Gambling

Though for many it is a form of recreation, gambling, like any behaviour which involves variation in brain chemistry, can become a psychologically addictive and harmful behavior in some people. Reinforcement phenomena may also make gamblers persist in gambling even though they are losing. Because of the negative connotations of the word, gaming sites and race tracks often use the euphemism "gaming" to describe the recreational gambling activities they offer.

Gambling may also refer to engaging in any high-risk behavior in which decisions are made based upon incomplete knowledge. (For example, high-risk stock investments, difficult and potentially costly ventures, or even personal relationships.)

Gambling games are believed to predate recorded history, with gambling games recorded in virtually all of the ancient civilizations. Gambling is strictly prohibited in Islamic nations.

Legal aspects

Furthermore, gambling is either banned or heavily controlled (licensed) in many jurisdictions. Such regulation generally leads to gambling tourism and illegal gambling. The latter is often controlled through organized crime. Such involvement frequently brings the activity under even more severe moral censure and leads to calls for greater regulation. Conversely, the close involvement in governments (through regulation and gambling taxation) has led to a close connection between many governments and gambling organisations, where legal gambling provides much government revenue.

Types of gambling

• Slot machines
• Poker (Also recognised as a game of skill)
• Blackjack
• Baccarat
• Craps
• Roulette
• Keno
• Faro
• Pai Gow
• Pachinko
• Sic Bo

Fixed-odds gambling

• Horse racing (see below)
• Greyhound racing
• Jai alai
• football matches (particularly on Association and American football)
• Golf
• Tennis
• Cricket
• Baseball
• Basketball
• Ice hockey

In addition many bookmakers offer odds on a number of non-sports related outcomes, e.g. the direction of various financial indices, whether snow will fall on Christmas Day, the winner of television competitions such as Big Brother, etc.

See Sports betting below.

Non-casino gambling games

• Lottery
• Mahjong
• Dice-based
  • Backgammon
  • Liar's dice
  • Passe-dix
  • Hazard
• Card games
  • Liar's poker
  • Bridge
  • Basset
  • Lansquenet
  • Piquet
  • Put
• Coin-tossing
  • Head and Tail
  • Two-up
• Street swindles
  • Three card monte
  • The shell game
• Carnival Games
  • The Razzle
  • Hanky Pank
  • Penny Falls
  • Six-Cat
  • The Swinger
  • The Push-up Bottle
  • The Nail Joint
• Bar Games
  • Put and Take
  • The Smack
  • The Drunken Mitt

Other types of live betting

List of notable wagers

• The man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo
• Pascal's wager
• St. Petersburg paradox
• The wager in Around the World in Eighty Days
• Wager between John Pierpoint Morgan and Hugh Cecil Lowther, 5th Earl of Lonsdale on whether a man could walk round the world and remain unidentified
• Wager between Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich on commodity prices
• The annual Nenana Ice Classic, when the inhabitants of Alaska bet when the ice breaks on the Tanana River.

Gambling on horse races

Wagering may be conducted in parimutuel pools, or bookmakers may take bets personally. Parimutuel wagers pay off at prices determined by support in the wagering pools, while bookmakers pay off either at the odds offered at the time the bet was taken or at the median odds offered by track bookmakers at the time the race started.

In Canada and the United States, the most common types of bet on horse races are:

• win–to succeed the bettor must pick the horse which wins the race.
• place–the bettor must pick a horse which finishes either first or second.
• show–the bettor must pick a horse which finishes first, second, or third.
• exacta, perfecta, or exactor–the bettor must pick the two horses which finish first and second and specify which will finish first
• quinella or quiniela–the bettor must pick the two horses which finish first and second, but need not specify which will finish first.
• trifecta or triactor–the bettor must pick the three horses which finish first, second, and third and specify which will finish first and second
• double– the bettor must pick the winners of two successive races; most race tracks in Canada and the United States take double wagers on the first two races on the program (the daily double) and on the last two (the late double).
• triple–the bettor must pick the winners of three successive races; many tracks offer rolling triples, or triples on any three successive races on the program.
• sweep–the bettor must pick the winners of four or more successive races.

