In one case, the husband had a stroke and died before his wife gambled away their home and what little was left of a $300,000 IRA+.
But they had fun doing it.
How Often Do Gamblers Really Win?
What are the odds? Not good. Some casinos get 90% of their revenue from 10% of customers.
Unless they cheat, about the only way gamblers can win at games of chance is to get lucky and then stop gambling.
That's how No. 1381787 emerged as the biggest overall winner. A 56-year-old Slovenian man, he typically placed only a few modest bets per day. Then he struck gold, twice winning more than $14,000 within 10 days. After suffering a partial setback, he stopped playing on the Bwin site, netting about $22,000.
Gambler No. 1357078, a Swiss man who was 56 years old when he opened his account, was a classic heavy gambler. He played an average of three days a week, typically placing more than 1,000 bets per day and averaging $9 per bet. He lost on 84% of the days he gambled, and over the two years gambled away more than $110,000.
On any given day, the chances of emerging a winner aren't too bad—the gamblers won money on 30% of the days they wagered. But continuing to gamble is a bad bet. Just 11% of players ended up in the black over the full period, and most of those pocketed less than $150.
The skew was even more pronounced when it came to heavy gamblers. Of the top 10% of bettors—those placing the largest number of total wagers over the two years—about 95% ended up losing money, some dropping tens of thousands of dollars. Big losers of more than $5,000 among these heavy gamblers outnumbered big winners by a staggering 128 to 1.
To check, the Journal asked Puneet Manchanda of the University of Michigan and Hee Mok Park of the University of Connecticut to analyze a private gambling database to which they have access, detailing two years of play by 18,000 holders of loyalty cards at a Native American casino in the northwestern U.S.
The researchers found similar patterns: Only 13.5% of gamblers ended up winning, versus 11% among Bwin customers, and the ratios of big losers to big winners were similarly large.
The Bwin data also offer a peek at the economics of the casino industry that only insiders normally glimpse. Among the findings is an extreme reliance on revenue from a small number of gamblers.
Of the 4,222 casino customers, just 2.8%—or 119 big losers—provided half of the casino's take, and 10.7% provided 80% of the take.
(This is why I try to break even at the all-you-can-eat buffet and with free drinks!)
Actually the last few times I went to Vegas, I hiked Red Rock Canyon to see the real world.)
Edited by Rogerdodger, 12 October 2013 - 09:58 AM.
