this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
16 points (80.8% liked)

Asklemmy

43970 readers
1571 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

How is this video calculating that a 50% chance of 80% gain and a 50% chance of 50% loss yields a positive expected gain? An alternating string of heads and tails will drive your money to zero - a 50% loss (1/2) would be balanced by a 100% gain (2/1) in a fair system.

[โ€“] limitedduck@awful.systems 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is true if you're betting everything you have. By not having shrinking bets after losses you can tap into the net gains. Compare 1 win followed by 1 loss with $100 start:

Win is $100+$80 = $180

Loss is $180-$90 = $90

Compare with fixed bets of $50 with bank of $100:

Win is $100+$40 = $140

Loss is $140-$25 = $115

load more comments (2 replies)