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Employee resolute about
being wrong
Dear Mark,
I have a friend who once worked for me and his
favorite casino game was
craps. I told him one day that my only experience
playing craps was
while I was in the military and we did not have all
the different bets
that you can make today in the casinos. During our
conversation, the
subject came up concerning how many different ways a
seven can be made.
I told him that I believe that a seven can be made
with six different
combinations. He said that he had been playing craps
for over 20 years
and that I did not know what I was talking about. He
was very adamant
that there were only three ways to make a seven. I
tried to explain why
I think there are six ways, but possibly my
communications skills are
not what they should be, or maybe he is just too
dense to understand.
Can you explain just how many ways there are to make
a seven so even
this stubborn fool can understand? Tom M.
Craps is a game played with a pair of matched,
numbered cubes. Each die
(the singular of dice) has six sides on it. The
numbers one through six
are marked with small dots on each side. With
perfectly balanced dice,
each side has an equal chance of landing face up
when rolled. Because
each dice has six sides, 36 different combinations
(6 X 6) can be
thrown on one toss of two dice. Your mulish pal
believes there are only
three ways to roll a seven, but, Tom, the four (1
and 3, 3 and 1, 2 and
2) and 10 (six and 4, 4 and 6, 5 and 5) are the two
numbers that can
only be rolled three ways.
You are correct, Tom, in that seven can be rolled
six different ways (6
and 1, 1 and 6, 5 and 2, 2 and 5, 4 and 3, 3 and
4). To illustrate the
difference, demonstrate it by using two different
colored dice, a red
one, and a blue one. The red dice has a six on it,
and the blue dice
has a one. Then, show that same red die with a one
on it and the blue
die having a six. Continue to do this with all six
possible
combinations. If your efforts fail to sink in, tell
your impenetrable
buddy he has failed Crapology 101.
Dear Mark,
I play my fair share of “way” tickets in keno. I
have been told that by
playing way tickets versus individual ones of the
same numbers, my odds
improve against the house. Is this true? Martin S.
A “way” ticket groups different numbers and
combinations to create more
than one way to win on one ticket. You can also make
the same groupings
of bets using several individual tickets. I am sorry
to say, Martin,
that playing a way ticket does not change the
casino’s enormous
built-in edge. Making multiple wagers on one ticket
provide the same
payouts and the same odds as placing separate bets.
The only benefit to
way tickets is that the minimum required bet could
be lower.
Gambling quote of the week: “Every con man, every
thief, every
transient and scam operator eventually passes
through a place like
Vegas, trying to beat the casinos out of money with
fraudulent
schemes.” —Edwin Silberstang, The Winner’s Guide To
Casino Gambling”
(1980)
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