1. Blackjack: Each player get's to roll every dice besides the double didget D10 once. Whoever reaches 21 first, wins.
2. Sabacc: Same as blackjack, but you try to reach 23 and the player can add or subtrackt the die. They have to decide before throwing. After one player won, everyone can roll two dice that are left. If they roll a 2 and a 3, they steal the win.
3. Shell game: The NPC and the player both roll a D4, the player wins, if both numbers are the same.
4. Betting on Horse Races: The players roll on initiative and then play three rounds of rolling an D20 for their horse. Highest total wins. The horses have different modifiers, the higher the modifier, the lesser the winnings.
5. Knife Game: You have to roll a D4, then a D6, then, D8, D10, D12 and add your Dex bonus. The roll always has to be higher then the previous roll or you cut yourself.
6. Drinking Game: The player and NPC roll a consave each round, the DC starts at 10 and then gets higher with each round.
7. Armwrestling: Roll strengh against each other for three rounds.
8. Russian Roulette: You roll a D6. If the number is the same as the one the DM rolled, you die instantly.
9. Regular Roulette: DM rolls 4d10. If he hits 4 or 40 the house wins automatically unless the player specifically bet on 4 or 40. The player bets on odd or even. If they guess correctly, they double their bet. A player can bet on a number. If they guess correctly they win 35x.
10. Three-Dragon Ante: Each player buys into the game, then secretly rolls 3d6 and records the result of each of their dice (threes are equal to zero). Then players may place their bets or yield. Once all bets are equal between the remaining players, the players reveal their dice. The player with the lowest total result wins the game.
11. Blisters: Each player places their bet, then rolls 1d12 in public and 1d12 in secret and totals their results. The highest total result, without going over 24, will win the game. After their initial roll, a player may choose to stay with their total or they may choose to add 1d12 to their results until they reach a satisfying total or go over 24. Each additional d12 is rolled publicly.
12. Cho-Han: You roll 2d6 secretly and guess if the total is Cho (Even) or Han (Odd). Players could gamble against an NPC or against eachother!
13. The Hunt: Before play can begin, players must agree on the value of a ‘swing’ and a ‘miss’. The swing is usually assigned a lower value. For example: a ‘swing’ may costs 1 GP, and a ‘miss’ may costs 2 GP. Then, each player ‘swings’ by rolling 2d4. If the roll result is a double, the player ‘Hits’, any other result is a ‘miss’. Each time a player 'swings' they must place the agreed upon value in front of them in a stack. Each time a player 'misses' they must place the agreed upon value in front of them in a separate stack. Once a player has scored a total of three hits they have finished and may stop ‘swinging’. When all the players have finished, the player who has placed the least amount of money on the table wins. In the event of a tie, those players divide the winnings evenly.
14. Golf: Each player in Turn rolls a D20. Whoever gets 18 different numbers first, wins. (Different numbers equal missed shots)
15. Hydra: A dice game where the two players begin by rolling opposed d4s, and whoever has the lower number now rolls a d6. The game continues, escalating the die size until someone rolls an 11 or more, at which point they win.
16. Forty Two Knights of Nidar: From 3 or more rounds, select the die result which gets your total closest to 42 without going over. Using at most 1 instance of each of the following set: Roll Initiative, or a skill (and narratively framing said use in game) using INT, WIS, or CHA as base, your opponent then chooses a skill from the set (framing skill-use in game), as an opposed check. No skill may be used twice by the same player. The DM may apply a modifier to each roll, for the effective difficulty of using said skills in a fantasy gambling card-game. For each opposed roll, save the result of each die rolled (Before bonuses; If a roll uses Advantage or Disadvantage, etc, use both dice.) The results on the dice (before bonuses) are placed in a list. The winner of each opposed match may choose which value to apply to their total from the list, or may exchange one of their previously selected dice with a newly selected one from the list. Once used, the die roll in the list is discarded. After the winner of the round chooses, then the loser chooses from the remaining set to either add or swap one element from the list. The rounds continue until one player chooses to fold, fails to match an ante, or gets higher than 42 as their total. More than 2 players may play in this fashion.
17. Swindle stones: Each player has 2 to 5 d4, and roll in secret. They then guess or “bid” on what was rolled that must increase, first by value then by repeated numbers. As an example: one 3, then two 2s, then two 3s, three 1s etc... until a player believes the other has busted and calls. The dice are then revealed, if the dice show what was bid they win and the one who called loses a die, if the dice do not the one who last bid loses a die. The game ends when a player is out of dice. And the one who has dice left at the end wins the game.
18. Orc Roulette: 1d10 rolls, a 1 means you chop off one of your own fingers, a 10 means your opponent of your choosing has to roll a 10 or chop off one of their own fingers
19. Viper's Kiss: A venomous snake is kept in a bag on the table. The pot increases until someone rolls snake-eyes (0s on 2D10s). Whoever rolls snake-eyes has to reach into the bag, pull out the snake, and kiss it. (Roll dex higher then the snake) If theyre bitten, the last roller gets the pot, if not, the snake-kisser gets the pot.
20. Acey-duecey: 2D6. Every roll of 7 or 11 ups the pot by at least the ante, rolling a 1 and 2 (acey-duecey,) wins the pot and all other players finish their current container of drink
21. Who Buys: Everyone rolls a 1D6, lowest roll buys the next round. Ties go to 1v1 roll-offs
22. Cheat-to-win: Two players roll equal-sided dice simultaneously for the high value after the roll they can decide to roll themselves or make the apponent reroll. Loser takes two shots of hard drink or a full mug of ale/wine.
23. Familiar pocket-monster battle: Those who can summon a familiar (demon/elemental/beast) must summon their familiar to roll the dice for them, highest roll familiar gets to inflict damage against all other familiars. First incapacitated or dead familiar loses and the summoner must summon a new familiar and lend it, for one task only, to the winner of the last round at a later date, OR the summoner must gift the familiar of the winner of the last round with a magical charm/trinket of at least +1 strength in any attribute
24. Middle's 7: The player makes their bet/ante and chooses between Upper, Lower, or Middle 7. The house rolls 2d6 and if the player correctly guessed the sum was above or below 7, they double their money, and triple it if they correctly guessed it'd be exactly 7.
25. Weighted Scales: This game heavily favors the house, but the odds can be made better by changing the dice to d4s. The player makes their bet/ante, and then chooses a number from 1-6. The house rolls 3d6, and the player wins their bet back once for each roll that matches their number. (So they can win up to triple their bet)
26. Five to One: Player Rolls d4+d20 If d4 Equals d20 x$5 Pay-out. If d4 Greater than d20 x$2 Pay-out. Otherwise Lose.
27. Race to 30: Each Turn Every Player Rolls 2d6, if any Dice Roll a One (1) instead it is treated as 2d6 from now on. Ei, if a 1,4 was Rolled, it would be 2d6+4 for that Turn, and next Turn onwards that Player would Roll 3d6 (if they didn't Roll any more 1s). First Player to 30 Wins! (They will need to have Rolled Multiple 1s, though they can be on separate Turns, as they are Cumulative).
28. Stones: The player(s) are given a pair of bone dice.. 1d6 and 1d4 If the player rolls above a 7 they double their bet. If they roll under 7 they lose their bet.. If a player manages to roll the same number on both dice.. (1,1 2,2 3,3 or 4,4) They win triple their bet.

