There are many scenarios where the gambler’s fallacy might superficially seem to apply, where it in fact does not.

• When the probability of different events is not independent, the probability of future events can change based on the outcome of past events. An example of this is cards drawn without replacement. It’s true that once a jack is removed from the deck, the next draw is less likely to be a jack and more likely to be of another rank. Thus, the odds for drawing a jack, assuming that it was the first card drawn and that there are no jokers, have decreased from 4/52 (7.69%) to 3/51 (5.88%), while the odds for any other card have increased from 4/52 (7.69%) to 4/51 (7.84%).

• When the probability of each event is not even, such as with a loaded die, a number which has come up more often in the past may very well continue to do so, if that number is favored by the weighting of the dice. This has been dubbed Nerd’s Gullibility Fallacy — assuming the coin indeed is fair and the gamblers are honest when it isn’t the case. This is an example of Hume’s principle: twenty tails in a row indicates that it is far more likely that the coin is loaded than that the coin is fair and the next toss will be fifty-fifty heads or tails.

• The outcome of future events can be affected if external factors are allowed to change the probability of the events (e.g. changes in the rules of a game affecting a sports team’s performance levels). Additionally, a rookie sports player’s success may decrease after opposing teams discover his or her weaknesses and exploit them. The player must then attempt to compensate and randomize his strategy, ultimately resulting in Game Theory.

• Many riddles trick the reader into believing that they are an example of Gambler’s Fallacy, such as the Monty Hall problem. Similarly, if I flip a coin twice and tell you that at least one (i.e. one or both) of the flips was heads, and ask what the probability is that they both came up heads, you might answer, that it is 50/50 (or 50%). This is incorrect: if I tell you that one of the two flips was heads then I am removing the tails-tails outcome only, leaving the following possible outcomes: heads-heads, heads-tails, and tails-heads. These are equally likely, so heads-heads happens 1 time in 3 or 33% of the time. If I had specified that the first flip was heads, then the chances the second flip was heads too is 50%.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs) are computerised machines normally found in betting shops which allow players to bet on the outcome of various games and events with Fixed Odds. They were introduced to UK shops in 2002, shortly after the abolition of the Betting Tax in October 2001.The most commonly played game is Roulette. The minimum bet per spin is £1 and the maximum is £100. Chips can be as small as 20 pence. The maximum amount that can be won on any spin is £500.

Other games include Spoof, Bingo, Virtual Racing and Triple Disc.

Shops are allowed a maximum of four such terminals, although since this number also includes fruit machines, many shops have fewer than four.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

A Chinese auction is a type of auction (actually a combination of auction and raffle) that is typically featured at charity or other fundraising events.In a Chinese auction, bidders are not prospective buyers (as in the conventional English auction). Instead, they buy tickets, which are essentially chances to win items. Bidders may buy as many tickets as they like, and bid them on any item(s) they want by placing them in a basket or other container in front of the item(s) they are trying to win. At the conclusion of bidding, the winning ticket is drawn from the tickets bid on each item, and the item is given to the owner of that ticket.

A bidder may increase their chance of winning by buying and bidding more tickets on a specific item. Although there is generally no limit to the number of tickets a given individual may bid on a specific item, the chance of winning depends on the total number of tickets bid by all individuals.

It is unclear whether this type of auction actually originates in China; it is much more likely that the term derives from “chance auction,” which is also another name for this type of auction.

The Chinese auction is similar to the “silent auction,” with the difference being that in the silent auction bidders submit bids listing specific amounts that they are willing to pay for a specific item.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: HSMAI Chinese Auction

The Cox Pavillion is a 2,472-seat indoor arena built in 2001 on the canpus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. It is used for small events and its main tenants are the UNLV’s women’s basketball and volleyball programs.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) is a public agency that runs the Las Vegas Convention Center, Cashman Center, and Cashman Field and is responsible for the advertising campaigns for the Clark County, Nevada area.

