Optimize your luck in Macau: A practical strategy to gaming

If you follow the above steps faithfully, you are guaranteed a certain chance of achieving your target return. A simple analysis based on some high-school probability theory provides pretty accurate prediction of your chance of winning, which of course depends on how greedy you are in setting the target return. For example, if you aim at 20% return, your chance of getting it is 83%, which is not bad!  So far, this strategy has not yet failed me in my last few casino visits. 

If you want more data, here are some:

- For a 10% target return, the winning chance is 10/11 or 91%.  (Unnegligibly risky!)

- For a 20% target return, the winning chance is 5/6 or 83%.  (Conservatively risky!)

- For a 30% target return, the winning chance is 10/13 or 77%.  (Risky!!)

- For a 40% target return, the winning chance is 5/7 or 71%.  (Very risky!!!)

- For a 50% target return, the winning chance is 2/3 or 67%.  (Don't expect you're that lucky!!!)

- For a 70% target return, the winning chance is 10/17 or 59%.  (Prepare to lose all your money!!!!)

- For a 100% target return, the winning chance is 1/2 or 50%.  (Unattemptable!!!!)

Personally, a reasonable risk to take is to set your return at 20%. The probability of success for this level of greed is 83%, which is exactly the same likelihood you would expect from rolling a common 6-sided die and betting on the outcome of either 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5, i.e., five out of six.  Not bad!  So, if you begin with 2000 dollars, follow the steps, you stand a good chance (I mean 83%) of earning 400 bucks to shout your friends a round of drinks! But remember, don't stay when you've got your 400 bucks!

What if you continue to stay

In theory, if the game is perfectly fair, your chance for gaining 20% more chips is 5/6 or 83%, provided you quit as soon as you're done with the 20% profit. Suppose you decide to continue playing. This would be like starting the game all over again, and the chance of beating it again (twice in a row) is 25/36 or 69%.  

Okay, suppose you're in luck and happily get 20% more chips again. And you stay. Your chance of beating it again (thrice in a row) will be 125/216 or 58%.

Likewise, the chance of winning four times in a row, five times in a row, etc. will continue to diminish exponentially. In math terms, if you stay long enough, your chance of winning is asymptotically zero. So, you could only avoid the odds turning against you by doing it just once!

 April 2012