Most on line casino video games are sport of hazard in which both casinos and gamers have identical threat of prevailing. But, the reality shows that the casinos are the winner within the lengthy runs. Most players will lose their cash back to on line casino no matter how plenty he/she wins previously.
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The House Edge
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If you play on game which has residence fringe of 5.56% as opposed to 2.78%, meaning that you'll lose your money twice as fast as inside the 2d one. Now why you lose the money quicker in sure video games than others?
Maximum Limit
In any casino games, it's miles very commonplace to have runs of five, 6 or even 15 consecutive outcomes of black or purple, high or low, even or ordinary; however it does not take place in any on line casino inside the earth to have 50 consecutive same results. This approach that if the casino did now not vicinity a maximum betting restrict and the participant has enough money to double his/her betting each time he/she lose, the player will wins lower back his/her money plus one chip.
That's why the casino protects itself from wealthy players who play with this method via introducing maximum restrict on all casino games. If the player maintains double up the having a bet, he/she will be able to lose money if the outcomes preserve turn as much as the opposite results and in the end hit the maximum limit.
Psychology Factor
Do you note that maximum gamers who win money need to win extra; they will hold to live at desk until they lose all their cash. The identical situation take place on the players who lose cash, they may try to cover the cash misplaced through making a bet extra until they lose all cash they have got in hand.
This is the psychology element that makes the casinos stay the winner at longer term. The casino might not worry even you win massive money due to the fact they recognize they will get back your winnings plus your money ultimately.
There are many making a bet strategies that published on numerous e-books that educate the participant the way to win cash from casino. Theoretically the strategies will paintings if the participant well implements the strategies. But the reality suggests that most gamers will flip grasping once they win and neglect about their strategies; what they want is maintain win and win massive. That's why they overlook about the techniques, and bet primarily based on their greedy conduct. This is how most gamers lose money to casino inside the long runs.
Summary
Players lose their money to casinos because of the 3 key elements: house edge, maximum limit and psychology factor. The "residence area" and "maximum restrict" are preset via casinos to shield their advantage and also you can not trade them. But, in case you want to make a few winnings from casinos, then you definitely want to work on "psychology factor" by way of staying with your betting techniques and controlling your grasping conduct.

For the past 10 days I've been doing most roulettes (excluding MS, Guildhests, Mentor, and Frontlines) to stock up on mats and tomes for the patch. Some people say that I'm cursed with how many dumbos I see in DF but really I think it's just DF that's cursed and I just queue for stuff more often than they do .
So for some extra fun ("fun") this batch of roulette grinding, I decided to record a journal/collection of all the dumb shit I see, so this post is basically a collection of "mini-tales" which wouldn't be worth more than a Rage Thread comment on their own.
tl;dr: Just a bunch of mini-tales from DF and some numbers.
First, some general notes:

• This is only stuff I actually noticed. In particular, trials and raids often just pull as soon as the gate's down so I don't look at gear as much there, and I generally don't comb the logs of lower-end-of-mediocre DPS (of which there are a ton) so these numbers are definitely not absolute.
• I roll a random job for each queue so most numbers would likely be higher if I never played that role myself.
• I tried to keep the notes on really petty shit to a minimum.
• In Alliance Raids I generally only paid attention to my own party, although "deaths to " counts include the entire raid.

Secondly, the list of duties I got:

• Expert: 7 Cosmos, 3 Anamnesis
• L80: 5 Amaurot, 2 Twinning, 3 Akadaemia
• L50/60/70: 2 ARF and 1 each of Wanderer's Palace, Halatali Hard, Snowcloak, Sastasha Hard, Amdapor Keep Hard, Sohm Al Hard, Temple of the Fist, and Hells' Lid
• Leveling: 1 each of Copperbell, Halatali, Sunken Temple, Stone Vigil, Bardam's Mettle, Doma Castle, Dohn Mheg, Qitana Ravel, Malikah's Well, and Titan
• Trials: 3 Lakshmi (why) and 1 each of Steps of Faith, ARR Chimera, Dragon's Neck, Shiva, Susano, Titania, and Innocence
• Alliance: 4 LotA, 2 Syrcus, and 1 each of WoD, Dun Scaith, Ridorana, and Factory
• Normal: 1 O2, 1 O9, and 2 each of O10, E5, E6, and E7

Next, some overall metrics:
Again, this is only stuff that I actually noticed. And obviously some of these only apply to some types of content while others are universal.

• 19 healers who primarily heal using C1/B1/Physick or M2/AH/Succor. Doesn't count competent healers mainly DPS'ing and using an M2 on the occasional raidwide or whatever; specifically counting those curebots who spam M2 the entire fight.
• 15 healers doing zero-ish DPS. Huge overlap with the above.
• 9 tanks who either regularly lost aggro or failed to pick up mobs.
• 6 level 80's who didn't get their free 430 gear.
• 5 groups where an AoE LB was available and not used on a big pull. This would probably be higher but I don't trust ranged to know how to LB anymore so if I'm melee I'll fire the LB on the second boss if it's up.
• 5 tanks doing baby half-pulls. Not counting sprouts in pre-50 dungeons.
• 4 players doing single-target DPS on large packs. Surprised it was this low.
• 4 tanks who don't use cooldowns.
• 3 Clemency Paladins.
• 3 Dance Partners on Tank/Healer. Not counting situations where this is the correct play.
• 3 Jolt Mages.
• 3 players wearing at least one piece of NQ Neo-Ishgardian.
• 3 raises after a boss was dead.
• 3 groups with tanks bouncing aggro.
• 3 groups where I was top DPS as either tank or healer.
• 3 white mages not using Holy.
• 3 players wearing accessories with the wrong primary stat.
• 2 Alliance Raid groups where the tanks didn't gather big trash packs for AoE.
• 2 players who ran away with a stack marker.
• 1 group with baddies with the same last name.
• 1 base class above Brayflox.
• 1 awful raise macro.

Duty-specific metrics:

• 2 OHKOs from standing in Self-Destruct in Haltali Normal.
• 1 death to DoT + Tail Screw in Sastasha Hard.
• 2 players wearing unaugmented shire in Bardam's/Doma.
• 4 total adds released on The Twinning's first boss (over 2 runs).
• 3 players in Grand Cosmos running the tether to the other side of the planet. This was lower than expected.
• 6 deaths to not using Vril on Lakshmi (over 3 runs).
• 3 deaths to walking right off the edge with the AoE circle on Lakshmi (over 3 runs). This is 3 different people. ???
• 1 run of LotA where Atomos is slow due to half a group being teleported to A.
• 19 total deaths to Ecliptic Meteor in LotA (over 4 runs).
• 1 Ancient Flare wipe.
• 14 total deaths to a shielded Ancient Flare in LotA (over 4 runs).
• 8 total deaths to Curtain Call in Syrcus Tower (over 2 runs).
• 6 deaths to Doom in WoD.

And finally, duty-specific mini-tales:
(In DF window order, not chronological order)

