Hurkly: Here's one interesting fact that emphasizes just how bad gambling is: in general, your best strategy for winning $X at the casino is to bet the maximum until you make your target or go bust.
Sure, and casinos fear that. At the Plaza here in Las Vegas, they did allow an 32 year old English "professional gambler" to bet his life assets of $135,300, which included the proceeds of his house and furniture, on red 7 at the Roulette wheel. This got a lot of publicity and the gambler won, doubling his money. Some people claim it was a very bad bet because in the 38 numbers 18 are red and 18 are black, that means that two numbers, green, are reserved for the house. (Of course, they are also going to pick up on the 18 black if no one else is in the game, which I guess they were not.) But the gambler said he made the house cover one of the green slots so that he had a probability of 18/37 = 48.6%.
Generally though, the house wants to make a steady profit as a business. They do not want to risk large losses in case someone gets lucky, regardless of the odds.
The same thing is true of hedgers, who expect to profit from, say, gold mining, or oranges for that matter, or require gold or other precious metals, or oranges in a commercial process. They make their bets on the side opposite their profit side. This is a form of insurance. Business people, you see, tend to think alike.
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