Heyo, Steemians!
And today I'm gonna show you how casino works from the mathematical point of view.

Lets go!

Suppose that on every dollar bet you can win your bet multiplied on some_magic_constant with 50% probability:

[bet] -> [bet] x [constant]

Obviously, constant should be > 1 or it is not interesting (you obviously loose in money every time).
Okay, we are "honest" casino and make this multiplier equal to 1.99!
And now you win 1.99 dollar from 1 dollar bet with 50% probability.
Is it tempting for you? ;-) Ready to gamble?
Wait!

I'm gonna prove you that you loose!

Indeed, let's count expected value of your deposit after every game (suppose you have a dollar before)

E[money] = 0.5 * 0 + 0.5 * 1.99 = 0.995 win from every dollar you spent.

So, if you 're a gambling person and repeat you game many times (thats how expected value works), you will always inevitable loose.

Casino is always in profit!

Well, after all that you can say:

"You know, I don't trust to maths, bro".

You choice! Let's check this out in practise!
I write a code especially for you:

#include 
#include 
#include 

int main(void)
{
    int TEST_AMOUNT = 100000;
    double sum = 0;
    double magic = 1.99; //magic constant

    srand(time(NULL));

    for(int i = 0; i < TEST_AMOUNT; ++i)
    {
        double deposit = 1.0;
        double bet     = 0.1;

        while(deposit - bet > 0) //while we can make a bet
        {
          deposit -= bet;
          int dice = rand();

          if(dice % 2){
             deposit += bet * magic; 
             break;    // strategy?
          }
          else
             bet *= 2; // strategy?
        }
        sum += deposit;
    }

    printf("Average: %lf\n", sum/TEST_AMOUNT);
}

It's easy to understand: we have some deposit here and start bet size.
We make many tests, throw a random dice with 50% prob. and try to gamble in clever way.
Every time you loose you raise the bet.
However that doesn't help and average deposit size after game is less than starting deposit.

I offer you a challenge: can you think up a strategy to win a casino here in code?

It's not allowed to change:

• magic constant
• win probability
• number of tests
• deposit

It's allowed to change:

• start bet
• the strategy of changing bet
• conditions of leaving the game

If you found it - post here in comments.
P.S. if you really-really found it write me secret e-mail :-)

Image source:
https://www.bellagio.com

Thank you for your attention! Follow my blog @ideamaker for more.