• Halatali: On the second boss, the tank held the boss and most of the sprites in the lightning water, out of range of us ranged DPS on the safe land.
• Sunken Temple: Joined in-progress after a first boss wipe. Both DPS tunnel-visioned on the golem boss instead of the soulstone multiple times.
• Stone Vigil: Joined in-progress after the first boss. Tank held the second boss on the cannons, causing a cleave to interrupt our clicking, leading to a wipe. DRG was afk without saying anything for half of both boss fights. BLM was afk without saying anything for the double-pulls after the second boss; he at least apologized when back but his absence led to a wipe due to my MP completely running out.
• Halatali Hard: Starring an Arcanist (no stone) using Topaz Carbuncle, spamming Ruin II, barely using DoTs, wearing some mid-40's gear. Somehow actually used the LB appropriately, which even otherwise competent casters seem to struggle with. The tank baby-pulled the whole place and kept losing aggro with stance on, yet was somehow still out-DPS'ing the SAM. Also they killed the Manticore first instead of the annoying mage.
• Snowcloak: Another DRG who just randomly afk's for several minutes without warning.
• Research Facility: A MNK still wearing mostly level 50 gear, not even augmented ironworks. Yet another DRG who would just randomly afk for minutes at a time without saying anything. Kicked and replaced, no further issues. What is with these dragoons???
• Sohm Al Hard: A cursed run with a tank who loses aggro, a healer who barely DPS's, and a SAM who doesn't AoE.
• Doma Castle: Tank pulls giant to next pack, disconnects and dies. We kill the giant and wipe, tank comes back, does two single pulls for the rest of the room. Proceeds to try a suicide pull after the first boss, causing another wipe. 25-minute run.
• Dohn Mheg: A BRD who used every ability up to level 18 but never used a single ability above level 18 (not counting auto-replacements) except Arm's Length for no reason. Oddly, this isn't the first time I've seen this exact behavior; I forget which content but a few months ago I saw a MNK who used nothing above 18 except useless Arm's Lengths. I don't remember their names so I kinda wonder if it was the same guy.
• Qitana Ravel: Does a suicide pull near the start (pulling all the packs into the big guy's room), doesn't actually get aggro on everything.
• Amaurot: Joined a 28-min in-progress run at the final boss as DPS, starring a Clemency Paladin and a Physick Scholar with the same last name. I fucked up and died early (accidentally pressed SAM's gap closer instead of backstep) and Cap'n Physick hard-rezzed the BRD who walked off the edge and just left me on the floor until they wiped several minutes later.
• Akadaemia Anyder: See Cosmos notes below. Queued into the same Clown Mage in here after that run, still have no idea what they're doing beyond mashing buttons at random.
• Grand Cosmos: A freestyle BLM for whom I just could not make any sense of wtf their "rotation" was supposed to be. They had the evenstar set glammed, fitting for a Clown Mage. A different run was a 26-min cursed run starring a tank who +1'd every single tank-related "overall metric" above, and special guest star DRG who stands in every damn thing. To balance the scales, today's final run of Expert Cosmos was a miracle group of competent people, including two melee DPS, and not one of them ran the stupid tether away.
• Titan Normal: SAM gets landslided during heart phase. WHM curebots the fuck out of Medica 1 and Cure 1.
• Relic Reborn Chimera: This one's my fuckup, I clipped the ice breath on MNK and being heavied snowballed into getting hit with every damn AoE, especially because the tank wasn't moving it out of the ice circles. I still lived but my ego died a bit.
• Dragon's Neck: SAM died early somehow and the healers seemingly didn't even try to raise him.
• Shiva: Not a wipe but somehow a total shitshow with 12 deaths. Split damage not being split Tank buster cleave pointed at the group definitely killed a couple of people and it just kinda snowballed (haha) from there.
• Susano: NIN wearing i200 AF, doesn't use Trick Attack, opened and closed with cringy multiple-text-line RP macros and had an LB text macro as well. The less competent of the two tanks wasn't wearing a helmet at all (empty slot) and as less-competent tanks do, he insisted on being MT, opening the fight by running around like a headless chicken for no reason. Also got one-shot by a tank buster due to no cooldowns.
• Lakshmi: An OT who stood in front, popped cooldowns, and didn't seem to realize he wasn't actually tanking. A MCH with early ARR-level accessories. A PLD who somehow died at the very beginning before anything happened; I think he walked off the edge? Two people died due to an underpopulated stack marker.
• Labyrinth of the Ancients: Some jerks stepped off their pad just long enough to lose my MNK stacks :(. A level 60 DNC using level 1 accessories. In a run with only two ranged DPS, they both ran up to Atomos leaving the SAMs stuck on the pad. When I suggested they swap, got told "stop being biased against class this isn't ultimate content", completely missing the point. At least two people left after King Behemoth thinking he was the last boss.
• Syrcus Tower: Someone was giving quick one-line explanations for the common fatal mechanics like Curtain Call, causing some guy to go on a tantrum over the entire final boss with the usual "everyone should know everything because this is old content" nonsense. Having to stand around and wait for loot rolls (muh desynth) because some couple went to go ERP in the corner instead of rolling.
• Eden's Verse Iconoclasm (E7): Joined 20-mins in-progress. It was a 12-minute kill with 15 total deaths. I was top DPS as WAR. Two AH/Succor spammers. BRD doesn't sing. PLD doesn't Goring, uses Holy Circle on one target, no Holy Spirit.

I considered holding off on this until after my post-patch roulette grinding to upgrade my Neo-Ishgardian stuff, but figured since roulettes are getting shaken up a bit anyway I might as well just post now. Also I know I had "fun" in quotes at the top but recording this stuff actually did turn things like "baby-pulling tank who doesn't use cooldowns" from "ugh this guy is a moron and this run sucks" to "hell yeah, +1's to the collection! Will he lose aggro next and complete the set!?"
Maybe I'll do something similar for the post-patch grind, depending on feedback to this one. Might consider brainstorming things to watch out for in the next one instead of making it up on the fly, especially for instance-specific "deaths to X mechanic" counters. If anyone has any ideas for notorious mechanics that kill people in roulettes, let me know!

In The Triumphant Story of the Perky Heroine, OP stars as a 13yo brat, getting her feral sass on because that's the JNMIL format to protect her Avoidant & Invisible SO from Evil MIL, an undeveloped character with all the panache of a sock puppet. Oddly enough, the writer ends up blaming a 7yo for the abuse the poor little tyke suffered. /facepalm/

His SMIL treated him like this because he refused to call her mom or even stepmom he would always introduce her as his father's wife.

Quelle horreur. It gets worse, because of course it does.

My husband thanked me and gave me the biggest kiss. For some reason when she is around he still feels like that little boy he tells me so I feel the need to protect that little guy that still in my husband.

Ummm... anyhoo! What a deviant, evil mind the OP has. I wouldn't trust the writer not to stick me with the bill, but they'd be worth the cost of a drunken evening out... in a grown-up bar, with warm, close air and people everywhere, just everywhere--
For a toss-off, two paragraph story, this packs quite the Entitled Princess punch. The Final Word trope is a given, of course. A Critical Reader desperately looking for something to do they haven't done a THOUSAND TIMES in the last six months - ha!ha!ha! don't cough on me! - can earn big imaginary wampum playing a quick game of Socially-Distanced JustNo Bingo with this foot-stompy little tribute to the fetid, antebellum culture of the JustNo Network.
But there is a rumble in the arid mountains of Trashy Fiction that is JUSTNOMIL - what''s happening, guys? Because a new Lockdown is coming, and I've been breathing the Worst Air On The Planet for freaking DAYS and who knows when Trump's shaking hand will be guided to the Roulette Wheel for Winning Elections. Portland's got more than one ball rolling around the wheel, and all the slots are labelled 'End Democracy With A Bang!' So what' with all the whimpering?

Bookish[M] 49 minutes ago stickied comment
We're already seeing way too much JustNoBehavior rule breaking here. This is the only warning. Any further rule-breaking and the comments will be locked.

Oh my... I must away, those comments sound juicy-- hmm. There are (at this time) 78 comments entered and 0 removed. wtf? That's an OVER-REACTION from the mod, then. What's up with that? Hmm...
Bucketing wildly through the OP's cheering crowds, there is a teeeeeny-tiny block of orange, off-down in the cheap seats; they were censored, as were the names of the commentators. Naughty commentators are Vanished from existence like they're sporting gonads in JN fiction... this is going to put a real hitch in the TruthLadies git-a-long! They do so love bravely throwing TruthFeces and running home to boast; its like counting coup to point to their antisocial enshrinement on notabug! All that rainstick toting, inter-sub Shiny Backbone-- lost! :)
You know what might have inspired such a dire threat from the BookieMod? It might be the blatant over-praise and side-winks by the commentators. Might maybe be! The carnies don't much like when the rubes point at the wires and mirrors and laugh, but then again, the Network left credibility behind yoiks ago. Its more like interactive theatre in the JN Network these days, so many audience tongues are pressed into cheeks as they cheer on the clowns.
Baby wants to wear big girl pants? 'Hoosabigrrl!'

Wow you are a literal angel! I'm sure your DH knows how lucky is he is to have you!! 😇😇😇
Justice boner achieved, goddamn I wish I could've seen her face as you hung up on her!
This is so wholesome, I honestly love this story so much and I congratulate you on the response!
What an awesome job of standing up for your husband. I know I’m always promoting people handling their own families, but all of us need a little help sometimes and you did a great job of keeping him from having to deal with her ugliness.
You’re his shero!!! Brilliant rescue on your part.
Geez. That’s terrible. Your FIL should have left her! If I ever found out that my SO was mistreating my child from a different marriage, they’re out!

