House Edge

[Avatar73]

Ok, this has been buggine me for a while... I think I know, but I'm not sure.

If you decide to go for a bonus, with a WR of say 255 units, and decide to bet 10 units on a high-ish variance game (say VP or slots), then how should you wager the last 5 units?

What I am asking is, how should you treat the "remainder" of WR that don't fit into a bet size.

Let's say I bet 250, am 45 down, but will get a 50 bonus after I wager another 5. I could bet another 10 as usual, and potentially make a 5 loss overall or a ~30 win or so.

However, if I ramped down the bet, and played 5 units at 0.2/spin, or something, I would at worse break even with the bonus, and probably make 1-1.8 unit profit.

If i decide to bet 10, then I think that for the 5 going towards the bonus, the hous edge woule be -0.15 (with +EV bonus) and for the other 5, the HE would be normal, for an overall HE of probably 0.

Aha, is that they key? Is it just a case of working out the overall HE of the bet with half bonus and half not, and if HE<0 then bet, and if HE>0 then grind out the last 5?

What is best in the long run? I mean going from a guaranteed breakeven or better to 5 unit loss would never feel good, but in the long run, if combined HE<0 it might be the best bet?

What if you were evens, and had to bet 10 for a 20 bonus, with a normal wager of 20? In this case, your wager=bonus, so by spending half your wager=half the bonus which wont count towards any WR, is this a bad idea?!

[EasyRhino]

Let's say I bet 250, am 45 down, but will get a 50 bonus after I wager another 5. I

It took me a while to understand this, but I think I got you.

If you kept with the $10 bets (no matter what kind of game), that last bet would have you betting $5 with a bonus-advantage, and $5 without it.

From a strictly mathematical point of view, you should not play without the advantage, therefore you should only wager up to exactly the 255 unit WR, and nothing more. How you get there ($1 bets, $25 bets) is up to you, and is just a variance tradeoff.

[Avatar73]

So you should bet down until WR < BET SIZE, and then reduce your bets accordingly/change games.

How much worse off would you be if you bet the same amount again, so half the bet fulfills WR, and half the bet is..... a bet?

[aka23]

So you should bet down until WR < BET SIZE, and then reduce your bets accordingly/change games.

How much worse off would you be if you bet the same amount again, so half the bet fulfills WR, and half the bet is..... a bet?

The optional bet would decrease your average return by ~house edge * half the bet. The house edge of the games remains the same with or without bonus. If you want to reduce variance when playing without the bonus or nearing the end of a wagering requirement, then you could reduce your bet size or switch games.

[EasyRhino]

If playing a cashable bonus, you can sometimes compute a a "reverse house edge", or basically how much bonus you clear per bet minus the regular house edge. If you then placed a bet that was half under the bonus and half not, then the house edge and reverse house edge would be averaged.

I gave up on computing "reverse house edge" though, as it was not useful when dealing with sticky/phantom bonuses. I just evaluate the overall strategy with a simple "half of the time I'll lose X amount of money, and half of the time I'll win Y".

[Avatar73]

Personally, I would prefer to switch games I think. Some games require high bets to get the best payout anyway.

So is it always best to never overbet WR? What about if you play texas holdem bonus, with 5 ante.... if its best to call a couple of times if that is the best strategy, even if that means overbetting? potentially more gain, but also potential for bigger loss... even if you do have a bigger EV by calling and betting more.

The optional bet would decrease your average return by ~house edge * half the bet.

So, for JoB, if you bet 10 units over the bonus, it would decrease your average return by 10*0.005 = 0.05 units.
However, if you changed to slots, then you would only play WR for the bonus, BUT the edge of bonus+slot would probably be lower than the edge of 1/2 bet on JoB that doesnt count towards WR. hmmm.

[EasyRhino]

Ooh, games like hold'em (I play casino/caribbean hold'em sometimes) are tricky, because the need to do a raise bet (at double the ante!) can really throw off your calculations.

Let's say I just made a deposit, and I want to go "all-in" on a single hand of holdem. According to the wizard, you raise almost 90% of the time on that game. So sometimes, I'll just divide my chipcount in 3, place one unit the ante, and then expect to do the raise, and see what happens.

