicists still go see movies, go out to dinner, or read books. Those too are entertainment.
The "do not play" strategy to win in Las Vegas was pioneered by attendees of the AFIPS sponsored Fall and Spring Joint Computer Conferences and the National Computer Conference. Sponsoring organizations included the ACM, the IEEE Computer Society, and others.
Everyone knows the house has an edge. Gambling is a form entertainment. Unfortunately like drinking some people can’t just do it socially. I find an occasional weekend in Vegas fun. Just budget yourself $x you’re willing to spend per day. Play a game here and there, drink some, go to the pool, eat at a buffet, get a massage, whatever. It definitely took me some time at first to ‘get’ Vegas.
I feel like I get the reward-value of gambling... but whenever I think about it, I think about how much more fun it would be to start a casino.
Is there a good one of those "___ Tycoon" business-sim games for starting your own casino? One where things like comping whales and decide whether to break cheaters' kneecaps are part of the gameplay? Because that would be an addictive game ;)
I'm under the impression that the general public understands that casinos and lotteries are not charities. Do you really need a PhD in physics to figure this out? The reason people gamble is not because they're dumb.
I attended a convention with a bunch of probability & statistics experts. A number of them absolutely cleaned up and it wasn't at all surprising to see who - but I suspect the casino's losses to them were quickly subsidized by their less keen peers who were also playing (albeit badly) and the dozens who were watching and ordering drinks like our plane was going down. Honestly if I was hosting Defcon, nerds winning at the Blackjack table would be the least of my concerns.
Vegas is also much less centered around gambling than it was 30 years ago. With the World Convention Center and other venues, there's not even an expectation that convention-goers are going to gamble, and if they want to, they have to go out of their way to get to a casino.
Was just wondering about Defcon actually. Maybe the amount of parties around Defcon and Blackhat makes up for the lack of gambling, in terms of revenue?
A while ago, I would regularly go to a kink happy hour at a local bar. I was talking with the organizer and, apparently they were almost not invited back after the first one; because a significant amount of the attendees wouidn't actually get anything from the bar. (There is now an entrance fee redeemable for equal value at the bar).
Fun factoid. Have you ever noticed how absurdly tacky casino carpet is? This is intentional. The idea is to keep people's eyes up and looking at the casino games.
There's also that characteristic smell many casinos have, and I'm struggling to avoid the really tempting jokes there. That derives from quite expensive fragrances and oils filtered through the air circulation. Once again, they're designed to incentivize gaming with a bit of metascience - musk is a popular component in the scents, for instance.
The games begin when you walk through the door, whether or not you realize you're participating.
And you don't even need to collaborate on that. Every person with enough statistical experience (and scientists have to have that) know by intuition that the odds are stacked against them in a casino. So it's really know fun if you can estimate with each dice or ball roll how much money you're losing (on average).
This article gets its facts wrong. It was the 1986 MARCH Meeting in Las Vegas where this happened. I was there.
A friend of mine overheard the saleswomen talking in the lingerie shop (dressed as you might imagine) "I could be stark naked and these guys wouldn't notice me".
I never play the games, either. Once I took the "learn craps" class where the casino gives everyone (fake) chips to learn with. That was relaxing and fun, and they were all gone in ten minutes.
[+] [-] analog31|8 years ago|reply
I recall an amusing anecdote. Of course we didn't gamble. But after the conference banquet, my friends and I were standing around talking shop, and another guy accused us of being nerds for not at least trying out the slots. So he bought us a bucket of quarters and led us into the fray.
After some time spent in sheer boredom, winning little bets and losing little bets, my friend decided to dispute the result of a machine. The attendant came over, and we got to see the insides of a slot machine. It was a garden variety IBM PC-AT with a color CRT, inside a fancy case with buttons and a pull handle. The attendant pulled the keyboard out of its slot, started typing commands, and showed us the result of our game. The machine was of course right, and the attendant smugly shut the lid and walked way.
Eventually we ran out of quarters and all went to bed.
There were some really cool pawn shops in Reno.