The fourteen member board is appointed by various elected governing bodies in the County. Funding is provided by a room tax on all hotels in the county.

Activities

The authority works to bring events to the Las Vegas area, sometimes by providing funds to subsidize events. These events include:

• The NBA 2007 All-star game
• The 2006 Tennis Channel Open Tennis Tournament

The authority is also responsible for the advertising campaigns for Las Vegas. Working with the same advertising company R & R Partners since 1982 they have developed ad campaigns like:

• Only in Vegas
• What happens here, stays here

Members

• Oscar Goodman, Mayor of Las Vegas
• Jim Gibson, Mayor of Henderson
• Tony Santo, Caesars Entertainment executive
• Vince Matthews, Mandalay Resort Group executive
• Bruce L. Woodbury, Clark County Commissioner

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

In 1998 the China State Sports Commission, in the interest of changing mahjong from an illegal gambling game to an approved ‘healthy sport’, published a new set of rules, now generally referred to as Chinese Official rules or International Tournament rules. The principles of the new, ‘healthy’ mahjong are: no gambling – no drinking – no smoking. On international tournaments, players are often grouped in teams to emphasize that mahjong from now on is considered a sport.

The new rules are highly pattern-based. The rulebook contains 80 combinations, based on patterns and scoring elements popular in both classic and modern regional Chinese variants. Some table practices of Japan have also been adopted. In order to go out, players must score at least 8 points. Points for flower tiles (each flower is worth 1 point) may not be added until the player has scored 8 points. The winner of a game receives the score of his winning hand in points from the player who discarded the winning tile, plus 8 basic points from each player; in the case of zimo (self drawn win), he receives the value of his winning hand plus 8 points from all players.

The new rules were used in an international tournament first in Tokyo, where in 2002 the first World Championship in Mahjong was organized by the Mahjong Museum, the Japan Mahjong Organizing Committee and the city council of Ningbo, China, the town where it is believed mahjong most likely originated. One hundred players participated, mainly from Japan and China, but also from Europe and the United States. Miss Mai Hatsune from Japan became the first world champion. The following year saw the first annual China Majiang Championship, held in Hainan. The next two annual tournaments were held in Hong Kong and Beijing. Most players were Chinese, but players from other nations attended as well.

In 2005, in the Netherlands, the first Open European Mahjong Championship was held, with 108 players. The first prize was won by Masato Chiba from Japan.

Critics say that these new rules are unlikely to achieve great popularity outside of tournaments, since regional variations are well-entrenched. They also complain that the game is excessively complex, even by normal mahjong standards. But those who advocate the New Mahjong claim that it is not meant to replace existing rules, but only to act as a standard for international mahjong events.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Spread betting is a form of gambling on the outcome of any event where the more accurate the gamble, the more is won and conversely the less accurate the more is lost. A bet is made against a ‘spread’ (or index), on whether the outcome will be above or below the spread. The amount won or lost depends on the level of the index at the end of the event. The spread represents the index firms’ margin.

The concept has a long history in American sports betting and was exported to the United Kingdom in the 1980s. In North America the bettor usually bets that the difference in the scores of two teams will be less than or greater than a value specified by the bookmaker. For example, if a bettor places a bet on an underdog in an American football game when the spread is 3.5 points, he is said to take the points; he will win his bet if the underdog’s score plus 3.5 points is greater than the favourite’s score. If he had taken the favourite, he would have been giving the points and would win if the favourite’s score less 3.5 points was greater than the underdog’s score.

Spreads may be specified in half-point fractions to avoid ties, or pushes. The winner of a North American spread bet wins the amount that he has bet, while a losing bettor loses the amount wagered plus the bookmaker’s commission, which is commonly known as the vigorish or vig, and is usually 10 per cent of the original wager; in the United Kingdom both sides are held at odds of 9-10. In North American betting a push is treated as if no bet at all had been made, while in the United Kingdom “dead heat” rules apply, resulting in a net loss of £5 on a £100 wager due to the 9-10 odds of the proposition.