/screechy noise/ Okay, the comments have built into one of those Regressive-Conservative Culture things that needs to be recognized when encountered. If you're a feminist, now is the time to get all activated and voicey.
The 'greater vs lesser' nonsense. Men are mentally and emotionally focused on the Big World of Imporant Things, outside the household. Women are glued to Domestic Service... go ahead, count the ways the writer has made her OP into a demanding beast of burden: 'Load ALL your needs on my otherwise purely self-involved back, darling, for thou hast danglies and only I can prevent your collapse at the thought of having to do Emotion!' No dude should have to say 'no' on the phone. Its asking too much.
Its been posited that men have eyes, ears, minds, and devious motivations, just like real people. They live silently in the houses-built-of-surveillance-equipment the JustNo dramas play out in. They go on the emotionally-fraught family camping trips, sit at table listening to the silently appalled restaurant, observe the loonies as they wind themselves up, give advice on positioning the pail of poisoned water over the outhouse door. But they just LIVE there! Its not like the men of the JustNo Network are cast as the lynch pins that tie the breast-based combatants together. I mean, seriously? Its not like escalating family dysfunction is Manly Business! (It so is.)
DANGLIES REMOVE RESPONSIBILITY AND EXPECTATIONS.
Right. So-- lets fantasize or a moment that men don't exist solely as wallets and MacGuffins, because it gets worse that way.
IRL, our red-blooded, mayhem-loving culture doesn't just absolve men of Not Adulting - it refuses to recognize their responsibility to take active part in a personal life. They're just too fragile; besides, there's always a woman handy to take phone calls, draw lines, multitask every minute they're awake, and raise the next generation. Meanwhile, the men who can't move without a hand shoved up their backside somehow live astonishingly carefree, autonomous domestic lives somewhere off-stage.
MOVING ON, because feminism is a self-taught thing--
OP's fan club's nervous nelly chimes in:

You're bloody awesome but might wanna be prepared incase EvilStepshite shows up.

OP's response?

I wish that bitch would she got the right one.

... nice. At which point occurs censoring and WE'LL NEVER KNOW WHAT WENT ON! Somehow I think we'll all survive. For some a blessing, for others a curse.
Even *further* down the rabbit hole we run into an old friend, the first and only - in nearly 100 comments - to bring up the burning question of Gender Equality. Knowing the game as well as FeatherFall101 does -- hi, featherfeets! what an impenetrable new mask you're wearing today! -- the commentator upped the Excess ante and then got to her point:

Good of her to warn you she was coming so you can set up the security cameras, double check all the locks on all the doors and windows are sturdy, put down salt circles to kerp the demons away and stock up on food, snacks and video games and bunker down until she goes off home again.
What was FIL doing when she was abusing you husband?

OP's response--

Nothing telling him she was trying to make a man out of him

--said the writer who was done flipping through the Big Book of Little Tropes. But am I upset with this lack of backstory? No! First, because I found my favorite exchange:
Winkie the Commentator:

Your husband picked a winner for his wife! Smart guy.

OP, laying it on with a trowel:

I'm the lucky one he is an awesome husband and would go to bat for me against my family even though I don't need it, I have zero problems w telling people how to go fuck themselves.

Expat Truth Poster:

I love how you phrased that, OP... Not just that you have no problem telling them to go fuck themselves, but that you'd give them specific instructions on how they should do so.

Little known fact: Nanny Ogg regularly takes the mickey without Granny - or BookieMod - noticing.

HAHAHA

Second reason I don't mind the shoddy workmanship of this deadly little tale of social disintegration and moral turpitude? I'm watching featherfeets smooze around the comments, coincidentally IDing her fellow JustNoTruthers under *their* new masks! They do love to congregate and cheer for each other while bombing other subs; its just weird how they always do that.
Now WHO could "Lillianrik" possibly be? :)

Is there an applause emoticon I can us?

FeatherFall, featherfeet... does it REALLY matter what alt we've got on? on Reddit? when you've been banned? ... Yes? I mean, Yes! It actually does.

👏👏👏
Here you go! 🎉

The writer's OP does NOT like the attention wandering away from her flaired SUCCESS! So we'll get back to her snippy little slice-of-life.
Sure sign of a Mary Sue: the OP is a 3-D walking disaster area, character on full display, feelings shrilled to the sky. The other characters are pale imitations of the OP, ghostly marionettes that jump on and offstage on command. When you have a Mary Sue, you get bleed-over from the writer -- the pettiness and firm grip on childhood gripes tells you the writer goes through a pimply boyfriend every two weeks, gets grounded regularly and deservedly, and has been raised as a good christian; for that reason or any other, she's lying around tonight sowing the Seeds of Conservative Evil on the internet. As one does.
Now lets talk more about her! Fawning Commentator?

I absolutely love that you shut it down. This is all it takes people. Shut this shit down. Love it!!

NOW the writer's inspired! "Talk about Me, about my Mary Sue, not those boring stock characters with all the charm of a flan in a cupboard!" Then again, her OP has all the savoir faire of a home schooled tween:

You can mess with a lot of things but you mess with my husband and my gloves come off my hair gets tied up in a scarf and I whip out some vaseline.

... okay. Everyone good? Because despite still not knowing why BookMod came down like thunker on OP's horrifically saccharine supporters-- we're done here.
.the bug you want is here

Congratulations! You just won millions of dollars in the lottery! That's great.
Now you're fucked.
No really.
You are.
You're fucked.
If you just want to skip the biographical tales of woe of some of the math-tax protagonists, skip on down to the next comment. To see what to do in the event you win the lottery.
You see, it's something of an open secret that winners of obnoxiously large jackpots tend to end up badly with alarming regularity. Not the $1 million dollar winners. But anyone in the nine-figure range is at high risk. Eight-figures? Pretty likely to be screwed. Seven-figures? Yep. Painful. Perhaps this is a consequence of the sample. The demographics of lottery players might be exactly the wrong people to win large sums of money. Or perhaps money is the root of all evil. Either way, you are going to have to be careful. Don't believe me? Consider this:
Large jackpot winners face double digit multiples of probability versus the general population to be the victim of:
1. Homicide (something like 20x more likely)
2. Drug overdose
3. Bankruptcy (how's that for irony?)
4. Kidnapping
And triple digit multiples of probability versus the general population rate to be:
1. Convicted of drunk driving
2. The victim of Homicide (at the hands of a family member) 120x more likely in this case, ain't love grand?
3. A defendant in a civil lawsuit
4. A defendant in felony criminal proceedings
Believe it or not, your biggest enemy if you suddenly become possessed of large sums of money is... you. At least you will have the consolation of meeting your fate by your own hand. But if you can't manage it on your own, don't worry. There are any number of willing participants ready to help you start your vicious downward spiral for you. Mind you, many of these will be "friends," "friendly neighbors," or "family." Often, they won't even have evil intentions. But, as I'm sure you know, that makes little difference in the end. Most aren't evil. Most aren't malicious. Some are. None are good for you.
Jack Whittaker, a Johnny Cash attired, West Virginia native, is the poster boy for the dangers of a lump sum award. In 2002 Mr. Whittaker (55 years old at the time) won what was, also at the time, the largest single award jackpot in U.S. history. $315 million. At the time, he planned to live as if nothing had changed, or so he said. He was remarkably modest and decent before the jackpot, and his ship sure came in, right? Wrong.
Mr. Whittaker became the subject of a number of personal challenges, escalating into personal tragedies, complicated by a number of legal troubles.
Whittaker wasn't a typical lottery winner either. His net worth at the time of his winnings was in excess of $15 million, owing to his ownership of a successful contracting firm in West Virginia. His claim to want to live "as if nothing had changed" actually seemed plausible. He should have been well equipped for wealth. He was already quite wealthy, after all. By all accounts he was somewhat modest, low profile, generous and good natured. He should have coasted off into the sunset. Yeah. Not exactly.
Whittaker took the all-cash option, $170 million, instead of the annuity option, and took possession of $114 million in cash after $56 million in taxes. After that, things went south.
Whittaker quickly became the subject of a number of financial stalkers, who would lurk at his regular breakfast hideout and accost him with suggestions for how to spend his money. They were unemployed. No, an interview tomorrow morning wasn't good enough. They needed cash NOW. Perhaps they had a sure-fire business plan. Their daughter had cancer. A niece needed dialysis. Needless to say, Whittaker stopped going to his breakfast haunt. Eventually, they began ringing his doorbell. Sometimes in the early morning. Before long he was paying off-duty deputies to protect his family. He was accused of being heartless. Cold. Stingy.
Letters poured in. Children with cancer. Diabetes. MS. You name it. He hired three people to sort the mail. A detective to filter out the false claims and the con men (and women) was retained.
Brenda, the clerk who had sold Whittaker the ticket, was a victim of collateral damage. Whittaker had written her a check for $44,000 and bought her house, but she was by no means a millionaire. Rumors that the state routinely paid the clerk who had sold the ticket 10% of the jackpot winnings hounded her. She was followed home from work. Threatened. Assaulted.
Whittaker's car was twice broken into, by trusted acquaintances who watched him leave large amounts of cash in it. $500,000 and $200,000 were stolen in two separate instances. The thieves spiked Whittaker's drink with prescription drugs in the first instance. The second incident was the handiwork of his granddaughter's friends, who had been probing the girl for details on Whittaker's cash for weeks.
Even Whittaker's good-faith generosity was questioned. When he offered $10,000 to improve the city's water park so that it was more handicap accessible, locals complained that he spent more money at the strip club. (Amusingly this was true).
Whittaker invested quite a bit in his own businesses, tripled the number of people his businesses employed (making him one of the larger employers in the area) and eventually had given away $14 million to charity through a foundation he set up for the purpose. This is, of course, what you are "supposed" to do. Set up a foundation. Be careful about your charity giving. It made no difference in the end.
To top it all off, Whittaker had been accused of ruining a number of marriages. His money made other men look inferior, they said, wherever he went in the small West Virginia town he called home. Resentment grew quickly. And festered. Whittaker paid four settlements related to this sort of claim. Yes, you read that right. Four.
His family and their immediate circle were quickly the victims of odds-defying numbers of overdoses, emergency room visits and even fatalities. His granddaughter, the eighteen year old "Brandi" (who Whittaker had been giving a $2100.00 per week allowance) was found dead after having been missing for several weeks. Her death was, apparently, from a drug overdose, but Whittaker suspected foul play. Her body had been wrapped in a tarp and hidden behind a rusted-out van. Her seventeen year old boyfriend had expired three months earlier in Whittaker's vacation house, also from an overdose. Some of his friends had robbed the house after his overdose, stepping over his body to make their escape and then returning for more before stepping over his body again to leave. His parents sued for wrongful death claiming that Whittaker's loose purse strings contributed to their son's death. Amazingly, juries are prone to award damages in cases such as these. Whittaker settled. Again.
Even before the deaths, the local and state police had taken a special interest in Whittaker after his new-found fame. He was arrested for minor and less minor offenses many times after his winnings, despite having had a nearly spotless record before the award. Whittaker's high profile couldn't have helped him much in this regard.
In 18 months Whittaker had been cited for over 250 violations ranging from broken tail lights on every one of his five new cars, to improper display of renewal stickers. A lawsuit charging various police organizations with harassment went nowhere and Whittaker was hit with court costs instead.
Whittaker's wife filed for divorce, and in the process froze a number of his assets and the accounts of his operating companies. Caesars in Atlantic City sued him for $1.5 million to cover bounced checks, caused by the asset freeze.
Today Whittaker is badly in debt, and bankruptcy looms large in his future.
But, hey, that's just one example, right?
Wrong.
Nearly one third of multi-million dollar jackpot winners eventually declare bankruptcy. Some end up worse. To give you just a taste of the possibilities, consider the fates of:

