Noble 100 million shits and giggles

[godofgamblers]

I read this promotion, basically if you get a Royal Flush during the final table, you get 100 million, and something like a million for 4 Aces or Kings and 250k for quads better than 10's....and it seems mathematically to be a horrible decision (for Noble). They probably rigged it or have such strict rules it won't happen, but for fun lets calculate.

Odds of a Royal flush are approx 1:40000 in Hold'Em. FT's for such large events typically last 5-10 hours, and its not illogical to assume around 10 hands per hour are shown to the river, especially considering this promotion is running. So there is a 50:40000/100:40000 or 1:800/1:400 chance of hitting a RF for 100,000,000. So everytime they run this promotion, they lose on average 125k-250k. It is a 10k + 750 Event, so they have to attract 170-340 people to break even. Doesn't seem that appealing when they could go broke entirely if somebody gets lucky...

Also, it seems that in heads up play, they could check fold to each other all day long until one of them hits. It is a live event, so presumably the finalists can decide on this strategy beforehand with each other. As long as they put in a good acting job, it might be possible to do so :P. For 100 million, I'd act my ass off until I got a warning.

[mudbuddha]

you would fold back and forth until u got KK quads or better?

out of about 50 posts on this promo, you're the first one taking it seriously...finally.
when i first saw their site, i was really excited- not from the $100Million, but from the OTHER HANDS they offer. it's faily simple, you play the standard $10k buy in event, do your best to get into the final table, and then just wait. IT CAN HAPPEN, and i wanna be there...don't you agree?
am i missing something here? it's just a much better value for your money than the WSOP/WPT events. right?

[AtticusFinch]

I doubt they're putting up the money themselves. Usually this sort of prize is financed by an insurance company, who charges the client based on their calculated odds of the "disaster" (i.e. someone actually getting in a royal) happening. Thus noble won't care if anyone wins, and in fact, would love it if they did.

Similar things are done by golf courses all the time. Hit a hole-in-one: win a million.

[ghostface]

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Similar things are done by golf courses all the time. Hit a hole-in-one: win a million.

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Hole in ones are like 15K:1

Don't have time to do the computations for you, but you're forgetting a couple of key facts. 1) Final table probably won't last 5-10 hours. Blinds will probably end up sooner. 2) You're assuming every hand calls down to the river. That means every player at the final table calls with hands like J2o etc. If anything, if every hand called down to the river, players would get knocked out and the appropriate odds would shrink (to hit a RF). If there was check-check collusion, players would still get knocked out before a RF hit by the escalating blinds. And of course, if any of these hands folded, then the odds of hitting would shrink as well. AND, assuming they found an insurer, they probably win in the end. AND you are assuming a long run of tournaments. -EV situations can be very +outcome in the short run, when the risk% is extremely low.

[AtticusFinch]

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AND, assuming they found an insurer, they probably win in the end.

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Of course the insurer probably wins. They set a price where they're getting a good deal, while the purchaser takes no risks, and can spend a set amount as a promotional expense.