Also, I just got back from Vegas, so here's a report:
Palms: They had a VERY generous promotion, where if you signed up for a player's card for the first time, you could get either 50% of your table games loss, or 100% of your slot loss, for the first 24 hours rebated back to you in freeplay, up to $1,000. The only real caveat is that you only 30% back immediately, and you needed to return 2 more times in the future to redeem the rest- so maybe not so great if you're flying in from the East Coast, but very good if you're living in Socal.
The slot play offer is a better deal from a pure EV point of view, but slot machines are boring and I wanted a smaller but surer win rather than trying to go for a royal flush or nothing on video poker. So I played at a $25 double deck blackjack table (fairly good rules, house edge of only 0.4%), higher stakes than I'd normally play, and won $880 in 2 hours. Thanks for the promotion, Palms....I wouldn't have played at $25 if I didn't know I was getting 50% rebated on losses.
My estimate is that the value of the table games promotion (what you'd pay to have that offer) is probably north of $200. And the value of the slot promotion is probably above $500 (but with a lot more variance to play it the right way). So good luck to the Palms, but I'm skeptical that they'll actually make a profit from this promotion.
Riviera: Another VERY generous promotion. $1000 rebated on slot losses for the first day (ending at midnight, so don't sign up for a player's card at 11 PM). Half redeemed in freeplay immediately, half after a month. I lost $400 on video poker, then redeemed $200 in freeplay immediately, and got another $200 available in August. I know, not the best way to play it- I shouldn't quit until I've either made money or lost a full $1000, because it's not my money I'm losing- but I figured the chances of making a big enough comeback to stop playing were pretty low, and I had better things to do than spend hours more playing VP. Plus I wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of having $500 available next month, but not now.
The Riviera also has single deck blackjack with 3:2 payout. And for a $10 limit. I think they're really going after the gambler market, which is very nice for players, but I'm kind of skeptical it'll work because offering great deals to people who know what they're doing doesn't seem very profitable. They may have no choice though, given their bad location on the strip and ancient, dilapidated, hotel- gotta find a niche to survive.
Wynn: Very elegant place. On a saturday night at 9 PM, most of the blackjack tables were $25/hand and up, but I was able to find a couple at $15/hand. They did raise the limits to $25 a little after I started playing, but fortunately once you start playing you're grandfathered in for as long as you want to play. The rules were the standard you can find for reasonable limits (3:2 pay on blackjacks, 6 decks, hit 17, surrender available, resplit aces to 4 hands, double after split okay, 0.46% house edge).
MGM Grand: On Sunday night, most of the tables had the above "standard" rules for $10/hand. On Monday night, at around 7 PM it was the same, but by 11 PM or so everything had been raised to $25/hand- except for the trap games with horrible rules like 6:5 payout. I'm guessing this is what you saw on Memorial Day weekend, Smuffin- they had plenty of customers on a busy weekend so they decided to raise the limits. I did find the area with stand 17 games, but never for less than $25/hand. Maybe on a weekday morning? One complaint: I've been given rum coke after ordering normal coca-cola a full 3 times in this casino. Really? It's like they're trying to intoxicate me.
Tropicana: Very nice atmosphere, standard rules except you can't surrender.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick your 7 time champion, Link.
Also, on the Las Vegas Monorail: This could have been a huge success if they had run it down the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard, instead of Paradise Avenue where they have it. As it is, it was mostly empty. I'm sure it was cheaper to build on Paradise Ave., but this is the kind of thing where it's better to have a business with loads of customers in an expensive location than no customers in a cheap location.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick your 7 time champion, Link.
The sad thing is this is the single place in the world I can think of where a monorail makes the most sense- everything is lined up on one street, but the distances are long for walking. And they screw it up.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick your 7 time champion, Link.
Yup, on another note.......I think statistically 90% of visitors to Vegas lose money. Why, when the house edge usually isn't all that high? The biggest reason is variance. People underestimate the variance and overbet their bankroll. Sit down to play blackjack at $10/hand, and you expect to lose $5/hour. But if you only brought $100, the probability of losing it all within the first hour is probably greater than 50%. That does NOT mean that the odds are changed by how much money you bring. But it does mean a lot of small losses are being averaged in with a few big wins. I think there would be a market for a casino game that worked differently, where most players won a small amount and a few players lost big.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick your 7 time champion, Link.
Hmmm, at first glance I actually think you have that backwards.
Given that house edge exists, the longer you play and the more you bet, the more likely you are to lose. I've always argued that the smartest (although least entertaining to be sure) way to gamble in vegas would be to take ALL of your bankroll, bet it on a single hand of blackjack, and then walk away regardless of the outcome.
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
Hmmm, at first glance I actually think you have that backwards.