• Billie Bob Harrell, Jr.: $31 million. Texas, 1997. As of 1999: Committed suicide in the wake of incessant requests for money from friends and family. “Winning the lottery is the worst thing that ever happened to me.
  
• William âBud❠Post: $16.2 million. Pennsylvania. 1988. In 1989: Brother hires a contract murderer to kill him and his sixth wife. Landlady sued for portion of the jackpot. Convicted of assault for firing a gun at a debt collector. Declared bankruptcy. Dead in 2006.
  
• Evelyn Adams: $5.4 million (won TWICE 1985, 1986). As of 2001: Poor and living in a trailer gave away and gambled most of her fortune.
  
• Suzanne Mullins: $4.2 million. Virginia. 1993. As of 2004: No assets left.
  
• Shefik Tallmadge: $6.7 million. Arizona. 1988. As of 2005: Declared bankruptcy.
  
• Thomas Strong: $3 million. Texas. 1993. As of 2006: Died in a shoot-out with police.
  
• Victoria Zell: $11 million. 2001. Minnesota. As of 2006: Broke. Serving seven year sentence for vehicular manslaughter.
  
• Karen Cohen: $1 million. Illinois. 1984. As of 2000: Filed for bankruptcy. As of 2006: Sentenced to 22 months for lying to federal bankruptcy court.
  
• Jeffrey Dampier: $20 million. Illinois. 1996. As of 2006: Kidnapped and murdered by own sister-in-law.
  
• Ed Gildein: $8.8 million. Texas. 1993. As of 2003: Dead. Wife saddled with his debts. As of 2005: Wife sued by her own daughter who claimed that she was taking money from a trust fund and squandering cash in Las Vegas.
  
• Willie Hurt: $3.1 million. Michigan. 1989. As of 1991: Addicted to cocaine. Divorced. Broke. Indicted for murder.
  
• Michael Klingebiel: $2 million. As of 1998 sued by own mother claiming he failed to share the jackpot with her.
  
• Janite Lee: $18 million. 1993. Missouri. As of 2001: Filed for bankruptcy with $700 in assets.
  

