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Researchers Create a Statistical Guide To Gambling
New submitter yukiloo writes "An early Christmas treat for the ordinary Joe who is stuck with a Christmas list that he cannot afford and is running out of time comes from two mathematicians (Evangelos Georgiadis, MIT, and Doron Zeilberger, Rutgers) and a computer scientist (Shalosh B. Ekhad). In their paper 'How to gamble if you're in a hurry,' they present algorithmic strategies and reclaim the world of gambling, which they say has up till recently flourished on the continuous Kolmogorov paradigm by some sugary discrete code that could make us hopefully richer, if not wiser. It's interesting since their work applies an advanced version of what seems to be the Kelly criterion."
The paper is about how much to bet (your strategy) on a given round if you have x dollars and want to win N dollars. This is problematic for two reasons.
First, their method only works when the probability of winning is >0.5, which never happens in any real casino.
Second, almost nobody really bets this way. Most people don't go to a casino looking to win N dollars. Instead, they go to the casino hoping to play for time T without losing more than N dollars (although people might not be up front about that goal).
Another problem is that they assume that the probabiilty is constant with each round. That's true for some games (roulette), but not for others (blackjack).
No, he's complaining about the grammar, punctuation, and the irrelevance of the opening Christmas nonsense. He's not complaining about the math. A better summary made without even reading the article:
Evangelos Georgiades of MIT and Doron Zeilberger and Shalosh Ekhad of Rutgers have published a paper entitled, "How to Gamble, If You're in a Hurry." They consider previous work on gambling flawed because of theoreticians' reliance on the continuous Kolmogorov paradigm. Instead, they propose that money is not infinitely divisible and that its use in gambling is therefore better described by different algorithmic strategies involving what seems to be an advanced version of the Kelly criterion.
Ideas are nice, and math is beautiful, but clear English is necessary to convey information. The summary did not do that well.
shalosh b. ekhad is Hebrew for 3-in-1
i'm an american & i've taken graduate-level measure theory and statistics. the phrase "continuous kolmogorov paradigm" is just wonky. the first thing one thinks of is the kolmogorov complexity, which is pretty much the opposite of "continuous," both in utility and intent. so, the phrase is probably referring instead to the standard modern sigma-field measure theoretic approach. however, this measure theory still has no problem (in principle, at least; actually proving things is of course another matter) dealing with discrete or finite outcomes!
now, i've read the paper, and i see that the authors in fact use (almost) this language in their emotional conclusion. that is their right, since they have done the work. moreover, they have a good point imho, that "hard core" proofs in probability theory are often sterile and irrelevant to the real world. however, this kind of thing should be cleaned up for a general audience.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky