Side bet, specific card on flop

[jasonHoldEm]

I'm not sure on the math, this looks hugely -EV for the sucker.

A player offers unlimited action at 10:1 against a certain card to appear on the flop (before anyone looks at their cards). So someone picks a specific card, puts up $X and if that card appears on the flop they get 10 x $X otherwise they lose.

I think this is actually closer to 20:1 to occur?

J

[slickpoppa]

Prob = (1/52)*(51/51)*(50/50)*3 = 3/52 ~ 1/17
So yeah, it's a sucker bet. But what makes you think that people would make the bet?

[gaming_mouse]

Pretty sure that's wrong slickpoppa.

I get:

1 - ncr(48,3)/ncr(52,3)=.2174

So the "sucker" is only a 4 to 1 dog.

gm

[jasonHoldEm]

Sorry, I should have been more specific...he wanted you to pick a specific card (suit and rank, i.e. 9 of clubs). I like side bets (not taking them, just the idea they're out there...they keep things in a gambling mood) but I don't think this one was tempting enough to get much action.

J

EDIT: perhaps making it any suit and laying 3:1 would be more exciting, I wonder what your variance would be on something like that (can you tell I'm no good at math? /images/graemlins/smile.gif ).

edited again because it's late and I can't write correctly either.

[gaming_mouse]

oh, i see. the OP (not you) should have been more specific. but you're right on for that calculation.

sorry for the confusion,
gm

[Mike Haven]

i'm sure you're not planning to rip anyone off while you're waiting for the cards to be shuffled, so a far better bet for a bit of fair action between friends would be for you (or him) to pay him (or you) 5 to 1 if the A /images/graemlins/heart.gif, K /images/graemlins/heart.gif or Q /images/graemlins/heart.gif flops

then you work on your bottom-dealing skills and clean up