So, what the hell DO you do if you are unlucky enough to win the lottery?
This is the absolutely most important thing you can do right away: NOTHING.
Yes. Nothing.
DO NOT DECLARE YOURSELF THE WINNER yet.
Do NOT tell anyone. The urge is going to be nearly irresistible. Resist it. Trust me.
1. IMMEDIATELY retain an attorney.
Get a partner from a larger, NATIONAL firm. Don't let them pawn off junior partners or associates on you. They might try, all law firms might, but insist instead that your lead be a partner who has been with the firm for awhile. Do NOT use your local attorney. Yes, I mean your long-standing family attorney who did your mother's will. Do not use the guy who fought your dry-cleaner bill. Do not use the guy you have trusted your entire life because of his long and faithful service to your family. In fact, do not use any firm that has any connection to family or friends or community. TRUST me. This is bad. You want someone who has never heard of you, any of your friends, or any member of your family. Go the the closest big city and walk into one of the national firms asking for one of the "Trust and Estates" partners you have previously looked up on http://www.martindale.com from one of the largest 50 firms in the United States which has an office near you. You can look up attornies by practice area and firm on Martindale.
2. Decide to take the lump sum.
Most lotteries pay a really pathetic rate for the annuity. It usually hovers around 4.5% annual return or less, depending. It doesn't take much to do better than this, and if you have the money already in cash, rather than leaving it in the hands of the state, you can pull from the capital whenever you like. If you take the annuity you won't have access to that cash. That could be good. It could be bad. It's probably bad unless you have a very addictive personality. If you need an allowance managed by the state, it is because you didn't listen to point #1 above.
Why not let the state just handle it for you and give you your allowance?
Many state lotteries pay you your "allowence" (the annuity option) by buying U.S. treasury instruments and running the interest payments through their bureaucracy before sending it to you along with a hunk of the principal every month. You will not be beating inflation by much, if at all. There is no reason you couldn't do this yourself, if a low single-digit return is acceptable to you.
You aren't going to get even remotely the amount of the actual jackpot. Take our old friend Mr. Whittaker. Using Whittaker is a good model both because of the reminder of his ignominious decline, and the fact that his winning ticket was one of the larger ones on record. If his situation looks less than stellar to you, you might have a better perspective on how "large" your winnings aren't. Whittaker's "jackpot" was $315 million. He selected the lump-sum cash up-front option, which knocked off $145 million (or 46% of the total) leaving him with $170 million. That was then subject to withholding for taxes of $56 million (33%) leaving him with $114 million.
In general, you should expect to get about half of the original jackpot if you elect a lump sum (maybe better, it depends). After that, you should expect to lose around 33% of your already pruned figure to state and federal taxes. (Your mileage may vary, particularly if you live in a state with aggressive taxation schemes).
3. Decide right now, how much you plan to give to family and friends.
This really shouldn't be more than 20% or so. Figure it out right now. Pick your number. Tell your lawyer. That's it. Don't change it. 20% of $114 million is $22.8 million. That leaves you with $91.2 million. DO NOT CONSULT WITH FAMILY when deciding how much to give to family. You are going to get advice that is badly tainted by conflict of interest, and if other family members find out that Aunt Flo was consulted and they weren't you will never hear the end of it. Neither will Aunt Flo. This might later form the basis for an allegation that Aunt Flo unduly influenced you and a lawsuit might magically appear on this basis. No, I'm not kidding. I know of one circumstance (related to a business windfall, not a lottery) where the plaintiffs WON this case.
Do NOT give anyone cash. Ever. Period. Just don't. Do not buy them houses. Do not buy them cars. Tell your attorney that you want to provide for your family, and that you want to set up a series of trusts for them that will total 20% of your after tax winnings. Tell him you want the trust empowered to fund higher education, some help (not a total) purchase of their first home, some provision for weddings and the like, whatever. Do NOT put yourself in the position of handing out cash. Once you do, if you stop, you will be accused of being a heartless bastard (or bitch). Trust me. It won't go well.
It will be easy to lose perspective. It is now the duty of your friends, family, relatives, hangers-on and their inner circle to skew your perspective, and they take this job quite seriously. Setting up a trust, a managed fund for your family that is in the double digit millions is AMAZINGLY generous. You need never have trouble sleeping because you didn't lend Uncle Jerry $20,000 in small denomination unmarked bills to start his chain of deep-fried peanut butter pancake restaurants. ("Deep'n 'nutter Restaurants") Your attorney will have a number of good ideas how to parse this wealth out without turning your siblings/spouse/children/grandchildren/cousins/waitresses into the latest Paris Hilton.
4. You will be encouraged to hire an investment manager. Considerable pressure will be applied. Don't.
Investment managers charge fees, usually a percentage of assets. Consider this: If they charge 1% (which is low, I doubt you could find this deal, actually) they have to beat the market by 1% every year just to break even with a general market index fund. It is not worth it, and you don't need the extra return or the extra risk. Go for the index fund instead if you must invest in stocks. This is a hard rule to follow. They will come recommended by friends. They will come recommended by family. They will be your second cousin on your mother's side. Investment managers will sound smart. They will have lots of cool acronyms. They will have nice PowerPoint presentations. They might (MIGHT) pay for your shrimp cocktail lunch at TGI Friday's while reminding you how poor their side of the family is. They live for this stuff.
You should smile, thank them for their time, and then tell them you will get back to them next week. Don't sign ANYTHING. Don't write it on a cocktail napkin (lottery lawsuit cases have been won and lost over drunkenly scrawled cocktail napkin addition and subtraction figures with lots of zeros on them). Never call them back. Trust me. You will thank me later. This tactic, smiling, thanking people for their time, and promising to get back to people, is going to have to become familiar. You will have to learn to say no gently, without saying the word "no." It sounds underhanded. Sneaky. It is. And its part of your new survival strategy. I mean the word "survival" quite literally.
Get all this figured out BEFORE you claim your winnings. They aren't going anywhere. Just relax.
5. If you elect to be more global about your paranoia, use between 20.00% and 33.00% of what you have not decided to commit to a family fund IMMEDIATELY to purchase a combination of longer term U.S. treasuries (5 or 10 year are a good idea) and perhaps even another G7 treasury instrument. This is your safety net. You will be protected... from yourself.
You are going to be really tempted to starting being a big investor. You are going to be convinced that you can double your money in Vegas with your awesome Roulette system/by funding your friend's amazing idea to sell Lemming dung/buying land for oil drilling/by shorting the North Pole Ice market (global warming, you know). This all sounds tempting because "Even if I lose it all I still have $XX million left! Anyone could live on that comfortably for the rest of their life." Yeah, except for 33% of everyone who won the lottery.
You're not going to double your money, so cool it. Let me say that again. You're not going to double your money, so cool it. Right now, you'll get around 3.5% on the 10 year U.S. treasury. With $18.2 million (20% of $91.2 mil after your absurdly generous family gift) invested in those you will pull down $638,400 per year. If everything else blows up, you still have that, and you will be in the top 1% of income in the United States. So how about you not fuck with it. Eh? And that's income that is damn safe. If we get to the point where the United States defaults on those instruments, we are in far worse shape than worrying about money.
If you are really paranoid, you might consider picking another G7 or otherwise mainstream country other than the U.S. according to where you want to live if the United States dissolves into anarchy or Britney Spears is elected to the United States Senate. Put some fraction in something like Swiss Government Bonds at 3%. If the Swiss stop paying on their government debt, well, then you know money really means nothing anywhere on the globe anymore. I'd study small field sustainable agriculture if you think this is a possibility. You might have to start feedng yourself.
6. That leaves, say, 80% of $91.2 million or $72.9 million.
Here is where things start to get less clear. Personally, I think you should dump half of this, or $36.4 million, into a boring S&P 500 index fund. Find something with low fees. You are going to be constantly tempted to retain "sophisticated" advisers who charge "nominal fees." Don't. Period. Even if you lose every other dime, you have $638,400 per year you didn't have before that will keep coming in until the United States falls into chaos. Fuck advisers and their fees. Instead, drop your $36.4 million in the market in a low fee vehicle. Unless we have an unprecedented downturn the likes of which the United States has never seen, should return around 7.00% or so over the next 10 years. You should expect to touch not even a dime of this money for 10 or 15 or even 20 years. In 20 years $36.4 million could easily become $115 million.
7. So you have put a safety net in place.
You have provided for your family beyond your wildest dreams. And you still have $36.4 million in "cash." You know you will be getting $638,400 per year unless the capital building is burning, you don't ever need to give anyone you care about cash, since they are provided for generously and responsibly (and can't blow it in Vegas) and you have a HUGE nest egg that is growing at market rates. (Given the recent dip, you'll be buying in at great prices for the market). What now? Whatever you want. Go ahead and burn through $36.4 million in hookers and blow if you want. You've got more security than 99% of the country. A lot of it is in trusts so even if you are sued your family will live well, and progress across generations. If your lawyer is worth his salt (I bet he is) then you will be insulated from most lawsuits anyhow. Buy a nice house or two, make sure they aren't stupid investments though. Go ahead and be an angel investor and fund some startups, but REFUSE to do it for anyone you know. (Friends and money, oil and water - Michael Corleone) Play. Have fun. You earned it by putting together the shoe sizes of your whole family on one ticket and winning the jackpot.