If a key player on a side is marginally injured and may or may not play, the “sports book” — or establishment that handles the bets — may declare the game off-limits to bettors (by not quoting any spread at all on it), or may “circle” the game; in the latter scenario, lower maximum amounts for each bet are enforced (typically $5,000 instead of the $25,000 limit observed at most Las Vegas sports books) and certain specialty wagers, such as “teasers,” are banned on either side in the game. (A “teaser” is a bet that alters the spread in the bettor’s favour by a predetermined margin, often six points – for example, if the line is 3.5 points and the bettor wants to place a “teaser” bet on the underdog, he takes 9.5 points instead; a teaser bet on the favourite would mean that the bettor takes 2.5 points instead of having to give the 3.5. In return for the additional points, the payout if the bettor wins is less than even money. At some establishments, the “reverse teaser” also exists, which alters the spread against the bettor, who gets paid off at more than even money if the bet wins.)

In the United Kingdom spread betting has come to resemble the futures market. The bets are usually on the outcome of sporting events or indeed on financial instruments, but the firms often offer bets on more arbitrary events – such as the number of corners during a football match or the total shirt numbers of the goal scorers.

Unlike fixed odds betting the amount won or lost can be very large, as there is no single stake to limit the maximum losses. However, it is usually possible to place a “stop loss” with the bookmaker, automatically closing the bet if the value of the spread moves against the better by a specified amount. “Stop wins” are the opposite — closing the bet when the spread moves in a better’s favour by a specified amount.

Example: In a soccer match between Liverpool and Everton the spread for corners is 12-13, the index firm believes there will be 12 or 13 corners in total during the match. A bettor approaches the firm with the belief that there will be more than 13 corners during the game, the bettor ‘buys’ at £25 a point at 13. If the final total of corners is 16 the bettor has won, receiving 3 x £25. If the final total of corners is 10, the bettor loses 3 x £25. A ‘sell’ transaction is similar except made against the bottom value of the spread. Often there is live pricing, which changes the spread during the course of an event allowing a profit to be increased or a loss minimized.

In North American sports betting many of these wagers would be classified as over-under (or, more commonly today, total) bets rather than spread bets. However, these are for one side or another of a total only, and do not increase the amount won or lost as the actual moves away from the bookmaker’s prediction. Instead, over-under or total bets are handled much like point-spread bets on a team, with the usual 10% commission applied. Many Nevada sports books will allow these bets to be used in parlays, just like team point-spread bets, making it possible to bet, for instance, “the Packers and the over,” and be paid if both the Packers “cover” the point spread and the total score is higher than the book’s prediction. (Such parlays usually pay off at odds of 13:5 with no “vig,” just as a standard two-team parlay would.)

The mathematical analysis of spreads and spread betting is a large and growing subject. For example, sports which have simple 1 point scoring systems (e.g. baseball, hockey, and soccer) may be analysed using Poisson and Skellam statistics.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Las Vegas, Nevada

Flag Seal
Nickname: “The Entertainment Capital of the World“
Motto: “‘“
Official website: http://www.lasvegasnevada.gov/
Location
Location of Las Vegas in Nevada
Government
County	Clark
Mayor	Oscar B. Goodman
Geographical characteristics
Total	293.6 km²
Land	293.5 km²
Water	0.1 km²
Total (2005)	575,973
Metro area	1,650,671
Density	1840.2/km²
Coordinates	36°11′00″ N 115°13′00″ W
Elevation	664 m
Time zone	PST (UTC-8)
Summer (DST)	PDT (UTC-7)

History

Founding

Las Vegas was given its name by Spaniards in the Antonio Armijo party, who used the water in the area while heading north and west along the Old Spanish Trail from Texas. In the 1800s, areas of the Las Vegas Valley contained artesian wells that supported extensive green areas or Meadows (Vega in Spanish), hence the name Las Vegas.