Now, let's say instead it's a game like caribbean stud, where you only raise less than 50% of the time. I'd expect to fold a couple times, and so probably make my "unit" 1/4 or 1/5 of the starting chipcount.

Okay, let's take your situation. You've got $5 left of WR. The ante is $5. You are confronted with the raise/fold decision. a) If the best decision is to fold, then you should definitely fold. b) if the best decision is to raise, then you need to decide if you should raise because you actually have an increased chance of winning (in which case go for it), or if you're raising so you'll "lose less". If it's a semi-defensive raise, then it's kind of a tossup on whether or not you want to dip into your non-WR money for it. If it's a small portion of your bankroll, I'd probably say go for it.

However, I probably wouldn't recommend placing a bet where a raise would have you overshoot your WR substantially.

[happygobrokey]

why are we talking about the "advantage you get/lose on a five-dollar bet"? if you are within one bet of clearing the wr, who cares? you can

a) lower your bet so that you won't go over wr

b) stick with the same bet and just ride it out

if it's advantageous to double down or otherwise increase the bet in the game, shouldn't you always do it even if you are playing with no wr and thus at negative expectation? sure you only got into the hand with intention of finishing wr, but you have to capitalise on all opportunities in order to lose the least overall.

and what's so bad about going a few dollars over the wr? i suppose we should also only bet on sports events when the odds are safer than 1/1 also? i really hope this discussion is purely theoretical, and no one would actually shoot for the wr to the dollar and strategize to arrive right at that number to avoid the sin of placing a bet without bonus involved.

now picture this. you are playing with $25 bets. nearing completion, you have just lost 10 hands in a row ($250+) and you stand only $10 short of wr. at this point i would continue the flatbet of 25 or even double it since this is my last hand and i want to make some back on that poor streak i just had. scaling back to $1 or $5 bets for the final $10 wr only locks in the previous losses.

well i guess there is a point to this thread, since it made me think and post. but i don't think there's much utility in altering strategy to meet wr exactly. just do how you're doing. there is no "one true way" in gambling. for me, a decent profit off a bonus equals a chance to make bigger bets to make a good win.

for example, doing wh monthly this week, i was winning like crazy starting with GBP5-/hand on the bonus, the first time i checked the playthrough was when i was sitting at 250 and of course i had met the wr when i checked. a glitch kept the withdrawal tab from opening right then, so i went to bed without withdrawing. the next day i logged in and started making 20-25 pound bets and doubled up to 500.

but i'm a degen and a psycho and a masochist. but boy am i the cat's ass when i make a big score and cash out. i used to be and still occasionally can be a min-bettor/safe grinder/cautious lowroller, but when profits are there generally it gives me ammo to bet bigger and more crazily. i think that's partly from poker i get that strategy. when you have a big stack you can loosen up and push chips around like a bully. maybe i need to get back to my roots. it's just too much work to dig up and grind out so many bonuses, and all the good offers are running out for me. nobody really gives me exclusive promos or anything like people always talk of getting 100% offers weekly, not me. the 32red tony blair bonus was my fave, GBP 54 into 300 woohoo.

[Avatar73]

Easy Rhino: or, with 5 WR and 5 ante, you could change to 20p/spin slots as well i guess.

It's not entirely theoretical.
Basically, I do I VP bonus from time to time, at 20 units per game. It works out that I have 10 WR left, for a 20 unit bonus. So, in theory, I should keep

house edge*no.games*bonus

(obv never happens exactly when doing VP at 20 unit/hand!).
So, when overshooting by 10 units, ie HALF the bonus, i was wondering just how bad that was? Would it change the game from expecting to make a profit, to expecting a loss? I would never lower my bet on the same game, coz id guarantee hit something good at low bets, which would be annoying! but i could change to slots instead? that was basically the point here. also kinda interesting... to some... me included!

Recently I had 10 to go, and if i had the bonus there and then I would be 15 units up. SO i bet another 20, got nothing, and ended up 5 down. Instead, I could have low spun for a guaranteed 5 unit profit, and pretty much guaranteed 7 unit+ profit. made me think.

[happygobrokey]

ok, where the bonus is close to the amount you're betting in one or two hands, then i guess yeah it's more meaningful. and more appropriate to stop right at the wr if it's just a $25 bonus and you are ahead some on it.