Given that house edge exists, the longer you play and the more you bet, the more likely you are to lose. I've always argued that the smartest (although least entertaining to be sure) way to gamble in vegas would be to take ALL of your bankroll, bet it on a single hand of blackjack, and then walk away regardless of the outcome.
Strategically, that's right, though you wouldn't choose blackjack because blackjack has terrible odds if you're not allowed to split and double down (and since you're betting your whole bankroll, you can't do those things).
However, what I'm saying is also true. There's a difference between your expected loss and the probability of losing on any given trip. The probability of losing is easily changeable by the player. The way most players play, it's around 90%. With your strategy there, you can get it down to about 49% (betting banker on baccarat, you get paid 19 for 20 but you're more likely to win than lose). Anyone can make it lower than 1% simply by using the strategy of doubling your bet after every loss. But here's the thing......it has zero impact on your expected loss, which depends only on how much you bet times the house edge. And that's all the casino cares about.
If you make small bets, you'll be more likely to end up close to your expected loss. If you overbet your bankroll, you're likely to lose far more than your expected loss (like 20x more). You're also more likely to win big of course. And then people go home and think that they lost because the house always wins. No, 95% of their losses came because they overbet their bankroll and got unlucky.
Edit/short version: Your strategy is betting everyone on one hand is the best for minimizing expected loss if you are not counting cards. Expected loss is the only thing casinos care about, but players sometimes also care about the probability of ending up or down.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick your 7 time champion, Link.
I've had success in getting normally fairly liberal fellow law students to see how stupid Dodd-Frank is. The main thing this law does is force anyone who wants to run a bank to hire an army of lawyers in order to help them comply with all the hundreds upon hundreds of pages of regulations. Ergo, the people who are helped the most by this law are big law firms. And also, the biggest of banks, because smaller banks can't afford to hire armies of lawyers.
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"I think both of these individuals are such reprehensible human beings that stand for such horrible ideas that at some point you simply have to say, 'I can't continue to give my consent to this system.' "
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I'm sure that's not where California is losing all that money.
Prison populations and illegal immigrants. California spends $10 billion a year on prisons, which is basically a money hole. Illegal immigrants send their children to public schools, but don't pay back into the system.
It's pretty ugly.
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It's pretty incredible to me that California has such major budget issues when it has such a large tax base. This is a rich state, with loads of rich people and highly profitable businesses being taxed at a very high rate. And yet it has to resort to regressive taxes like charging $460 for running a red light, and still can't balance the budget. In New Hampshire, we have no income tax, no sales tax, and a lot of our most productive residents work in Massachusetts, but we do fine with the budget. We do have unpaid state representatives in NH, but I'm sure that's not where California is losing all that money.
California probably has a much more complex situation. What's the biggest issue to hit NH in your lifetime... that Bow wanted to use all of its property tax on its own schools 10 years ago?
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Donny: Are they gonna hurt us, Walter? Walter: No, Donny. These men are cowards.
Oh, we can go further with amnesty than that....I'm talking amnesty for prisoners. And yeah, CA is the biggest state and obviously that creates complexities, but that shouldn't necessarily lead to failure. The taxable wealth is there in spades, at the end of the day.
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Oh, we can go further with amnesty than that....I'm talking amnesty for prisoners. And yeah, CA is the biggest state and obviously that creates complexities, but that shouldn't necessarily lead to failure. The taxable wealth is there in spades, at the end of the day.
We could just line up all the prisoners and illegal immigrants and shoot them. That would "solve" the problem also, would it not?
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
I don't quite follow. I was serious- the main reason we have too many prisoners is that we have too many criminal laws IMO. It's a value judgment, I don't think there's any logic or reasoning there.
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Oh, just a little thing called freedom of information. If you think internet censorship is bad now, just wait until corporations have complete control.
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Morgan really does some great work over at TMF. It's a shame that, since it's an investment and not a political website, most of it largely gets ignored.
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
But I am absolutely outraged by this one. It's kind of ironic, just last week in church the pastor showed us a video of how lucky we were to live in America, because in OTHER countries, the government sometimes harasses you for worshiping Jesus!
WTF is going on here? Is this American or not?
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
Okay, having every internet site censored would be bad, but I don't trust the government to not do the exact same thing. Ever hear of the FCC? Really want the internet to be subject to that?
One of the left's greatest achievements is somehow convincing people that government (whom you are forced to interact with at the point of a gun) is more accountable to people than private business (whom you are never forced to interact with at all).
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
Well, in a democracy, you can vote the government out should they do things that piss you off. ... as long as you have viable alternatives anyway.
Yeah, there's a reason I have enjoyed seeing Ron Paul do pretty well in this last election cycle even if I find a few of his stances to run strongly against my own.