John C. Frémont traveled into the Las Vegas Valley on May 3, 1844, while it was still part of Mexico. He was a leader of a group of scientists, scouts and observers for the United States Army Corps of Engineers. On May 10, 1855, following annexation by the United States, Brigham Young assigned 30 Mormon missionaries led by William Bringhurst to the area to convert the Paiute Indian population. A Fort was built near the current downtown area, serving as a stopover for travelers along the “Mormon Corridor” between Salt Lake and the briefly thriving Mormon colony at San Bernardino, California. Las Vegas was established as a railroad town on May 15, 1905, when 110 acres owned by Montana Senator William A. Clark’s San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City Railroad, was auctioned off in what is now downtown Las Vegas. Las Vegas was part of Lincoln County until 1909 when it became part of the newly established Clark County. Las Vegas became an incorporated city on March 16, 1911 when it adopted its first charter.

Major events

Major events in Las Vegas’ history include:

• Establishment of Las Vegas as a railroad town (May 15, 1905).
• Legalization of gambling (March 19, 1931).
• Completion of Hoover Dam (October 9, 1936).
• Opening of Bugsy Siegel’s Flamingo Hotel on what would become the Las Vegas Strip (December 26, 1946).
• Atmospheric nuclear testing (1951 to 1962).
• The floods of 1955, 1984, 1999, and 2003.
• MGM Grand Hotel fire (November 21, 1980), the worst disaster in Nevada history.
• Opening of the Mirage (November 22, 1989), which began the era of megaresort casinos.
• 100th birthday, or Centennial, of Las Vegas (May 15, 2005).

Economic history

Las Vegas started as a stopover on the pioneer trails to the west, and became a popular railroad town in the early 1900s. It was a staging point for all the mines in the surrounding area, especially from the town of Bullfrog, that shipped their goods out to the country. With the growth of the railroads, Las Vegas became less important, but the building of the Hoover Dam injected new blood into Las Vegas and the city has never looked back. Federal dollars from Hoover Dam soon converted to tourist dollars after the dam was built. The increase in tourism and the legalization of gambling led to the advent of the casino-hotels for which Las Vegas is famous.

The constant stream of tourist dollars from the hotels and casinos was augmented by a new source of federal money. This money came from the establishment of what is now Nellis Air Force Base. The influx of military personnel and casino job-hunters helped start a land building boom which still goes on today.

Las Vegas has also benefitted from the economic woes of California, whose high-tax, high-regulation business climate has caused companies desiring or needing a West Coast presence to relocate to more business-friendly Nevada.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Poker Stars started a new experience, beginning to operate a poker room in Cotai Strip (Dubbed PokerStars Macau), at Grand Waldo Hotel and Casino (25 tables, 250 players, cash games and tournaments).

The poker room was launched this week with a No-Limit Texas Hold’em Charity Poker tournament, for the victims of the recent earthquake in China. Participants competed for HKD $150,000 in prizes, including entries to the $25 000 HKD buy-in September’s APPT Macau event, which features an HKD $25,000 buy-in. That event runs September 1-6, 2008 and has a guarantee of HKD $10,000,000.

“PokerStars is committed to the development of poker in Asia” said Joe Hachem, Poker World Champion and member of Team PokerStars Pro.

$4.5 billion Canadian investment in casino-resort project (“Ho Tram“) in the South of the Vietnam, the theme highlighting the lush natural beauty of the area while showcasing Vietnamese and Asian culture.

The most important investors in this project are Asian Coast Development Ltd. from Toronto and Harbinger Capital LLC from New York

The Ho Tram Strip is being designed by Steelman Partners and spread across 19 hectares of prime real estate on a beach in Xuyen Moc Commune, in Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu Province, near Ho Chi Minh City.

