Dancing with the devil

IT has been said that the game of ‘Roulette’ was invented by a mad monk who ultimately sold his sole to the devil in return for the secret of how to beat the system and win. Indeed we can wonder as to the merit of this tale, but how strange is it that if we add all the numbers on the wheel from 1-36 together, we find the total to be “666” the number of the beast, Satan, as described in the bible in the Book of Revelations.

So is ‘Roulette’ the devil’s own game?

Well if it is then it has a very bad twin brother in the shape of “Texas Hold-Em” The French mathematician, Blaise Pascal, whilst studying perpetual motion and the laws of probability, introduced zero to the wheel giving casinos the edge.

If you have an even money bet on Red or Black, High or Low you have 18 chances to win and 19 chances to lose, albeit you get half your stake back from a zero. Betting a single number gives you a 1 in 37 chance to win. Therefore probability is you lose. In poker we have 52 cards so it’s even harder to hit certain combinations.

But if your me and running as good as the 3 legged donkey at Ascot, then even being a 98.32% favourite to win against ‘Nasty Nick’ is not good enough. After hitting a nine on the flop of Ace, Queen, nine with my pair of nines and betting out, Nasty Nick decides in his wisdom to go all in with Ace-five off suit.

So what are the chances of a Queen on the turn and an Ace on the river? 99 to 1 are the odds for him to make a bigger full house.

Is Nasty Nick the devil?