Since the Diamond Casino update, I have seen a large number of 12-year-olds posting Blackjack memes on this sub. As a parent, this has me very worried.
On top of that, I have seen some of the most trustworthy GTA Youtubers giving flawed gambling advice, which can have damaging impact on their gullible audiences.
So that's why I decided to write this up, to educate everyone on the subject, so there will be no more misunderstandings.
(2020 Update down at the bottom.)
If you're one of those Youtubers that wants to use this information in a video, feel free to do so. The more people (especially kids) that become educated about gambling, the better.
But then also please go back and review your own work, and delete or edit the videos that are giving out the wrong advice, like where you're saying you have "a good strategy for making money with roulette", or some other nonsense that I've heard this week. Delete that please.
Before I get into the individual games, I need to discuss a few concepts first, that will make understanding the rest a lot easier.
​
Expected return and variance
A game like Roulette or Slots has a fixed expected return on your bets. This is a percentage that you have no way of influencing. Say you are flipping a coin against a friend, and you both put up $1. The winner gets the pot. Since the odds are even at 50%, in the long run, you will expect to break even. Your expected return is 100% of your bet.
But imagine if you would play this coin flipping game in a casino against the house. On the "house rules" listed at the table they would probably say that you would only get 95 cents back for every win, while you are forfeiting a dollar on every loss. Would you still play?
Sounds stupid to do so, but still, everybody does it. Every bet they place on Roulette, every coin they put into a Slot machine, is based on the same concept.
Those few cents they take on every bet are their profit margin, and has paid for all the Vegas lights, the Mirage volcanoes, and the Bellagio fountains. Make no mistake - casino gambling games are not designed to make you lose, because sure, you can get lucky on a single night, but they are designed to make them win. That's the beauty of it. They can both exist at the same time.
Too many people that don't see how this works, are just destined for disaster. Just because you went on a lucky streak and won 8 games out of 10, does not mean that flipping coins is a profitable game, or that choosing tails is a winning strategy. Always be aware of the house edge, your true chances of winning, and just realize that you got lucky. There is no such thing as a strategy in flipping a coin that will give you a higher expected return, so it's just pure gambling, just like Slots and Roulette.
Most casino games are made in such a way, that your expected return is a little under 100%. This means that from every dollar bet at the tables, the casino expects to keep a few cents. For individual players, results may vary. Some will win, most will lose. But for the house, it doesn't matter. They take millions of bets each day, so for them, the expected average works out a lot sooner. In short: the house always wins.
When looking at the house edge, we're talking about the expected long-term result, based on the game's house rules. But for a player, it can take literally tens of thousands of hands or spins before you also reach this average number. Until that time, you can experience huge upswings and downswings, that are the result of nothing but short-term luck, which is called variance.
Some games and some bets have a much higher variance than others, which means your actual results will differ enormously from what you're expected to be at.
Take for example betting on red/black at the Roulette table. This is a low-variance proposition, because it has a high percentage chance of occurring, and a low payout.
Contrast this with betting single numbers in Roulette, which only win once every 38 spins on average. This bet has a much higher variance, meaning you can easily hit a dry spell, and not hit anything for 200 bets in a row, or you can see a single number hit three times in five consecutive spins. This is not a freak occurrence in high-variance bets.
Even though the expected return in both these bets is exactly the same, there's a huge difference in variance, causing massive differences in short-term results, which can go both ways. You need to be aware of this, before you decide what types of bets you are comfortable with placing.
​
Gamblers' Fallacy
Another thing to realize, is that each individual game, hand, or spin, is completely independent from the one(s) before it, and after it.
Gamblers tend to believe, that the chance of a certain outcome is increased, based on previous results.
The most famous example comes from the Casino de Monte Carlo, where the Roulette wheel managed to land on black 26 times in a row. Gamblers lost many millions during that streak, all frantically betting on red, believing that the odds were in favor of the wheel coming out on red, after producing so many blacks. This is not true. Each round is completely independent, and the odds are exactly the same.
You will hear people say things like a Blackjack table being "hot" or "cold", which is completely superstitious, and should be ignored. The exception was when Blackjack was being dealt from a shoe. It made card counting possible. But with the introduction of shuffle machines, and continuous shuffling like is being used in GTA, this no longer exists.
This is also why "chasing your losses" is a very bad idea. After being on a losing streak for some time, many gamblers believe that now it's their turn to start winning. So they will often increase their bet size, believing that when their predicted winning streak comes around, they will win back their losses, and more.
The reality of it, more often than not, is that people will indeed start playing higher and higher limits, until they are completely broke. Nobody is ever "due for a win". There is never a guarantee that you're about to start winning. In fact, the opposite is more likely to be true. You are, after all, in a casino.
​
Betting systems
Some people like to think that they have a fool-proof betting system, like the Martingale system. Simply increase or even double your bet when you lose, and keep doing that until you win. In theory, this system will always win. So that's why table limits were introduced, and where the system fails.
If you start at the Roulette table, playing red/black, with a small 750 chip wager, and just double your bet every time you lose, you only have to lose 6 times in a row, before you will be betting the table limit of 48,000, just to get that 750 chip profit.
Sure, you can go on all evening without this happening, winning 750 chips each time, but this losing streak only has to happen once, and you're bust. Any betting system like this is ill-advised, because you are hugely increasing your so-called "risk of ruin", and that's what we were trying to avoid.
And even if your starting bet is only 100 chips, after only nine straight losses, and nine doubled bets, you are betting the table limit at 50,000 chips. If you lose that bet, you're 100,000 chips in the hole, with no way to recover that with your 100 chip base wager.
So don't believe anyone that says this is the perfect system to always win in the casino. Sooner or later they will understand why they were wrong, when they're asking you for a loan.
​
Set your limits BEFORE you start playing
One final point before we get into the games, a general tip for people that head out to play: money management.
Just like in real life, before you go to the casino, decide on a maximum amount that you are WILLING TO LOSE.
Bet small enough, so that amount can last you through the entire evening, and you will not be tempted to run to the ATM to continue playing.
Considering GTA money, some people will be comfortable losing 1% of their GTA bank balance, some people will be comfortable with gambling away 5% of their total GTA savings. It's up to you what you can handle. Decide for yourself where it will start to hurt, and don't cross that line.
But whatever number you decide on, as soon as you lost that amount, get up and walk away. Don't chase your losses, stick to your limits, and accept that this has not been your day. There is always another game tomorrow. Always agree with yourself on a simple stop-loss rule, how much you would want to lose at most, and simply stop playing when you get there.
Same goes for winning. You can decide on a number, how much profit you would like to take away from the casino. You can go on a hot streak and be up half a million in a short period of time, but if you would continue to play longer, looking for more, chances are that you're going to lose it all back.
Most people are happy with doubling their daily casino budget, for example. Others are looking for 10 bets profit in Blackjack. Whatever you choose, when you hit that number, you can stop playing and bank your profits, or you can continue playing if you're still enjoying the games, but then only just play minimum bet sizes. Then you're just playing for fun, not for money. You've already made your profit, so simply keep it in your pocket, and don't risk losing it again.
Either way, decide on what your money management strategy will be, and STICK TO IT.
​
Casino games in GTA Online
Now, I'm going to dive into the games that you can find at the Diamond casino, ordered from worst to best.
​
6) Slots
Generally the rule is this: the less strategy a game has, the worse it is for the player. And with slots, this is definitely the case.
The only influence you have, is choosing what type of machine you're going to play. Basically, there are two types of slot machines:
-high frequency, low payout slots
-low frequency, high payout slots
In the first type, there is no huge (progressive) jackpot on offer, just your average selection of prizes that don't go up to crazy amounts.
This will result in a player having many more spins resulting in a win. The amounts that you win on the bigger prizes, will be smaller, but they do come around more often. This type of slot machine has a lower variance, which means that your money should last you longer, winning many smaller prizes along the way to keep you going.
The second type of slot machine lures you in with the temptation of a huge jackpot prize. Even though the long-term expected return on these machines is the same as the previous type, the prize distribution is hugely different. The large jackpot prize weighs heavily on the scale of expected return, but the chance of it hitting is extremely small. This results in a much higher variance on this type of machine. Usually your money will go down very fast, because the smaller prizes are less rewarding than on the other type of machine.
At the Diamond, the info screen says the player return at slots is set at 98.7%. This means that, on average, for every maximum bet of 2,500 chips, you expect to lose 32.5 chips.
This might not seem like a lot, but the danger of slots is that the game is extremely fast. You can spin about once every 6 seconds, which would result in an expected LOSS of about 20,000 chips per hour of playing.
But again, in this long-term expected number, the large jackpot awards are also factored in, and as long as you don't hit those big prizes, you'll see your money go down a lot faster.
In any case, thank heavens the max bet is only set at 2,500, or else we would see more players go bankrupt at alarming rates.
Optimal strategy for slots:
There is none. Because after betting, you have no more influence over the outcome. The only choices you have, is what type of machine you want to play at, and how much money you are going to risk. And those are all personal preference. As long as you stick to your loss limits, as discussed above, there's no harm in having a go every once in a while, hoping to get a lucky hit. Just realize that you don't have a high chance of scoring a big win, so as soon as you do, get up and walk away.
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5) Roulette
Roulette is also a game where you have no influence over the outcome. There is zero skill involved. You place your bet, and that's it.
