On Feb 19, 2006, at 10:25 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
This document is interesting, but it seems be stating the obvious.
I do not think there are any educated people who gamble yet are
unaware of these facts. I should think everyone knows casinos are
wealthy because they always win in the end.
Most educated people understand that casinos win on average but don't
have a clue the odds of *their* getting fleeced in just a few days.
Most educated people don't know anything about random walk analysis
or even that having a limited purse makes their individual bets
dependent events with respect to when they go broke.
No, a timer based seed is only selected once at power on, if then.
Well this should be changed.
Yes indeed. In fact, pseudo-random number generators should not be
used at all.
If there is an external source of random numbers then the
additional transformation provided by a pseudo-random number
generator provides no additional randomness.
Frankly I do not see a problem with the present system.
The problem is that the outcome from a pseudo-random number generator
over the full RNG cycle is fully deterministic, and it can be checked
in advance that there will be no unexpected string of wins. This is
not true of true games of chance. I'll have to agree that this
likely does not make any difference in the final outcome, which is,
with dramatically increasing probability as bets are made, the bettor
ends up broke.
Horace Heffner
