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Kids show Pops the
hazards of gambling
Dear Mark,
How do they do it? My kids have taught me a
coin-flipping game called Mix or
Match and are steering me toward bankruptcy.
You bet on one of three possible outcomes: Two Heads,
Two Tails, Or the
Mix one Head, one Tail. You bet whatever amount you want
(up to ten cents)
on one of the outcomes, and your opponent bets on
another; winner takes all
money wagered.
You can also bet on Any Match whether Heads or Tails and
in that case, the
wager for the Mix is just half the Any Match bet, since
there are two
Matches possible against one Mix.
Theyıre driving me nuts as well as broke, with no
cheating I can detect.
How? Wing T. B.
Nice name. I once knew another guy named Wing who I used
to ski the steep
and bumps with at Lake Tahoe. But like the casino, where
danger lurks around
every corner, a freak accident on a bunny run sidelined
Wing for years. He
went on to card counting somewhere in the Caribbean, I
to another 12 years
of 100-day ski seasons. I sure miss those days of skiing
every day, pitching
cardboard every night.
Itıs the Any Match bet, Wing, that is your downfall, or
broken leg if you
will. You see two ways of winning with that wager and
only one way with the
Mix bet, and, thinking youıll show the kids a thing or
two, you frequently
bet on Any Match, putting up twice the silver that the
kids risk. Right?
While there may seem to be only one chance for the Mix
bettor to win, there
are really two chances so the Any Match bettor is
putting up twice the cash
that the little con artist is risking when he (she?,
they?) goes for Mix.
And since the odds of a Mix are really the same as the
odds for Any Match,
and the Any Match bettor is paying off double half the
time, itıs a long
slippery slope for the latter toward insolvency.
Here are the possible outcomes of a flip:
1) Wing - Head / Kids - Head Matching Heads
2) Wing - Tail / Kids - Tail Matching Tails
3) Wing - Head / Kids - Tail Mix: Head-Tail
4) Wing - Tail / Kids - Head Mix: Tail-Head
Several street cons and bar bets turn on this same
illusion the overlooked
possible outcome. Now that you know the ruse, you can
probably score some
few refreshments at your favorite watering hole. Better
yet, bet emı they
canıt spell Albuerque. Most canıt.
By the way, where do your kids go to school?
Dear Mark,
Recently in the column, you mentioned that when playing
video poker you
should always break the low pairs (2s - 10s) against any
four-card flush,
straight flush, and three cards to a royal. Are you
saying that in the above
case you should hold the high pairs or is that a
"duh...of course"? Don P.
"Duh" questions for this column? Never, Don. Chalk this
one up as an
omission on my part.
Keep the high pair against a 4-card flush, but discard
it against a 4-card
inside straight flush or an open-ended straight flush.
As for what to do when you have both a high pair and
3-card royal, many
experts advise you to hold the high pair. I lean towards
keeping the 3-card
royal. Either way, the difference is miniscule.
Online Gambling quote of the week: This is where I should have
quit, but some kind
of strange sensation built up in me, a kind of challenge
to fate, a kind of
desire to give it a flick on the nose, or stick my
tongue at it." Fyodor
Dostoevsky, The Gambler (1867)
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