Greed has ruined many a gambler indeed

However, I don't agree that autobet is the major flaw of martingale, or a flaw at all. Again, it is how you use it and for what purpose exactly. If you are going to beat the house edge through variance, autobet is a blessing as the more rolls you can make per unit of time the better. Metaphorically speaking, you are not going to catch the cat by its fat tail after 10 rolls. Fortunately, the larger the number of bets you account for (that's the crucial point), the more reliable martingale becomes

Life is full of complications, even when you're born, there's a string attached

These businesses are extremely vulnerable on their own, even without the coronavirus pandemics

They are balancing on break-even most of the time, and they are the first to die if something goes wrong. Unlike international corporations, they can't relocate, they can't easily get loans from banks, they typically don't have spare money, they don't enjoy the benefits of mass production etc, and for them laying off people most certainly means closing doors. Indeed, there are exceptions and certain areas in which local businesses may gain something from the current situation (e.g. delivery), but overall they are suffering most. They are just too specialized (like dinosaurs), and this is a pronounced disadvantage in times like these

Money as such has only transactional utility

All other value comes from the goods and services which can be bought with it. In simpler terms, it is not money that people value but the benefits they can acquire through it. If you couldn't buy anything with it, it would instantly lose all its value, specifically as a means of exchange or payment. If we are talking about fiat money, that would mark its demise. In case of hard currencies (e.g. gold), it would turn back into a commodity that propped up its value

No, it is not required

Just checked Litecoin withdrawals and nothing KYC-related came up. Actually withdrew some EOS a week or so ago, no questions had been asked. Usually, Bitfinex warns about introducing such features beforehand via email (e.g. when they made 2FA mandatory), and I didn't see anything to that effect recently, either

Martingale is definitely a losing strategy on an infinitely long timescale

But as soon and as long as we are talking about finite timeframes, you can set your variables in such a way that your chances of busting will be in single digits for that timeframe. You would say that the profits would be tiny as well, and I would agree with you but for one thing, which is outliers. So you can decrease your bust threshold even further, and then roll patiently until you hit an outlier. And how is that not beating the house edge? Even if your profits are small, they are still profits, right? Set your bust streak to 100 rolls on a 50% win chance, and there you are

Let's toss some coins here

And start with tossing a coin for once only. We know that our chances are 50/50, i.e. we get either heads or tails in a series of just one toss. As simple as it gets. Let's now consider a series of two tosses, either all heads or all tails. We also know that the odds of such a series are 0.5x0.5=0.25. Seems as simple, right?

What it means is that if we toss a coin a billion times, we will see around 250 million series of at least two heads or two tails. So far so good. Let's then increase the length of a series to, say, 10 heads or tails. Now, the odds are 0.5¹⁰, which is 0.0009765625, and this is where things start to get complicated

Again, if we make a billion tosses, we will see a streak that long (or longer) every 1/0.0009765625=1024 tosses on average. And here comes the interesting part. What are our chances to see this series in the first 1024 tosses? It should be evident that the chances are not 100%, i.e. we are not set to encounter such a streak in the first 1024 tosses at all

But what are the odds then? I think it is impossible to tell exactly due to the random nature of tosses. So we could simply say that the odds are 50% but only to show that there is no certainty, while any other percentage would effectively tell us something about the distribution, thereby violating our assumption about the randomness of tosses

What's your take on this?

Personally, I don't think this is a viable business model

Casinos are interested in a sustainable cash flow, first and foremost, and that means retaining their customers (as the poster you replied to hinted at). I don't think you are going to come back after having been rekt. Therefore, casinos are not in fact interested in you losing all your money. Instead, they are interested in you receiving satisfaction in exchange for your precious shekels, as any other legit business out there

For this to work out, you need to buy physical metals

But not many people are actually willing to go that far because physical metals are pretty cumbersome to buy and store (not even speaking of the hefty premiums you would have to pay). If you are investing in paper gold (under whatever name), you are not actually diversifying your portfolio as a way to mitigate economic risks since you are still vulnerable to a systemic collapse (read, all paper will burn)


Gold is unlikely to crash much and for long. But if that, nevertheless, happens (without any viable reason), it will be a good day to buy hard

On exactly what win chance?