[+] [-] blunte|8 years ago|reply
He talks to the VIP slot hosts, and to other VIP players. Then he picks the machines that are "loaded up" and "are due to pay out". I've tried to explain that this means nothing. But in his mind, it makes total sense.
In the limited experiences observing him, I cannot say his (unfounded) beliefs are not accurate. That said, I've explained that slots are designed to pay out a certain percentage in a year, based on millions of plays. One high roller weekend is just a drop in that bucket, so _anything can happen_.
It's quite a scene to have several machines tied up because they're on the jackpot, and the slot host is busy working on 1099 forms while you play another "due" machine.
None of this is near as exciting as the MIT blackjack stories, but it is still pretty cool to see what $161k looks like in neatly wrapped stacks of 10k.
[+] [-] mbrumlow|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notacoward|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smoyer|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fizx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] erikb|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] to3m|8 years ago|reply
Besides, casinos will often give you free booze simply because you're sat at a table gambling. You don't have to actually win money to profit! You just need to start sensible, and then keep it going long enough to get drunk.
[+] [-] jonwachob91|8 years ago|reply
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16494280
[+] [-] jerrysievert|8 years ago|reply
when the inevitable "are you counting cards?" question comes, I simply answer, dryly, "no, I just understand math". it's usually at that point they close the table for the night.
[+] [-] killjoywashere|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moondev|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sillysaurus3|8 years ago|reply
Surprisingly, most physicists I've talked to also seem to have a healthy appetite for risk. Maybe this is a generational thing. The current generation has one eye on wall st and the other on startups.
[+] [-] abhv|8 years ago|reply
(1) The conference hall right next to the FOCS conference room was hosting the international lingerie trade conference ! Still, the talks were more interesting and well attended.
(2) I, like many others, didnt gamble, but I watched my office mate from MIT (now a brilliant scientist who recently won the Godel Prize) lose his 40$ (a big amount for grad students back then) at the blackjack table in literally 3 hands (35 seconds).
He said, "I cant leave vegas without at least trying" and he proceeded to show exactly how LV works.
[+] [-] severine|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jbyers|8 years ago|reply
This immediately made me think this story is made up: the MGM Grand as described and pictured opened in 1993. As noted in the comments, the actual year is more likely 1988 and the casino likely Bally's.
[+] [-] goodcanadian|8 years ago|reply
http://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.2814928
It was 1986, and yes, it would probably be what is now known as Bally's which, at the time, was called MGM Grand.
[+] [-] JoeDaDude|8 years ago|reply
I suspect those two gamblers were Claude Shannon, founder of information theory, and Ed Thorp, a physicist who developed a card counting method for blackjack [1].
[1] http://nautil.us/issue/50/emergence/claude-shannon-the-las-v...
[+] [-] jacobkg|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cocoa19|8 years ago|reply
Sigh. People with basic math and statistics skills (physicists) don't gamble. What a shocker.
[+] [-] fred_is_fred|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rxhernandez|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drallison|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trixie_|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] derefr|8 years ago|reply
Is there a good one of those "___ Tycoon" business-sim games for starting your own casino? One where things like comping whales and decide whether to break cheaters' kneecaps are part of the gameplay? Because that would be an addictive game ;)
[+] [-] KKKKkkkk1|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] United857|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TallGuyShort|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chungy|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] closeparen|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] strictnein|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bognition|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] analog31|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gizmo686|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dogruck|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] booleandilemma|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TangoTrotFox|8 years ago|reply
There's also that characteristic smell many casinos have, and I'm struggling to avoid the really tempting jokes there. That derives from quite expensive fragrances and oils filtered through the air circulation. Once again, they're designed to incentivize gaming with a bit of metascience - musk is a popular component in the scents, for instance.
The games begin when you walk through the door, whether or not you realize you're participating.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] erikb|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gluejar|8 years ago|reply
A friend of mine overheard the saleswomen talking in the lingerie shop (dressed as you might imagine) "I could be stark naked and these guys wouldn't notice me".
[+] [-] tacon|8 years ago|reply