The proposed second Simon-Ehrlich wager
Understanding that Simon wanted to bet again, Ehrlich and climatologist Stephen Schneider counter-offered, challenging Simon to bet on 15 current trends, betting $1000 that each will get worse (as in the previous wager) over a ten year future period.
The trends they bet would continue to worsen were:
- The three years 2002–2004 will on average be warmer than 1992-1994.
- There will be more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2004 than in 1994.
- There will be more nitrous oxide in the atmosphere in 2004 than 1994.
- The concentration of ozone in the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) will be greater than in 1994.
- Emissions of the air pollutant sulfur dioxide in Asia will be significantly greater in 2004 than in 1994.
- There will be less fertile cropland per person in 2004 than in 1994.
- There will be less agricultural soil per person in 2004 than 1994.
- There will be on average less rice and wheat grown per person in 2002–2004 than in 1992-1994.
- In developing nations there will be less firewood available per person in 2004 than in 1994.
- The remaining area of virgin tropical moist forests will be significantly smaller in 2004 than in 1994.
- The oceanic fisheries harvest per person will continue its downward trend and thus in 2004 will be smaller than in 1994.
- There will be fewer plant and animal species still extant in 2004 than in 1994.
- More people will die of AIDS in 2004 than in 1994.
- Between 1994 and 2004, sperm cell counts of human males will continue to decline and reproductive disorders will continue to increase.
- The gap in wealth between the richest 10% of humanity and the poorest 10% will be greater in 2004 than in 1994.
Simon declined Ehrlich and Schneider's offer to bet, and used the following analogy to explain why he did so:
| “ | Let me characterize their offer as follows. I predict, and this is for real, that the average performances in the next Olympics will be better than those in the last Olympics. On average, the performances have gotten better, Olympics to Olympics, for a variety of reasons. What Ehrlich and others says is that they don't want to bet on athletic performances, they want to bet on the conditions of the track, or the weather, or the officials, or any other such indirect measure. | ” |
Simon's thesis is that humanity's life-style will continue to improve, and several of the points of Ehrlich's second bet may increase for wholly benign reasons. For instance, the prediction of less agricultural soil per capita is a trend that Simon observed in The Ultimate Resource which Simon attributed to long-term rises in agricultural productivity.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
Internet gambling
With the arrival of the World Wide Web, many bookmakers have an online brand, although independently owned bookmakers often still maintain a "bricks and mortar" only operation and others operate a "skin" or "white label" operation which they purchase from one of the large firms as is the case with BetDirect and Betterbet . The main websites only accept bets from countries where internet gambling is not prohibited, and from people over 18 years old. Often these websites are linked to online casinos. Controversially, the explosion in Internet gambling is being linked to an increase in gambling addiction, according to the UK's help and advice organizations for addicts, GamCare and Gamblers Anonymous.
Increasingly, online bettors are turning to the use of betting exchanges such as Betfair and BETDAQ, which automatically match Back and Lay bets between different bettors, thus effectively cutting out the bookmaker's traditional profit margin also called an overround.
These online exchange markets operate a market index of prices near but usually not at 100% competitiveness as exchanges take commissions on winnings. True Wholesale odds are odds that operate at 100% of probabilistic outcomes.
Some bookmakers have even taken to using betting exchanges as a way of laying off unfavorable bets and thus reducing their overall exposure. This has led insecurity from the TAB in Australia, a government-run betting agency which attempted to deny Betfair an Australian license by running unfavorable ads in the media regarding the company. When Tasmania granted Betfair a license despite these efforts the Western Australian state legislature passed a law that specifically criminalised using betting exchanges from within the state, however that law was later ruled to be unconstitutional.
Betting exchanges are universally disliked by the traditional bookmaker. Not only are they generally able to offer punters better odds due to their much lower overheads, but also in giving opportunities for arbitrage: the practice of taking advantage of a price differential between two or more markets, although traditionally arbitrage has always been possible by backing all outcomes with bookmakers (dutching) as opposed to laying an outcome on an exchange. Exchanges do, however, allow bookmakers to see the state of the market and can set their odds accordingly.
Bets are also taken via phones, using SMS text messages, though poker and other sports are more suited to other mediums. As technology moves on, the gambling world ensures it is a major player in new technology operations.