That said, there's plenty of reason to be concerned with ISPs themselves censoring the internet as a collective. Monopolies are dangerous so long as (a) what they control is in high demand, and (b) it is prohibitively difficult for a startup company to compete with the establishment and act as a threat should they enact bad policies. Sadly, both (a) and (b) are the case for internet service providers. They may not be a larger concern than the government, but that just means you have to be vigilant of both.
Morgan really does some great work over at TMF. It's a shame that, since it's an investment and not a political website, most of it largely gets ignored.
This is a great article. I particularly like how it draws attention to the immense inefficiency (both in terms of money and life) of covering people for emergencies but not for treatment of conditions that, ignored, will lead to emergencies; I think that often isn't understood.
I'll admit I'm a bit surprised to see you link it, though, as it mostly reads like an argument for some level of socialised medicine (although, granted, socialised medicine that comes at a lower cost than the current US system, which even a staunch libertarian might see as an improvement). But maybe you have a different take? I'm curious, if so.
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I'm not sure how, in principle, the government censoring the Internet is worse than corporations doing the same. You can argue "corporations don't force you to use the Internet so they aren't infringing your liberties there" (of course in quite a few jobs you are forced to use the Internet but bear with me), but... the government doesn't force you to use the Internet either.
I agree. Monopolies are also ONLY possible if the government creates them. They can't exist in a free market. The reason we have near-monopoly situations in ISPs is because the government decreed it to be so.
This is a great article. I particularly like how it draws attention to the immense inefficiency (both in terms of money and life) of covering people for emergencies but not for treatment of conditions that, ignored, will lead to emergencies; I think that often isn't understood.
Well, you don't have to "cover" people for routine services. It is far more practical for those to be paid in cash. Like car insurance. I feel like this case has been made so many times that I feel kind of silly for repeating it, but your car insurance doesn't cover gas and oil changes, even though going without them will lead to much larger problems. When it covers everyday, routine care, it is no longer "insurance" but rather it is a subscription health plan.
I'll admit I'm a bit surprised to see you link it, though, as it mostly reads like an argument for some level of socialised medicine (although, granted, socialised medicine that comes at a lower cost than the current US system, which even a staunch libertarian might see as an improvement). But maybe you have a different take? I'm curious, if so.
The main reason I linked it was for the first part. The leftist media constantly tries to persuade the public that America under Republicans is some completely free and unregulated market, when nothing could be further from the truth. We're already a lot less free than many countries whom we view as "socialist" in comparison to us. Also, I just wanted to give Morgan some credit. He's not a liberty-movement guy by any stretch of the imagination, but he does an excellent job collecting the facts and presenting them in a clear way.
I'm not sure how, in principle, the government censoring the Internet is worse than corporations doing the same. You can argue "corporations don't force you to use the Internet so they aren't infringing your liberties there" (of course in quite a few jobs you are forced to use the Internet but bear with me), but... the government doesn't force you to use the Internet either.
IF we had a free market in internet services (see above), and many companies started censoring the internet, and "uncensored internet" was a product in high demand, new companies would emerge to offer said product. New governments cannot emerge to offer alternative products. They shoot you if you try and do that. Let me just ask you one thing. Who ordered the construction of The Great Firewall? Was that Comcast? Or was it a government?
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
I found this to be a dramatic but informational rant by Peter Schiff, does anyone have anything that corroborates his arguments? Just in case anyone I talk to about it claims he has no backing. <_< I'm too lazy to fully investigate the supreme court's decision.
I'll admit I'm a bit surprised to see you link it, though, as it mostly reads like an argument for some level of socialised medicine (although, granted, socialised medicine that comes at a lower cost than the current US system, which even a staunch libertarian might see as an improvement). But maybe you have a different take? I'm curious, if so.
The main reason I linked it was for the first part. The leftist media constantly tries to persuade the public that America under Republicans is some completely free and unregulated market, when nothing could be further from the truth. We're already a lot less free than many countries whom we view as "socialist" in comparison to us. Also, I just wanted to give Morgan some credit. He's not a liberty-movement guy by any stretch of the imagination, but he does an excellent job collecting the facts and presenting them in a clear way.
You have to admit, he makes a good argument for modeling ourselves after Canada/Europe!
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The government restricts competition. This can be overt (say, if the government announces that only Southern California Edison may install electric lines in Los Angeles). Or it can be more indirect (for example, the government passes a 2000-page securities regulation act that de facto requires anyone in the business to spend millions on lawyers to help them comply with the law). In general, bigger companies are better able to cope with regulations, because they have advantages from the scale of their business that helps them handle large overhead expenses, and government regulations indeed produce large overhead expenses. But this is exactly what is bad for consumers, who are left with only a few, large, companies from which to choose.
