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Researchers Create a Statistical Guide To Gambling

Posted by samzenpus on from the crunch-the-numbers dept.

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."

8 of 185 comments (clear)

  1. Do you even bother to edit submissions anymore? by questioner · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Half this submission makes no sense, grammatically or otherwise.

    1. Re:Do you even bother to edit submissions anymore? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    2. Re:Do you even bother to edit submissions anymore? by AK+Marc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Are you an American, by any chance? I'm asking in all seriousness. Just because this submission makes no sense to you doesn't mean that it makes no sense to the rest of the world.

      "Interesting since they their work applies an advanced version of what seems to be the Kelly criterion."

      I think there was the mix of unusual concepts with the grammatically incorrect sentences that made it horrible editing. Usually, I'm annoyed that they link so many words to Wikipedia or such, but in this case, there was no linking anything to anything, other than the one article, and the description given in the submission is not proper English. So the complaints on editing are quite accurate. Or are you asserting that the quoted sentence above is proper English?

      It's likely just that you were never exposed to what's actually pretty basic and common knowledge throughout the rest of the world.

      You were too focused on being an ass that you missed the complaint about grammar being the primary one. Perhaps it would have been more approachable if it were properly edited. And no, they aren't "basic and common knowledge throughout the rest of the world." I'm in "the rest of the world" right now, and the first 5 people I asked about them never heard of any of them (couldn't even name the field they related to). So you are wrong on every point, and quite the ass about it as well.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    3. Re:Do you even bother to edit submissions anymore? by retchdog · · Score: 5, Informative

      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
  2. Conclusions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The three authors completely agree on the mathematics, but they have somewhat different views about the
    significance of this project. Here they are.

    Evangelos Georgiadis’ Conclusion
    We provided a playful yet algorithmic glimpse to a field that has up till recently flourished on the Kolmogorov,
    measure-theoretic paradigm [as evidenced by the work of Dubins and Savage [4] (see [7] for more recent
    developments]. The advent and omnipresence of computers, however, ushered an era of symbol crunching
    and number crunching, where a few lines of code can give rise to powerful algorithms. And it is the ouput
    of algorithms that usually provides insight (and inspiration) for conjectures and theorems. Those, in turn,
    can then be proven in their respective measure-theoretic settings. Additionally, a computational approach
    lends itself easily to more complex scenarios that would otherwise be considered pathological phenomena
    (and would be fiendishly time-consuming to prove – even for immortals like Kolmogorov and von Neumann).

    Doron Zeilberger’s Conclusion
    Traditional mathematicians like Dubins and Savage use traditional proof-based mathematics, and also work
    in the framework of continuous probability theory using the pernicious Kolmogorov, measure-theoretic, par-
    adigm. This approach was fine when we didn’t have computers, but we can do so much more with both
    symbol-crunching and number-crunching, in addition to naive simulation, and develop algorithms and write
    software, that ultimately is a much more useful (and rewarding) activity than “proving” yet-another-theorem
    in an artificial and fictional continuous, measure-theoretic, world, that is furthermore utterly boring.

    Shalosh B. Ekhad’s Conclusion
    These humans, they are so emotional! That’s why they never went very far.

  3. Not a Useful Guide by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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).

  4. Note about Ekhad by werdnam · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm not sure if the original submitter had his tongue in cheek by describing the co-author Ekhad as a "computer scientist." Just in case he didn't, note that Shalosh B. Ekhad is actually Zeilberger's computer. Since most of Zeilberger's research depends heavily on computations, and (I think) as a nod to some of his philosophical positions, Zeilberger usually lists his computer as a coauthor on his papers. So I guess Ekhad is a computer scientist, but not quite in the way we usually mean. :)

    1. Re:Note about Ekhad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      shalosh b. ekhad is Hebrew for 3-in-1