Gambling Trends, Patterns and The Holy Grail

Much work needs to be done and eyes must remain peeled at all times but, when a gambling pattern emerges it is time to strike, using flexibility and timing to make the hit.

Gambling Trends, Patterns and The Holy Grail Venture into a typical gambling discussion group or forum on the internet and you'll find hordes of gamblers espousing the magical properties of trends and complex patterns of numbers and results in games of chance which, if sufficiently appreciated and properly acted upon, will reward the faithful with bags of cash.

These numbers-oriented gamblers are poles apart when it comes to their betting strategy in response to distinct patterns. The Believers will react to three consecutive reds in roulette by interpreting this run as a wave upon which they believe they can jump and subsequently surf their way to profit by betting on red coming up a fourth consecutive time. Non-Believers take the opposing position and bet against red on the next spin in the belief that all such runs come to an end sooner rather than later and black, therefore, will be next up.

Ironically, while sitting in completely opposing camps, both players' strategies are nonetheless fundamentally linked in that each takes a specific stance regarding the relevance of the trend or pattern itself.

Alas, at the risk of sounding like I need converting by the trend lobby, I should point out I believe only that each such result is purely random. And I recommend the reader approach roulette and other games of chance in the same way. This is true of traditional and online casinos, but especially in the latter case, where random number generators are in operation.

With some gamblers 'random' is almost a dirty word that threatens to undermine the work and energy put into going through charts, spreadsheets and related systems. Accepting the true nature of the randomness of casino games of chance might make spending money on 'how to win' books seem rather futile (or even foolish), but we might just have to acquiesce to the hard fact that the casino's edge is based precisely on any given likelihood being completely random over time. Perhaps we are wrong, and there is a Pattern super being out there somewhere doing favors for those in the know, but for the time being we must concur with the casinos, who tip the scales in roulette (if you will) in their favor by craftily adding a green zero or two to the 36 red and black numbers, thus serving to occasionally add insult to injury in the case of both aforementioned groups of Believers and Non-Believers.

To say that random means exactly what it says on the tin - that each new 'result' is completely independent of the last - is a simplistic way to describe this aspect of gambling, yet it is an easy statement to make if we don't subscribe to the theory that a trend or pattern has an influence on what will happen next. Feel free to gamble as you please, but using past events to help predict future events in games of chance becomes a serious commitment when money is involved.

You will notice when playing online roulette, for instance, that the results of previous 'spins' are posted on the screen. What are we supposed to do with this information, I wonder, if not use it to steer us in the right direction when making the next bet? I would suggest that following these past numbers should be for nothing more than adding to the entertainment, serving only to demonstrate the very unpredictability of random events. Eventually a pattern is sure to appear, of course, followed by another pattern, then another, then another...

Kevin

Published on 08/08/2007