Casino Whoring; Risk of ruin question

Hi,

I recently started to whore casinos in addition to my poker game, since it appeared risk free.

The casino I have tried is Littlewoods (and I plan on doing Interpoker's casino site).

Now, I cleard the £500 WR for the £25 bonus with 250 x £2 bets, but I wonder if any of you casino whores out there use a different strategy when clearing the WR. For example, using £5 bets I'm only required to play 100 bets but my risk of ruin increases (I guess).

So in short -- what can be considered a "good" risk of ruin / # bets required ratio?


Did this question make sens?

Best,

Ralf

PS. Are there any more "risk free" casinos out there? DS.

If your bet is 8% of your bonus, your risk of blowing the entire bonus and eating away some of your principal is pretty high. I've seen mention of much better casino bonuses and bonus structures in this forum. I don't recall offhand what they are, though, look around and you should find them. I think casino-on-net is much better.

[ QUOTE ]
I recently started to whore casinos in addition to my poker game, since it appeared risk free.

[/ QUOTE ]

"Risk free" might be a bit of an overstatement...

The answer totally depends on your bankroll. I have a large enough bankroll that I bet $10 or 5 pounds/hand. I bust out the bonus and my original deposit maybe 25% of the time when playing pontoon, but that's made up for by big scores when I don't bust. This approach has two advantages: it's faster, increasing my $/hour, and I'll be less likely to be tagged as a bonus abuser.

In general, as long as you've got a roll of a couple hundred, I wouldn't be too worried about variance on bonuses like this one. If you drop an entire deposit, you can go back to betting small on the next one to build back up.

I think VIP Casino and William Hill can be played risk-free, though I don't recommend ruining monthlies by withdrawing before meeting the WR.

Casino-on-Net is technically not risk-free (i.e. you can't withdraw before meeting the WR), but it is very low risk because of the large bonus and low WR. Be sure to sign up through an affiliate who'll pay you extra, like bonusbonus.net.

[ QUOTE ]
"Risk free" might be a bit of an overstatement...

[/ QUOTE ]
No, at those casinos, you can withdraw and not risk your original stake. This will make it more likely that you'll be labelled a bonus-abuser, and not offered any more bonuses, but you can do it.

[BigF]

[ QUOTE ]
The answer totally depends on your bankroll. I have a large enough bankroll that I bet $10 or 5 pounds/hand. I bust out the bonus and my original deposit maybe 25% of the time when playing pontoon, but that's made up for by big scores when I don't bust. This approach has two advantages: it's faster, increasing my $/hour, and I'll be less likely to be tagged as a bonus abuser.

In general, as long as you've got a roll of a couple hundred, I wouldn't be too worried about variance on bonuses like this one. If you drop an entire deposit, you can go back to betting small on the next one to build back up.

I think VIP Casino and William Hill can be played risk-free, though I don't recommend ruining monthlies by withdrawing before meeting the WR.

Casino-on-Net is technically not risk-free (i.e. you can't withdraw before meeting the WR), but it is very low risk because of the large bonus and low WR. Be sure to sign up through an affiliate who'll pay you extra, like bonusbonus.net.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's something I don't get. Say you deposit $100 for $100 bonus and WR is $2,000. You bust when you have wagered $1,500. Are you allowed to deposit another $100 and wager another $500 to get the bonus?

If so what's the big deal of busting out?

[pzhon]

Seesion risk of ruin is a worthless concept for casino whoring. <font color="white">There may be exceptions for bonuses credited after you reach the WR.</font>

It is much smarter to look at something like the standard deviation, assuming that you don't bust out. If you play blackjack, that is roughly squareroot(WR*bet size). In general, you may want to avoid letting SD^2/EV exceed your bankroll. The amount you deposit is not your bankroll.

