Vegas deconstructed

Vegas appeals to millions, and for better or worse, embodies much of American culture. Money talks, sex sells, and the prospect of making it big draws the crowd. The city of sin capitalizes on two human attributes to make its economy run. The first is the fulfillment of sensory experience and the second is an exploitation of pattern recognition.

To satiate one's senses is easy in Vegas. The bars never close, the lights shine bright and the food is exceptional, both in price and taste. For vacations, there are generally two types: relaxation or adventure. Vegas is adventure. Whether it's entering the club scantily clad or watching the incredible Cirque de Soleil, people seek new stories about themselves and what they saw. Today only 26% of the revenue in Vegas comes from actual gambling profits (Source Economist 2009). Funny to think such a destination could be created in the middle of a desert, but that's the magic of America. We can build something out of nothing. And honeslty, Vegas is worth the trip for it entertains and enraptures both non-gamblers and gamblers alike.

Vegas' original appeal, however, was the prospect of riches with the probability of loss. All games of chance manipulate our natural instincts to encourage bad bets. Humans are exceptional detectors of patterns, better than any other animal. Memory and pattern recognition have allowed the development of language, food surpluses and ultimately the underpinning of civilization. Pattern recognition operates on the foundation that events are related; that there is cause and effect. In Vegas, however, events are rarely related. After rolling seven six time straight, the probability of the next roll was the same as the first. A slot machine that just paid out is equivalently likely to pay out on the next spin. The Nevada Gaming Commission ensures that this is the case. Nobody believes it though. Nobody, not even me. When I walk around and see that black hit seven times straight on roulette, deep down I want to think the chance of red is better. And so Vegas wins. Statisticians can tell you how much they expect to make every hour on every game. In aggregate, the end result is incredibly reliable. Unfortunately, human instinct leads us to hope we can break the law of averages and large numbers. Besides poker and sports betting, you can't over the long-term. And my lesson for the trip is that I'm not good enough in poker (and I don't follow sports) so it's best for me to stay in Houston.

That said, I won $1,500 yesterday. I came in second and first in two consectuive tournaments and have turned my significant poker losses into minor poker losses. I am still down, but now only a few hundred. I have a chance to break even, but I won't be disappointed if I leave without doing so because I have some new stories of my own. One of which is that I will probably be on TV sometime in the autumn. I was filmed playing with a person who's trying to break through as a professional gambler in the show True Life on MTV (http://www.mtv.com/ontv/dyn/truelife/series.jhtml). I busted out the aspiring player, Adrian, in two separate tournaments and said on camera that he'd be better off accepting his law school admission rather than professional gambling. That said, he plays well and has a shot. Law school has better odds though. I also met up with Cheryl and have included pictures below.

As for the trip, I am being joined by a high school friend and we will start going to National Parks and driving back east on Tuesday. Adios Vegas, you have been deconstructed.

Miles Driven: 3,810 (just around Vegas recently)

Poker Update: Much better but still down. After all the wins and losses, I lost exact count but between $300 and $500 down.

Quote of the Day: "God doesn't play dice with the universe" - Albert Einstein (he was referring to a refutation of Quantum Mechanics. To date, he is wrong as no one has shown that quantum mechanics does not operate in a completely probablistic manner).