How much would you bet...

[TomCollins]

Suppose someone offers you even money on a bet that is 2-1. The catch is, this bet will only come along once. What is the most you would bet in this situation.

I'm just curious what everyone would be willing to risk if they are a favorite, but not by much as well.

So here are four categories. Suppose you will win x% of the time. What is the most you would gamble? And no smart answers "the most you can afford to lose". What would you personally feel comfortable with.

1) 55% favorite
2) 1-2 favorite
3) 1-3 favorite
4) 1-4 favorite
5) 1-99 favorite.

You are getting even money on the bet.

I'll put the following numbers out there to start:

1) $1000
2) $2000
3) $5000
4) $10000
5) As much as I could liquify and still have a short supply of income.

[Peter Harris]

1) $1
2) $5
3) $10
4) $25
5) $2000

But i'm an impoverished student.

Regards,
Pete Harris

[AceKQJT]

1) $25
2) $41.67
3) $62.50
4) $83.33
5) $2,062.50

(roughly) [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

--Casey

[felson]

For 55% favorite, I am willing to risk about 4k. For 2-4, I am willing to risk as much as I can without putting me in financial jeopardy: about 50k. For 5, assuming that I can't borrow money or otherwise diversify, I am willing to risk financial inconvenience: 80k.

[Reef]

As a college student and 1/2 player..
1) $10
2) $50
3) $200
4) $400
5) $3000 (or roughly everything without borrowing minus $200 for poker bankroll)

[kmvenne]

My eternal soul. On all of them [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img].

[uw_madtown]

My entire Party bankroll, on all of them.

[AJo Go All In]

yeah, it's tough coming up with a fraction for 55% huh?

[TomCollins]

No, its just a lot easier than saying 11-9.

[reubenf]

I realized that most of us already have good data on what we are willing to risk if we play poker and have a good idea of our risk of ruin. So I tried to find a way to use that data to calculate my bets here. I would do so using the following method:

First, sum my entire poker bankroll, including what I have invested in online poker right now plus how much I would reload were I to go broke today. Next, calculate my risk of ruin at this bankroll and various higher/lower bankrolls. Now figure out what bet minimizes my expected risk of ruin.

For example, if ROR(Y) is my risk of ruin at Y dollars, my roll is B dollars, and I am looking at the bet for a 1:N favorite, I will try to find my bet X (<B) by minimizing:

ROR(B+X)*N/(N+1) + ROR(B-X)/(N+1)

That is, minimize my risk of ruin after taking this bet.

Of course this doesn't work for the 1:99 favorite bet since in that case we should have X>B.

Another interesting question is: how do your answers change if you switch the payout and the odds of winning? That is, each example is a 50/50 coinflip and the questions are how much would you bet if you were being paid 55:45, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1, 99:1. Your EV does not change, but variance grows drastically.