2 gamblers take US casino for more than $11M

Canceler

Well-Known Member
#2
Good luck explaining this to the investors, sir!

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn bought the Tropicana out of bankruptcy last year, and has set about trying to regain business it lost under its previous owners, an affiliate of Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex Corp. A centerpiece of that strategy is trying to make up lost ground in a hurry by allowing high-stakes bettors to take their best shot against the casino at table games.
Kind of makes you wonder if Mr. Icahn did his variance and RoR calculations. Or is he just looking at potential profit? There might be more than one gambler in this story.
 

Friendo

Well-Known Member
#3
Canceler said:
Kind of makes you wonder if Mr. Icahn did his variance and RoR calculations.
Could it be that most of the wealthy inherited, married, stole, or lucked into their wealth?

Icahn may be as wealthy as he is because of an indifference to certain sorts of risk. Or maybe none of his subordinates and advisors feel comfortable telling him certain truths.
 
#4
When I grew up in the 60s and 70s the only multimillionaire I knew had made millions and then gone bankrupt more than 10 times. They are risk takers. When the risk pays off it pays off big. When it doesnt it costs a lot. He died in the late 80s and left about 100 million to his son who never worked a day in his life. He blew the whole fortune in far less than a decade. This was not on risk/reward that went bad but on a nonstop party with many many leach like people.
 
#5
tthree said:
When I grew up in the 60s and 70s the only multimillionaire I knew had made millions and then gone bankrupt more than 10 times. They are risk takers. When the risk pays off it pays off big. When it doesnt it costs a lot. He died in the late 80s and left about 100 million to his son who never worked a day in his life. He blew the whole fortune in far less than a decade. This was not on risk/reward that went bad but on a nonstop party with many many leach like people.
I dont even understand how people with that kind of money go through it all. Seems like alot would be tied up in property and other investments. I can see losing 50-60 mil on stupid ****. But when it starts running out doesnt a warning bell start going...
 
#7
Sometimes very rare winning or losing streaks can happen. Even if there's a 0.01% chance, someone's going to be that big winner. Since the casino's edge on table games is so low, variance can be brutal in the short term. But the casino's edge on slots is between 5-15%, so variance is much lower. For the machines that have million+ dollar jackpots, the slot manufacturer pays out the jackpots, so a casino would love it if many jackpots hit in a short period of time.

Something tells me that the first big winner in this news story might have been an AP working with a team, especially since he won at multiple casinos and only played blackjack. Maybe he's a great shuffle tracker or hole carder, because most casinos would not let people win so much by straight counting. Obviously he's not going to tell the media that he's an AP, instead choosing to say that he's a gambler who just got lucky. The second gambler seems like a lucky ploppy, a dead giveaway is the $150,000 tip and the fact that he played multiple games. APs wouldn't tip so much even after a multimillion dollar win. If I were a manager at the Trop, I would bar the first player (since it's AC, then shuffle often and deal the cards myself since I couldn't bar him). I'd allow the second player to live in a suite and give him a host who would do almost anything he demands till the casino wins the money back (50 yard line Super Bowl tickets, front row center seats at a Lady Gaga concert, chartered flight to Tropicana in Vegas, etc).
 
#9
The Chaperone said:
Variance on slots is higher than most of the standard craps bets and definitely higher than BJ.
Yes, the variance on an individual slot machine is higher, but the variance of all the slot machines is low since there are so many of them. Variance decreases with the square root of the number of machines/tables.
 
#11
As you have more data in a sample, the standard deviation/variance of the sample will decrease proportionally with the square root of the number of individual data points.
 
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