Win, place and show wagers are known as straight bets, and the remaining wagers as exotic bets. Bettors usually make multiple wagers on exotic bets. A box is a multiple wager in which all possible combinations of a group of horses in the same race are bet. A key is a multiple wager in which a single horse in one race is bet in one position with all possible combinations of other selected horses in a single race. A wheel consists of betting all horses in one race of a bet involving two or more races. For example a 1-all daily double wheel bets the 1-horse in the first race with every horse in the second.

In Canada and the United States exotic wagers are made on horses running at the same track on the same program. In the United Kingdom bookmakers offer exotic wagers on horses at differenet tracks. The most common is probably the Yankee, in which the bettor tries to pick the winner of four races. This bet also includes subsidiary wagers on smaller combinations of the chosen horses; for example, if only two of the four horses win, the bettor still collects for their double. A Trixie requires trying to pick three winners, and a Canadian or Super Yankee trying to pick five; these also include subsidiary bets. The nap is a term used to mark the best bet of the day.

A parlay (US) or accumulator (UK) is a series of bets in which the winnings from one race are bet on the next in order until either the bettor loses or the series is completed successfully.

Sports betting

In Canada and the United States sports betting is usually illegal (Nevada offers full sports betting and the Canadian provinces offer government-run sports parlay betting). However, millions engage in it despite its illegality.

In Canada and the United States the most popular sports bets are made:

• against the spread; that is, the bettor wagers either that the favoured team will win by a specified number of points or that it will not. Betting the favourite is called giving the points and betting the underdog taking the points.
• against odds; the most popular types of bets against odds are simple bets that a team will win and over-under bets, which are bets on the total points, runs, or goals scored by both teams. In making an over-under bet, the bettor wagers that the total will be higher or lower than a total specified by the bookmaker.
• against a combination of odds and spread

In sports betting a parlay is a bet that two or more teams will all win. In the United States one of the most common forms of sports betting is the parlay card, on which bettors wager on the outcomes of two or more games. If all their picks win, they collect. Most such betting occurs in workplaces.

Staking systems

• Fixed stakes- a traditional system of staking the same amount on each selection. This method is good for conservative punters if the stake is kept below 5% of the bank.
• Fixed profits- the stakes vary based on the odds to ensure the same profit from each winning selection. This method is very good for conservative punters, although if the profitability of one's bets is independent of the odds the bettor is simply reducing his or her cash flow.
• Due-column betting – A variation on fixed profits betting in which the bettor sets a target profit and then calculates a bet size that will make this profit, adding any losses to the target. For example, to make a target of $100 profit a bettor would wager $50 at odds of 2 to 1. If the bet loses, the target becomes $150. If the next bet is also at odds of 2 to 1, the wager therefore becomes $75. This type of wagering is ruinous in the long run..
• Kelly (optimal) – fair odds (in the European/decimal format) need to be estimated by the punter and then the stake can be calculated using

Stake= (Odds/(Fair odds-1))/(Odds-1) Many times used with a divider (most commonly 4 or 8) depending on your bankroll (for betting)

This system was developed for baccarat but is widely recommended for horserace betting. In betting horseraces the stake is further adjusted to allow for inaccuracy in estimating fair odds. Computer simulations (http://www.coolth.com/optimal.htm) suggest that in betting horseraces Kelly betting increases losses during losing streaks, that it fails to demonstrate superiority over fixed stakes betting until large numbers of bets have been made (a drawback in horserace betting because the bettor usually has no reasonable expectation that any betting advantage he or she has will last over a long series of bets), and that its profitability has been exaggerated by the use of inappropriate statistical analyses.

• Martingale- A system based on staking enough each time to recover losses from previous bet(s) until you get a winner. A guaranteed way to failure- only way it would work is if you have an unlimited bankroll, your bookamaker has no limit on the size of bets and you are immortal!

See also

• deathpool
• bet exchange
• three card monte
• spread betting
• systems
• comps and junkets
• token
• gambler's ruin
• gambler's fallacy (a logical fallacy)
• Dutch Books
• Online Sites

Bibliography

• Brisman, Andrew. American Mensa Guide to Casino Gambling: Winning Ways
• Steinmetz, Andrew. The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims Gutenberg text (http://www.gutenberg.net/etext96/tgamt10.txt)
• Thorp, Edward O. Beat the Dealer: A Winning Strategy for the Game of Twenty-One
• Reith, Gerda, Age of Chance