Basically, I don’t get it.\u00a0 There’s more to it of course, but my logical mind doesn’t understand how people can waste their money that way.<\/p>\n
What spurs these thoughts is a recent experience working “The Money Wheel” for a neighborhood festival.\u00a0 I looked at how it worked, did a rough estimate of the odds, and was appalled that anyone would think they might have a chance to come out ahead.\u00a0 Then I looked at the way the “game” is played, and still can’t figure out what might be fun about it.<\/p>\n
The game is simple.\u00a0 There’s a large vertical wheel, with photocopies of currency attached to it, a pointer, and dividers so the pointer will always point at one of the bills when the wheel stops rotating.\u00a0 There were 60 slots on the wheel, about half $1, about a quarter $2, some $5, a few $10, two $20, a joker and an American flag.\u00a0 So that’s\u00a0 1:60 to hit a joker or flag, 1:30 to hit a $20, down to best odds of a little worse than 1:2 on a $1.<\/p>\n
To play, you place a chip on the location on a board that matches $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, joker, or flag.\u00a0 You can play multiple chips and multiple locations at one time.\u00a0 Then you watch the caller spin the wheel, and wait for it to stop.<\/p>\n
OK, so playing is putting down some chips, watching the wheel go around, watching all the chips that didn’t match get taken off the board by the house (me!) and receiving the payout for anything that did match.\u00a0 The payout is 1:1 on the $1, 2:1 on $2, 5:1 on $5, and so on, up to 25:1 on the joker or flag.<\/p>\n
Oh, cool, I can put down one dollar on the joker, and get 25 back when I win?\u00a0 Yes, but on average the house will have taken 59 dollars from you before you win – odds of 1:60, payout 25:1.<\/p>\n
Well, how about playing on the $1?\u00a0 I can’t lose so much there, right?\u00a0 I hit almost half the time!\u00a0 Yes, but you lose a little more than half the time.\u00a0 28:60 I think I counted as the odds.\u00a0 So you can’t win there, either.<\/p>\n
The other numbers are about the same – and in fact, the odds are hugely tilted toward the house.\u00a0 So standing around and putting down chips to see them go away most of the time is fun?\u00a0 Oh, sure, every once in a while someone hits, and hits big.\u00a0 And usually keeps playing and loses it all, and more.<\/p>\n
I understand the idea that gambling on poker, or blackjack, or even horses can be seen as a way of paying for the entertainment time of enjoying the activity, win or lose.\u00a0 But standing and watching a wheel go ’round?\u00a0 Not for me!<\/p>\n
And that brings me back to my beginning:\u00a0 I just don’t get it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Basically, I don’t get it.\u00a0 There’s more to it of course, but my logical mind doesn’t understand how people can waste their money that way. What spurs these thoughts is a recent experience working “The Money Wheel” for a neighborhood festival.\u00a0 I looked at how it worked, did a rough estimate of the odds, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":295,"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions\/295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennissherman.com\/dennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}