Brain Teasers
House Limit
Even though the odds are always in favor of the gambling house, why does the establishment insist on a house limit on stakes?
Answer
Every casino in the world would go bankrupt without a house limit on stakes. Without it, gamblers would keep doubling their stakes until they won. No matter how bad a losing streak they were on, they would eventually win.Hide Answer Show Answer
What Next?
View a Similar Brain Teaser...
If you become a registered user you can vote on this brain teaser, keep track of which ones you have seen, and even make your own.
Solve a Puzzle
Comments
The gamblers cannot keep doubling their stakes until they win: they are limited by the amount of money they have. -----
But the casinos want to eliminate the risk, however small, of a large loss.
But the casinos want to eliminate the risk, however small, of a large loss.
Is this math?
Gamblers can only keep doubling up if they have more money than the casino to begin with. Las Vegas Sands has a market capitalization (and therefore value) of almost $23 billion as of April 14, 2006. MGM Mirage has a value of $12.5 billion. The double-up-to-win system (also called a Martingale system) does not work when the edge is in the house's favor, as it is in every casino game. The reason the house has limits is that there is still noise in the outcome, and while a player would never be able to break them, they could lead to huge cash fluctuations that aren't really the business the casinos want to be in. They would much rather see 1000 people bet $100 per blackjack hand than 1 person betting $100,000 per hand, even though their expected income from each is the same (ignoring the cost of dealers). The first case is just much lower volatility for them.
Humph... I never win....
well if bill gates was at the casino he could have done this but there is a house limit so good work
There's a payout issue as well (building on dude(tte)'s answer above); if enough people win in the same window of time the casino's pool of cash on hand would dry up, which would probably lead to liability issues. This is far more likely with, say, 10 $100k hands than 100 $10k hands, and so on.
To post a comment, please create an account and sign in.
Follow Braingle!