I've seen a few losing streaks over 30 losses on a ~40% win chance, and it didn't kill me because I was ready for them. Moreover, I in fact waited for them since it is through them that I profited handsomely. Anyway, the odds of seeing 23 consecutive losses with a 50% win chance are given above. So if you were able to make around 100M rolls within 3 months in a real casino (it's hard but possible), this is what you should reasonably have expected


Indeed, it is going to be a non-working strategy if you use it mindlessly and without accounting for the above. But that's the same with any complex strategy in any area

"Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked"

As Warren Buffett would say, we will see who will come out on top of all that. Nation-wise, it is hard to tell (read, too early as it will take years for the effects to fully develop and clearly reveal themselves). Industry-wise, information technologies and anything related seem to be the primary benefactors of the virus. Yep, that sounds a little ambiguous, and that's the irony of it (like going viral ain't what it used to be)

Dear Autocorrect! No one uses the word "ducking", absolutely no one

The math is actually quite simple

When you bet on a 50% win chance, your chance to lose in a series of one roll is, well, 50%, and on average you will have to make 2 rolls to get there (which is 1/0.5). Then the odds of losing two times in a row are 0.5x0.5=0.25, so on average you will have to make 4 rolls to encounter it (1/0.25). Consequently, the odds of losing 23 times in a row are 0.5²³, which is 0.000000119209289 (it seems that I have missed one roll in my previous post). And it will take you 1/0.000000119209289=8388608 rolls on average to see so long a losing streak. The house edge itself doesn't change the odds as such, but what it does change is the amount you win or lose, i.e. on a 50% win chance you will lose more and win less than if it were a totally fair play (i.e. real 50/50)

На примере рубля как раз и увидим

Вся эта спешка с поправками "в Конституцию" для того, скорее всего, и затеяна, чтобы под шумок обвалить рубль раза в два-три в ближайшие месяцы, в крайнем случае, год. Вопрос в другом, а именно начальницу ЦБ "уволят" до или после. Полагаю, что козой отпущения она сама быть не захочет, поэтому условным сигналом к началу девальвации можно будет считать ее "переход" на другую работу

It's time to update the thread!

As they say, never say never, and the breaking news is that Bitfinex has finally added Dogecoin to the list of supported coins you can trade on the exchange. So far you can only take a long position in this coin (read, no margin trading is currently available) but, as I hope, it won't take long till you will be able to short Dogecoin as well. And then it will likely become a new vehicle for ruthless and relentless speculation worth looking into (if you are interested in that)

Я про последовательность отдельных фаз процесса

В утверждении о том, что "доллар скоро рухнет, а вслед за ним и Америка", телегу ставят впереди лошади и путают причину со следствием. Другими словами, доллар рухнет только после того, как Штаты начнут разваливаться или придут в экономический упадок, ибо это следствие развала, а не его причина

How many times have you seen 23 losses in a row on a 2x payout yourself?

But let me guess, you haven't seen it even once. So what makes you think you can easily see them? Did you check the odds? If you didn't, I did. The exact odds are 0.0000002384185791. Put in more layman terms, you need to roll around 4 million times to have a 50% chance of seeing that long streak. With 30 losses in a row you would have to roll a billion times. To keep things in perspective, if you roll nonstop 1 roll a second 24/7, it will take you 30 years to get there

Well, it is not actually just about startups and small businesses

Any business, be it huge or small, global or local, exists in essentially the same conditions. The difference is that international corporations can plan further ahead, i.e. their planning horizon can be much longer due to their sheer size and the amount of factors they have under their control or bear upon. But they are still not omnipotent or invincible. History is littered with the remnants of many now-defunct business giants (e.g. Pan Am Airways)


That's the point. Doing nothing is generally a losing strategy overall versus doing something. Even if you do something wrong and it doesn't kill you in the process, in most cases, given the power of introspection and reflection, you will see where you failed and can then change your ways to avoid the failure next time

This is called experience

Хоронили тещу, порвали два баяна

Или пока толстый сохнет, худой сдохнет. Доллару не нужно быть сильным, ему достаточно лишь быть сильнее других. Ну это как в том анекдоте про двух туристов и голодного медведя -- должен остаться только один турист. Пока экономика Штатов будет самой мощной мире, ничего доллару не грозит. Если, конечно, в американском Конгрессе не сидят экономические самоубийцы. Но за последние 200 лет там таких не было, так откуда, спрашивается, им взяться сейчас? Трамп не в счет, хотя и он тоже на самоубийцу не похож

My great grandfather was on Titanic, and as far as I know, he still is