Show HN: Betting game where you can choose your prize or your chance of winning | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Betting game where you can choose your prize or your chance of winning

kaue.me

9 pointskaues14 comments

Trying different things and settled on running with 2% chance.

At bet 600 I was at $191.25. Not too bad of a gain, but the I went 200 bets without a win, putting me at -$8.75 and I stopped playing.

I always find things like this, chance and probability a very satisfying and interesting thing to see how it works out.

Yep very interesting to let it run for a while on different choices even though the expected value of each one is 0.95

Did simulate this stuff https://github.com/sashabaranov/betting/blob/master/Betting....

2% looks like good short-term strategy

Cool simulation, I guess it could be extended to generate more than 2 lines per config and aggregate all lines, and then it would likely converge to the respective binomial distribution stats on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_distribution.

I've also concluded that the lowest chance (and highest variance) is the best strategy. Even though the expected value is the same for all options, as another comment says.

This means that in a real life casino roulette one should bet (the minimum bet) on a single number and stop after the first win (or after running out of money).

Playing with the options is mildly interesting, but the button to 'bet real money' which is just a mailto link... that is a bit odd.

Sorry, I'm experimenting with ways to contact. In the past I had a contact form, but I suspect people typed their own e-mail incorrectly in the form. I want to avoid using external sites such as Facebook or Twitter. I also use Disqus for comments on some pages. Do you have other ideas?

A lower right corner chat widget? There's Intercom and like 20 alternatives :- )

Or a discussion forum like Discourse or Flarum or Talkyard (I'm developing, see my profile).

Thanks, I'll check them out!

Nice page, but not a fair game. The expected value/return for all bets is always lower than the 1$ bet. Just multiply probability by the outcome.

In the long run, you will always lose.

Have you come across https://satoshidice.com/

It's similar except also provably fair.

I think the Kelly Criterion can tell you what proportion of your funds to be betting in situations like this.

Take care, because the Kelly criterion for this game gives a negative value. which means you should not bet any of your wealth at this moment. :)

I agree, and I think on this case it would recommend betting a negative value and taking the other side of the bet, since the expected value is negative.

Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion: "If the edge is negative (b<q/p) the formula gives a negative result, indicating that the gambler should take the other side of the bet."

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