Most televised sports in the United Kingdom and Europe are now sponsored wholly or partly by Internet and high street bookmakers, with sometimes several bookmakers and online casinos being displayed on players' shirts, advertising hoardings, stadium signs and competition event titles, although Werder Bremen are currently fighting the German courts for the freedom to continue featuring bookmaker Bwin on their shirts, as Germany and France take action against online gamers.
With the recent banning of tobacco sponsorship, and the significant commercial budgets available to the gaming industry, sponsorship by car manufacturers, alcoholic drinks, soft drinks and fast food marketers is being rapidly replaced by sponsorship by gaming companies in the Far East and Europe.
The United Kingdom Gambling Act 2005 introduces a new regulatory system for governing gambling in Great Britain. This system includes new provisions for regulating the advertising of gambling products. These provisions of the Act came into effect in September 2007. It is an offence to advertise in the UK, gambling which physically takes place in a non-European Economic Area (EEA), or in the case of gambling by remote means, gambling which is not regulated by the gambling laws of an EEA state.[1]
The situation is more confused in the United States, which has attempted to restrict operators of foreign gambling websites accessing their domestic market. This has resulted in a ruling against the US Government by the WTO.[2]
References
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
Reverse Labouchere
The Labouchere system can also be played as a positive progression betting system, this is known as playing the reverse Labouchere. In this version after a win, instead of deleting numbers from the line the player adds the previous bet amount to the end of the line. You continue building up your Labouchere line until you hit the table maximum. After a loss, the player deletes the outside numbers and continues working on the shorter line. The player starts their line again if they run out numbers to bet.[1]
The Reverse Labouchere system is often used because where the Labouchere list represents how much the player wants to win, a reverse Labouchere line represents the most that the player will lose during the betting cycle. It is with this that a player with a bankroll of x can create their own line, or lines, representative of the maximum amount that they can sustain in losses.
Additionally, a player does not necessarily have to continue the system until the table limit is met or exceeded, but could instead pick a single bet that the player does not wish to exceed and make that bet their own personal limit.
Unlike the Labouchere system which (when adhered to strictly) requires a winning percentage of at least 33.34% to complete, the winning percentage needed to complete a Reverse Labouchere line is going to be dependent on both the table limit (or the maximum single bet a player is willing to make) as well as the numbers on the initial line in relation to the table limit.
For instance, if a table had a limit of $500 and a player composed a Labouchere line as follows:
50, 50, 50, 50, 50
Nine consecutive wins (100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450, 500) would cause the next bet in the system to exceed the table limit, and thus the line would be completed with a player profit of $2700.
In contrast, if a player composed a Labouchere line such as:
25, 25, 25, 25, 25
Nineteen consecutive wins (50, 75, 100, 125, 150, 175, 200, 225, 250, 275, 300, 325, 350, 375, 400, 425, 450, 475, 500) would cause the next bet in the system to exceed the table limit, thus the line would be completed with a player profit of $5,225.
The length of the line in the Reverse Labouchere system is also important as it relates to the percentage of wins necessary to complete the system. For instance, if a line of:
50, 50, 50, 50, 50
Suffers three consecutive losses as soon as the system begins, then the line is completed and a new line must be started, or the player may choose to quit.
In contrast, if a line of:
50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, 50
Suffers three consecutive losses, then there are still six numbers remaining on the list. In the line immediately above, it would take an opening streak of six consecutive losses for the line to be completed.
All other things remaining the same, the longer a player's line, the more the player is risking losing, however, the longer the player's line, the better winning percentage the casino need have in order to break the player's line.
Advocates of this system point out that when a player uses the Labouchere System, where a streak in the casino's favor, or many mini-streaks in the casino's favor, will cause the player to sustain a huge loss, a single streak, or a few streaks in the player's favor using the Reverse Labouchere system will cause the player to have a huge gain.
A formula that can be used to determine how this system could fail is as follows:
Where:
x = Number of Wins
y = Number of Losses
Z = Numbers on original List
When:
x + z ≤ y * 2
The system has failed, and all numbers on the line are crossed completely out.
Given an infinite line, the Labouchere System when played by the player requires a winning percentage of at least 33.34% to complete. In contrast, for the Reverse Labouchere to fail requires only that the player lose 33.34% of the time.
Once again, the winning percentage necessary for the system completing to success depends upon a number of variables.
References
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
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