[MrMon]

I was clearing the $100 PlanetLuck bonus $2 a hand, 3 hands at a time when the casino went into super-suckout mode. From $190 I was suddenly down to $115. By the time I finally finished, I was back up to $194, a few extra hands took me back over $200. It was an excellent example of standard deviation and a good example of why you want to limit your bets. It doesn't take that much longer and given enough hands, you should trend back to where you belong, providing you are playing correctly.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
It doesn't take that much longer and given enough hands, you should trend back to where you belong, providing you are playing correctly.

[/ QUOTE ]
Nonsense. There is no restoring force.

Betting tiny amounts is a waste of time. By betting $2/hand instead of $4/hand, you saved the equivalent of taking a coin-toss for $60, and you required an extra 360 hands. It's hard to imagine that this was a good trade for you.

So given the house edge in Pontoon is 0.19% (I saw this figure once, but have no clue if it's correct).

Then on the Ritz where a £50 has a WR of £3000 you suggest
EV = 50 - (0.0019*3000) = 44.3
SD = sqr(3000*2) = 77.5
Bankroll &gt; 77.5^2/44.3 = 135

So with a bankroll of more then £135 I would likely clear the £3000 WR with £2 bets despite SD fluctuations.

Best,

Ralf

[MrMon]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It doesn't take that much longer and given enough hands, you should trend back to where you belong, providing you are playing correctly.

[/ QUOTE ]
Nonsense. There is no restoring force.

Betting tiny amounts is a waste of time. By betting $2/hand instead of $4/hand, you saved the equivalent of taking a coin-toss for $60, and you required an extra 360 hands. It's hard to imagine that this was a good trade for you.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are correct. There is no restoring force. But there is a trend toward the average. Wild swings either way will even out over a large number of hands. I'm not a statistician, so I can't tell you if the number of hands difference between $2 and $4 is a large enough number of hands. But you know what I mean.

As for it being a waste of time, an extra 360 hands at 3 hands per round is 120 rounds. I doesn't take that much time, say 45 minutes. A coin toss for $60 is worth $30, so if it takes me 45 minutes, that's $40/hr. Not bad.

Besides, it was more fun that way.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
As for it being a waste of time, an extra 360 hands at 3 hands per round is 120 rounds. I doesn't take that much time, say 45 minutes. A coin toss for $60 is worth $30, so if it takes me 45 minutes, that's $40/hr. Not bad.

[/ QUOTE ]
You misunderstood. The amount of variance you saved by betting at $2/hand rather than $4/hand was about the same as the variance of a fair coin-toss for $60. How much would you be willing to pay to avoid winning or losing $60 with probability 50%? I'd pay less than $1, but however much you are willing to pay is what you saved with that extra 45 minutes.

By the way, for someone winning 2 BB/100 at $2-$4, playing 100 hands is like getting $8, then taking a coin-toss for $60, then wasting 90 minutes (or less, for a multitabler). If you ignore the time spent and entertainment value, such a $2-$4 player should be unwilling to give up $8 to avoid a fair coin-toss for $60.

By the way, the above analysis ignores the fact that you were playing 3 hands at once, which has a greater variance than playing 1 hand at a time.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]

EV = 50 - (0.0019*3000) = 44.3
SD = sqr(3000*2) = 77.5
Bankroll &gt; 77.5^2/44.3 = 135

So with a bankroll of more then £135 I would likely clear the £3000 WR with £2 bets despite SD fluctuations.


[/ QUOTE ]
I said that you need to worry if SD^2/EV&gt;B, but not that you don't have to worry if your bankroll is larger. You may want to set a comfort level c, and only accept wagers where SD^2/EV &gt; c*B. Many people seem to prefer a value of c between 2 and 4, and this can correspond to the oft-repeated figure of 300 BB for limit Hold'em. These people would prefer to have a bankroll of 270-540.

It's a slightly more complicated problem to optimize your bet size given that you are risk averse but you value your time.

By the way, the variance is slightly greater in Pontoon than in blackjack.

Ok. Thanks for the input.

Best,

Ralf