How the Casino Owners make money
Please note: The title sounds like I'm trying to say they scam but I'm not.
Recently I've been hanging around casinos and talking to people, and it came to my attention that not many people actually understand how a casino owner makes more money than a gambler at the casino...
[I'm not talking about the ones who scam here.]
[This is ignoring the fact that they get payment for rights.]
Sometimes if you ask the owner how they make more money, they say "Well, they get hooked". But what does this mean?
This also made me wonder... do I really understand how they get richer than the gamblers? For years I've always had the same theory and it only occured to me that I might be wrong and I wanted to check if people agreed, so here goes.
Most succesful Casino owners are stinking rich, right? So the chances are, a large number of people who come in every day are going to be significantly poorer than the owner.
Most of us know how the casino game works. It's a 50 50 chance of winning. So surely the owner has the same chance of winning as the gambler? Overall, not so. Let's say I was the owner, and I was worth 100T (I wish), and the gambler came in who was worth 5T. Let's go over what might happen.
He bets 1T. He loses. He gives up and leaves.
He bets 1T. He wins. He doesn't want to carry on in case, and leaves.
So here, it's a 50 50 chance. Agreed?
But what if....
• He bets 1T. He loses. He's now down 1T and wants to make up for it. He bets again and wins. He's made no profit and neither has the Owner.
• He bets 1T. He wins. He thinks he's on a roll and bets another T. He loses. Neither the owner nor the gambler have made profit.
• He bets 1T. He loses. He's now down 1T and wants to make up for it. He bets again and loses. He's down 2T and can't possibly just leave. So he can either carry on and risk it, or try make up for it.
• He bets 1T. He wins. He thinks he's on a roll, and bets another T. He wins again. He's up 2T. He can carry on now, and keep his profit, or risk trying to get more.
Now this is the important point. If the gambler gets hooked, he may well carry on and lose his 5T. And then he has no more to gamble. And probably goes and cries, but that's not the point.
If the owner and the gambler were to continue gambling non stop - the first one to lose everything is going to be the one with less Thrones (Or whatever they're worth in furni). The bigger the gap between how much the owner is worth, and how much the gambler is worth, the better for the owner.
Of course, if everyone went around gambling until they lost everything, the owners would get even richer and the poorer ones would get poorer. So obviously this doesn't happen because some people know when to stop.
So, every single one of the point I put could happen. And they do. But overall, the owner will gradually get richer than the gamblers. Plus they get payment for rights etc...
So how do you win at gambling? Own a casino, or make sure you're richer than the owner :P
Thanks for reading, and I hope it makes sense :D
Steffz