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how does the government help make monopolies possible? (i believe you; i'd just like to know for the sake of stomping liberals in arguments)
There really just is no such thing as a "natural" monopoly. Now, it's obviously true that many industries benefit from brand awareness, economies of scale, and other factors that make it very difficult for competitors to enter, but not impossible, and CERTAINLY not impossible if the entrenched companies did something idiotic like censoring the Internet.
No, in those cases, the only reason there would be no competition would be if, say, a government passed a law saying "each town can only have one cable company" which, you know, they did.
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
There really just is no such thing as a "natural" monopoly. Now, it's obviously true that many industries benefit from brand awareness, economies of scale, and other factors that make it very difficult for competitors to enter, but not impossible, and CERTAINLY not impossible if the entrenched companies did something idiotic like censoring the Internet.
This seems like semantics. An example I've used before: I'd definitely say Microsoft has the monopoly on the operating system market, considering how many people use Windows in comparison to Linux. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but to say monopolies can only exist when the government forces them to exist seems like a stretch.
This is also why I don't believe "the free market automatically makes the best product emerge via competition" logic always applies - do you seriously think every person with a computer tried both Windows and Linux and decided Windows was better? I know I didn't - I don't care that much about OS's and Windows works fine for me. Hell, just look at how many people still use IE, even though Firefox, Chrome and probably a number of other browsers are far superior.
I'm not sure how, in principle, the government censoring the Internet is worse than corporations doing the same. You can argue "corporations don't force you to use the Internet so they aren't infringing your liberties there" (of course in quite a few jobs you are forced to use the Internet but bear with me), but... the government doesn't force you to use the Internet either.
The main difference is that government is WAY more likely and has WAY more incentive to censor and control the internet.
The second difference is that if the government makes a law that censors the internet, what can you do? I guess you could spend 10-20 years working on a grassroots campaign to elect different congressmen and such that will support freedom, though you will have to fight the influence of the MPAA and RIAA on Congress.
In a non-monopolized industry, you can just stop subscribing to the censoring company's internet. If there is enough demand for a non-censored internet (and there is), then another company will most likely be providing that service. If there is a monopoly, it's different, but people have explained how monopolies only come from government already.
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This seems like semantics. An example I've used before: I'd definitely say Microsoft has the monopoly on the operating system market, considering how many people use Windows in comparison to Linux. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but to say monopolies can only exist when the government forces them to exist seems like a stretch.
You really should look up the definition of monopoly.
If Microsoft released a new update tomorrow that turned all windows desktops into a flashing goatse image (which is entirely within their power), what would all those Windows users do? I know I would install the latest Ubuntu and use that instead, because I can. That is not a monopoly.
Even if a company has 100% of the market share, if it's possible for users to stop using that company and use another at will, there is no monopoly.
Your browser example is a pretty good one. IE is built into Windows. Everyone who has Windows has IE. And yet only about 40% of people in the US use it (according to this study which seems relatively legit http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/04/23/current-status-of-the-browser-wars/). Microsoft is TRYING to create a monopoly with IE by forcing it on all of their users (there was actually a lawsuit back in the day about this), but it still doesn't work when there are better products to choose from.
-- _foolmo_ 'Ulti is like when your parents post something on your facebook status' - Sir Cobain
"Only" 40% of people in the US use it? Why does even 4% use it? Free market logic is "the company that makes the best product destroys the companies that make awful products," but as far as browsers go it seems the situation, rather, is "good products exist alongside awful products" and ironically the worst product is actually doing the best, according to the link you posted.
Microsoft is TRYING to create a monopoly with IE by forcing it on all of their users (there was actually a lawsuit back in the day about this)
How is Microsoft forcing IE on their users? By having it installed on computers? That's like saying they're forcing Solitaire on me because I have it installed. You have the choice to not use IE and it literally takes one minute to install another browser.
Free market logic is "the company that makes the best product destroys the companies that make awful products,"
No.... generally the product with the most advertising destroys the other companies. IE has by far the most advertising, and the fact that is it installed on every computer is an extremely powerful form of advertising since it appeals to convenience and laziness/ignorance (which is what I mean by "forcing").
The fact that a browser that has such powerful advertising is only getting 40% against browsers that have little advertising and require additional knowledge and initiative to download is a pretty good example of the free market, I would say. Though I guess Chrome has pretty good advertising too since Google links to it all the time, but Firefox has very little advertising.
Free market logic is "better products will be made to compete with existing products." These products can fail or be successful, but they will be made.
-- _foolmo_ 'Ulti is like when your parents post something on your facebook status' - Sir Cobain
Who are we to say IE isn't the best product? Remember the "best product" for any individual is the product that is best for him. And IE has one huge advantage over everything else- it's convenient. It's installed right on your new computer when you get it, and you've been using it for 15 years already so you know exactly how it works. It's the same reason people eat at McDonald's- because you know exactly what you're getting when you walk into a McDonald's anywhere in the world.
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