Keno

[Pierced Soul]

At the other end of the spectrum, I've got an old mate who plays pokies like there's no tomorrow - top dollar or nothing. Asked him why he doesn't bet on racehorses and the reply was "I like it quick...not hanging around for 10 minutes to collect a couple of hundred dollars..."

does he win much? well in comparison to how much he loses

 

[veggiepatch1959]

does he win much? well in comparison to how much he loses

The biggest I've seen him win is about $13000. $7000 and $6000 after that.

I would guess that the many hundreds and thousands of dollars he has frittered away, the return would fit easily in my wallet.

 

[Pierced Soul]

maybe i'll take to pretending to be an indian and telling people their computers have the aids virus. should be fine unless i accieentally ring bileduct and end up on youtube

 

[GongPanther]

I only really "punt" on Lotto.

I don't do it because I think it's a good investment, it's obviously not because I have probably spent a few of grand over the past ten years for a couple of hundred return

I do it because it's nice to dream - even if you know as I do that the dream at about fifteen million to one against is about as likely to come true as me getting shot by a random stranger.

I never bet more than what I consider to be a small amount of money - $20 being about as large as it gets about once a fortnight at most. More likely it's that much per month to be honest.

Whenever I have gambled on a sporting event in the past (admittedly not often) the team I want to win loses. If I gamble on something say a horse or a race or anything else I lose. Regardless of the odds involved. Whenever it comes to money being punted in the outcome of an event the only constant is that I will lose. It's why I just don't bother.

I only punt on the nags during the carnivals as for some reason,I always do very well.

I only punt on 50 cent trifectas and f/fours...IE: 1st/2nd/3rd& 4th/3rd & 4th.

Outside and during those racing periods,I have my favorites on the Ozlotto and Powerball.

I've been using the same numbers for app 12 years.And they say the average wait for a particular set of numbers to win a 1st div is around 7 years.Sounds weird,but I'm sure any mathematician will scoff at this statistic.

Anyway,I'm overdue...and probably for the rest of my life.

As far as the pokies are concerned,you need a TAFE course to figure out how to play these games.

 

[Twatface Magee]

Here's an excerpt from an interesting article I read a few years ago regarding payout figures for pokies.

"This is a familiar tale, but there?s a catch. As mentioned earlier, it?s common knowledge that poker machines have a return-to-player percentage of anywhere between 85 per cent and 90 per cent, depending on where you live and what kind of establishment you?re playing in. For the sake of the story, let?s assume that Gladys? poker machine was set to 90 per cent. That means that over a long period of time, the machine will return 90 per cent of money gambled to players, and keep 10 per cent as profit.

But wait, I hear you cry. Gladys didn?t lose 10 per cent; she lost it all! Well, no? not according to poker machine mathematics. The rule is that the poker machine has to return 90 per cent of money gambled? not money inserted. And there?s a huge difference.

Gladys played for five hours. She played 10 games a minute; that?s 3,000 games over five hours. 3,000 times that Gladys pushed that little button. And each time she did, she bet a dollar. Sometimes she lost, and sometimes she won; those winnings allowed her to postpone the next $20 just that little bit longer. But by the end of the day, by poker machine mathematics, Gladys had gambled $3,000 in one dollar increments.

Here?s the sting. According to the poker machine, $3,000 was gambled, and $300 (all of Gladys? money) was kept. That means that the machine paid out $2,700? which is the 90 per cent return. I?m sure Gladys will be pleased to hear that as she sits in the retirement home, waiting for the next pension day."

Full article here - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-05-27/cummings---poker-machine-maths/2733166

Have you ever seen a professional poker machine player? The reason above is why they don't exist.

Gladys has a gambling problem.

 

[eozsmiles]

Gladys has a gambling problem.

She is also pretty stupid if she doesn't realise how the machine works. And this is the main problem with gamblers (as opposed to investors) - they don't know what they are doing, in fact they know very little about the game at all.

 

[eozsmiles]

A couple of things relating to some previous posts....

- the pause in a KENO game is to build suspense and anticipation for the gamblers who are doing it for dreams and adrenalin. They either start slow and finish fast which gives them a hard-on to keep playing, or they start good and lose which makes them "anger bet" (the most dangerous kind of betting!). You may have noticed most pokie's now have a pause after they give 2 scatters and make the player wait to see if they have scored the bonus games. They also have some suspenseful type of sound effects. 20 years ago they didn't, but have naturally changed with every bit of psychological research the gaming companies do.

- Veggie Patch is one of very few. I remember hearing a statistic that around 2% of horse race punters make better than a 2% profit on turnover (POT). I actually think it is a few more than that, but we'll go with that for a minute.....if you line up 100 punters in a row, only 2 are making that 2% POT, and if they are winning $20k a year they are turning over $20k a week to get it - that shows how hard it is to get an edge or just be lucky. The good news is that apparently the biggest group of punters are the small punters that lose less than 10% POT. That means that most people gambling on races go ok and only lose a small amount of money and don't all end up selling their shoes, contrary to what the anti-gambling advocates will tell you.

- Like the lotto players here, the vast majority of gamblers are just in it for a bit of fun. It's just a way to socialise, pass some time, dream a bit, and maybe get lucky. Some spend their money on life's little luxuries such as coffee, fancy cakes, or dresses. Some people like a punt. There is too much stigma attached to the way a punter likes to spend their money. Spend $20 a week on lotto and when you win a million you can tell everyone to get f***ed.....sounds like a bet worth making to me lol.

- Average lotto player spends about $20 a week, which fits in nicely with the approx $1500 a year the average gambler loses (once you add in the Melbourne Cup and a footy game or two, etc etc). The average pokie player loses about $2500 (an extra $20 a week), problem pokie player loses $12k.