The first stage of the project (2008-2011) will include two luxurious five star hotels with 2300 rooms and a Las Vegas-style casinos – featuring live entertainment stages and an exclusive VIP area to compliment gaming floors with more than 180 live table games and 2000 electronic games. As recreational facilities, an expansive and luxurious spa, state-of-the-art performance facilities, an engaging upscale retail experience and a wide selection of elegant dining facilities offering local and international cuisine.

It is the most important investment in Vietnam, including, in the first stage, a 2,300 rooms hotel and a casino with 900 gambling tables, 500 slot machines, and a VIP area.

Finally, in 2015, the resort will comprise five hotels with 9,000 rooms and a second casino.

The site plan includes several theatres and museums, a cultural center, and an ongoing parade of events, a championship 200-acre golf course designed by Greg Norman, a country club, and and a site for guests to swim with dolphins.

Vietnam (Vietnamese: Việt Nam), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Cộng hòa Xã hội Chủ nghĩa Việt Nam), is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east. With a population of over 85 million, Vietnam is the 13th most populous country in the world.

Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu is a province of Vietnam. It is located on the coast of the country’s southeastern region. It also includes the Côn Đảo islands, located some distance off Vietnam’s southeastern coast. From 1954 to 1975, this province belonged to the Republic of Vietnam.

It is about a legal way to win, but take care! Such practice is considered an advantage gambling and, if the casinos see that you are a skillfull or knowledgeable player that can gain an advantage at blackjack by using the card-counting or shuffle tracking, at video poker by using a strategy card devised or not by computer analysis of the game, or at progressive slot machines by taking advantage of a high jackpot, you can end by being listed on the Black Book. And, if you will be listed finally on the Griffin Book shared by the casinos, you will end you career as gambler much sooner that you intended to do, because you will be excluded from all the casinos that have access to the book.

Bonus hunting (bonus bagging, or bonus whoring) makes possible from a mathematically point of view to get a profit. Wikipedia shows as example the house edge in blackjack which is roughly 0.5%. In the example above, $5000 in wagering with a house edge of 0.5% will result in an expected loss of $25. Since the player received a $100 signup bonus, after subtracting the expected loss of $25, the player has an expected profit of $75.

If you play at an online casino, you will take advantage by the signup bonuses, usually one-off bonuses for signing up to the casino and opening an account. There are terms and conditions for each bonus, like restricted games or bets and wagering requirements.

Wagering requirements prevent players from withdrawing the bonus money immediately after receiving it. Before the bonus money can be withdrawn the player must wager a certain amount of money on unrestricted games. The wagering can be spread out over many bets. To meet a $2000 wagering requirement, a player could make 1000 $2 bets on blackjack, provided blackjack is not a restricted game.

Games like blackjack and video poker have a low house advantage. The house advantage for blackjack is ~0.5%. So in the example above, by playing $2000 worth of blackjack with a house advantage of 0.5%, a player is, expected to lose $10 in total. But the expected value is an average value and may be less than the actual value.

Assuming that you only lose an amount close to the expected loss, and the bonus awarded to you after meeting this wagering requirement is greater than $10 then you will have a profit. The process is mathematically calculated. Bad luck could cause a player to lose more than $10 playing blackjack in this situation.

In sports betting, by taking advantage of free bet promotions, you can back the event, and then lay the event on a betting exchange, at similar or same odds, thus ensuring that the free bet is not a bet at all, instead more like a financial trade. No matter the outcome, it is possible (by using a betting / arb calculator) to calculate both the possible outcomes before the sporting event has started. By inputting the odds, the bet calculator then tells you what amount to bet, to ensure that whether the bet wins or loses, the return is the same.

In online poker, the poker player can take advantage by the incentive bonuses offered by the site after a certain number of raked hands are played. For example, a site may offer a player who deposits $100 a bonus of $50 once he plays 500 raked hands. A poker player who can at least break even can become a long-term winner by playing with poker bonuses. This way, a winning poker player can add to their winnings with the use of bonuses.

Good luck!

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