|
d no advantage in the odds, simply because the sum staked
bears a much smaller proportion to their capital than the wagers of the individual player bear to his property.
Yet the reader must not fall into the mistake of supposing that because the individual player would have enormous risks against him, even if the bankers took no percentage on the chances, the bank would then in the long run make enormous gains. That would be a paradoxical result; though at first sight it seems equally paradoxical to say that while every single player would be almost certain to be ruined the bank would not gain in the long run. This, however, is perfectly true. The fact is, that, among the few who escaped ruin, some would be enormous gainers. It would be because of some marvelous runs of luck, and consequent enormous gains, that they would be saved from ruin; and the chances would be that some among these would be very heavy gainers. They would be few; and the action of a man who gambled heavily on the chance of being one of these few, would be like that of a man who bought half a dozen tickets, at a price of 1,0001. each (his whole property being thus expended), among millions of tickets in a lottery, in which were a few prizes of 1,000,000/. each. But though the smallness of the chance of being one among the few very great gainers at the gambling-table, makes it absurd for a man to run the enormous risk of ruin involved in persistent play, yet, so far as the bankers would be concerned, the great losses on the few winners would in the long run equalize the moderate gains on the great majority of their customers. They would neither gain nor lose a sum
bearing any considerable proportion to their ventures, and would run some risk, though only a small one, of being swamped by a long-continued run of bad luck.
But the bankers do not in this way leave matters to chance. They take a percentage on the chances. The percentage they take is often not very large in itself, though it is nearly always larger than it appears, even when regarded properly as a percentage on the chances. But what is usually overlooked by those who deal with this matter, and especially by those who, being gamblers themselves, want to think that gaming houses give them very fair chances, is that a very small percentage on the chances may mean, and necessarily does mean, an enormous percentage of profits.
Let us take, as illustrating both the seeming smallness of the percentage on the chances, and the enormous probable percentage of profits, the game of rouge-et-noir, so far as it can be understood from the accounts given in the books. I follow De Morgan's rendering.
|
