What would happen if you put a statistician in a casino with £1m?

(Ping Zhu)

I suspect that most would walk out and go home, with £1,000,000 in their pocket.

Jeremy Miles, PhD in psychology, with focus on statistics

A guaranteed million is worth a lot more than any games the casino offers. I'm taking the money and walking out.

Justin Rising, PhD in statistics

I'm going to take the slightly ornery approach here and say, it depends on the casino.

Why? Well, because contrary to conventional wisdom, the house doesn't always have an advantage. There are certain games at certain casinos where, if you know the correct playing strategy, you actually have a slightly greater than 100 per cent return in the long run. (Keeping in mind, of course, that it is the long run. You aren't going to double your million dollars immediately, if at all.)

Probably the best, most consistent example of this is video poker. Some video poker machines actually pay back about one per cent more than full pay, assuming you know how to play them (and where to find them). As long as you play every hand according to the statistics – which analysts have measured down to every possible five-card combination – you'll make about £10,000 on your million pounds.

There are actually professional video poker players in Vegas; they make over minimum wage by gambling, and they rack up enough points at the machines that they earn free food and other extras while they play. If the casino runs any sort of promotions, they can earn extras even faster, and their gambling is worth a lot more. Not a very stable income, but it's an income nonetheless.

Back in the old days, you had to calculate these strategies by hand. Nowadays, that's not the case; there are even places you can practise these strategies and learn to play correctly online before you walk in to a casino (Wizard of Odds is my personal favourite).

So, why do these games still exist at the casino? Simple: not many people bother to put the time and effort into learning how to play them correctly, so the casino usually doesn't pay back a full 101 per cent.

On top of that, casinos tend to limit how much you can play (and thus win) at a time, so you can't play your million pounds in massive hundred-thousand-pound hands. You definitely won't get rich.

So yeah, if you don't like playing... take your million dollars and run.

Courtney Paulson, stats PhD candidate

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