In traditional French roulette, a table has only the single-zero, but of course, for American casinos that wasn't enough of a house edge, so they simply doubled their profits by adding a second zero. The house edge was increased from 1/37 to 1/19, which is huge.
This makes playing on a double-zero roulette table by definition a sucker's play.
The payouts scale evenly, which means that a bet on a single number, and a bet on half of the numbers, and everything in between, yields the same expected return. The only difference, again, being the variance that you are willing to subject yourself to.
The player return for double-zero Roulette for all bets is 94.74%.
Except for the 5-number bet, which can only be made by placing a bet on the two top rows that contain 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3. The expected return on this bet is lower: 92.1%. This is because it only pays out 6-1. Why? Well, the number 36 isn't divisible by 5, so the greedy people that came up with double-zero Roulette had to round it off someway, and as expected, it wasn't going to be in the players' favor.Just remember that that 5-number bet is the worst bet at the table, and should be avoided. All other possible bets have the same expected return.
So it really doesn't matter how you spread your bets, if you bet only one chip, or if you litter the entire table with a bucketload of chips. Each chip you put out there, has the same expected return, so there is no strategy that will improve your long-term results.
Assuming that you're betting the maximum table amount of 50,000 chips, you will be looking at an expected loss of about 2,630 chips per spin. Considering that a round takes about 45 seconds to complete, your expected LOSS at the GTA Roulette tables will be around 200,000 chips per hour of playing.
Optimal strategy for double-zero roulette:
Stay away. Stay far away.
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4) Three Card Poker
With Three Card Poker, we come across the first game where there is actually some strategy involved. You get to look at your cards, and then decide if you want to fold, and surrender your ante, or double your bet.
Additionally, you can choose to place a side bet on "Pair Plus", which offers progressive payouts.
There are some websites out there that ran all the numbers with computer simulations, and even though I would like to quote the source here, these websites are understandably littered to the max with online casino ads, so that's why I have decided against doing that.
Optimal strategy for Three Card Poker:
For this game you only have to remember one strategy rule: Always bet on any high card queen-six-four or better, and fold any high card queen-six-three or lower. That's it. Just don't forget to double check if you're not folding a straight or a flush, and you'll be fine.
This strategy will result in an expected return of 96.63%.
The Pair Plus sidebet, with the payout table that is used at the Diamond casino, gives you an expected return of 97.68%, which is actually a bit better than the main ante bet.
So by playing both wagers, you're reducing your expected losses per bet, but since you're betting more, you're also increasing your expected loss per hour.
My advice would obviously be to not play this game at all, but if you do, put as much of your bet as possible on the Pair Plus, while making our Ante bet as small as you can.
To be able to compare it to the other games at the Diamond, let's stay on that 50,000 maximum wager, meaning making your ante bet 35,000, and your pair plus bet 15,000, if the table would allow it.
This results in an expected loss of about 1,525 chips per hand, and with a round taking about 45 seconds, this adds up to an expected LOSS of around 120,000 chips per hour of playing. In comparison, if you would only play the ante bet for 50,000 per hand, you expect to lose 1,685 chips per hand, which means an expected LOSS of about 135,000 chips per hour. So the more out of that 50,000 wager you can put on the "Pair Plus" sidebet, the better.
Even though it may be fun to try out this game for a bit, since there's only one simple strategy rule to follow, you'll soon find yourself robotically grinding down your bankroll until it has vaporized. You're not missing out on anything if you skip these tables, there is no real challenge.
Just like with Roulette and Slots, if you want to try it out nonetheless, you can just bet the minimum amounts and only play for fun, so it won't matter if you win or lose.
​
3) Blackjack
Blackjack is the most complicated game by far. Simply because the player has to make a series of decisions, which will largely decide the outcome. Luckily, there is such a thing as an optimal strategy, which will be outlined below.
However, the strategy is also dependent on the house rules. These not only affect your expected return, but in some places also your decisions.
Here are the house rules at the Diamond casino:
-The game uses 4 standard decks, and a continuous shuffle.
-Blackjack pays 3 to 2, dealer checks for early blackjack.
-No insurance offered, no surrender.
-Dealer stands on soft 17.
-Double down on any two cards.
-Player can split only once, but doubling after split is allowed.
-Seven-Card Charlie.
Under these rules, and following the "basic strategy" chart, your expected return at Blackjack is a shade under 99.6%, which is extremely good for a casino game, that's why Blackjack should be your table game of choice.
But it comes at a price: you are going to have to memorize the relatively complicated strategy chart, or at least stick it to your monitor until you have it in your head. But in case you ever stumble into a real-life casino, you won't regret having this table memorized, so I would definitely advise you to work on that.
The strategy chart might look complicated at first, but you will be able to notice certain patterns. Your decisions are mainly based on the dealer's upcard, which is basically divided into a weak card (2 to 6), and a strong card (7 to ace).
When a dealer shows a strong card, you will be hitting more often with the risk of going bust, but when a dealer shows a weak card, you're not taking that risk, and you will be standing more, but also doubling and splitting more. You want to increase your bets when the odds are in your favor, and get out cheap when they're not.
But it also helps to take some time to think about why a certain advice is given. For example, why does it say that you always have to split two eights, even against an ace. Well, that's because two eights equals 16, which is the worst total you can have. It's better to split them up, and give yourself a chance of finding a 17, 18 or 19 with the next card. Once you see the logic in that, you'll have one less thing to memorize.
The playing advice in the basic strategy chart is a result of computer simulations that ran all possible outcomes against each other, and produced the most profitable decision for each situation. So you can't go wrong following it.
Optimal strategy for Blackjack with Seven-Card Charlie
The added house rule of Seven-Card Charlie, adds a small advantage for the player, and it does influence a few strategy decisions. For example, you might have a 14 with 6 cards, against the dealer's 5 upcard.
Normally this would be an automatic stand, but if you're only one card away from the Seven-Card Charlie, meaning an instant win for the player, regardless of the dealer's hand, it turns it into a hit.
Here's the most optimal strategy chart to follow for the Diamond Casino house rules: https://prnt.sc/olct6g
You'll see that two fives are missing from the chart, and that's because you never split them. You treat them as a regular 10. You also never split tens. Just stand on 20.
If you follow this strategy religiously, even with a maximum wager of 50,000 chips, you only expect to lose about 215 chips per hand, and with rounds taking about 30 seconds, that amounts to an expected LOSS of 26,000 chips per hour, which is only half a bet. A small price to pay for an hour of entertainment.
But since the expected return is so extremely close to 100%, you will see more positive short-term results than with other games. But obviously it can also swing the other way. Again, this is supposed to be the game where your money lasts you the longest, but always set your loss and win limits before you sit down. That rule simply always applies.
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Still, even with optimal strategies applied, all these games are expected to lose you money in the long run. So betting any kind of large amounts is not advised. If you simply want to enjoy playing these games, there's nothing wrong with betting a minimal amount. Playing these games for a longer period of time will already cost you money anyway, since your daily property fees will still be charged while you're playing in the GTA casino. As long as you can play for fun, there's nothing wrong, but when you see yourself betting insane chunks of your entire bank balance to try to recoup some unfortunate losses, you're doing it wrong.
As the commercials in Britain all correctly say: when the fun stops, stop.
​
2) Virtual Horse Racing
Now onto the good stuff. I ran some numbers, and I believe Rockstar has made a mistake with the horse racing game. Because as it stands, and if I read the numbers correctly, this game is actually profitable for the player. You can actually make money with this, at least, until Rockstar figures out their mistake and patches it.
If anyone wants to jump into the math and double check this to make sure, please do so. I will add any corrections to this post. This is one of those "to good to be true" things, so I keep thinking that I might have overlooked something. So please verify it if you can.
The setup is this. There is a pool of 100 horses, each with their own attached payout. These are divided into 3 groups, ranked by their odds. From each group, 2 horses are randomly selected to provide a pool of six runners for you to bet on.
Now it's not an actual race you're looking at. You are looking at a raffle. This is important to realize.
Each horse gets awarded a certain number of raffle tickets. The favorites get awarded more tickets than the underdogs, and therefore, have a higher chance of winning.
If this distribution works like it does in the real-life casinos, then the raffle tickets are awarded according to the betting odds.
Example 1: imagine a race with 3 runners, all have 2/1 odds, representing a 33.3% chance of winning. (Because 2/1 means 2 AGAINST 1, so 3 total.) In this case, each horse gets one third of the raffle tickets, giving them an equal chance to win.
Example 2: imagine a race with 3 runners, one has 1/1 odds (or EVENS), representing a 50% chance of winning, and the other two horses are marked up as 3/1, with a 25% chance of winning. The favorite gets half the tickets, the other two get a quarter of the tickets each.
A ticket is drawn, and you'll have a winner.
It doesn't matter in this game which horse you bet on, because the expected return is always the same: 100% or break-even, for the above examples.
Now, what happens if the percentages don't exactly add up to 100%?
They must add up to 100%, because there will always be a winner. And only one winner.
So when this is the case, the actual winning chances of the horses are adjusted to meet the 100% requirement, using their payout odds to determine the scale.
So, if the represented percentages add up to more than 100%, the actual winning chances of the runners will be DECREASED, resulting in all bets becoming losing propositions for the players.
Example: In a 6-horse race, all runners are listed at 4/1, representing a 20% chance. Only with six runners that amounts to 120%. So all chances are scaled down by 1/6th, to end up at 100%.
This means your horse's chances are reduced from 20% to 16.67%, turning it into a losing bet: 5 times you will lose your bet, and 1 time you will win, but only get 4 bets back in this instance, instead of 5. A losing bet in the long run.
This is the type of odds that you find in regular casinos, with fields as large as 15 runners to bet on, where the assumed winning chances always add up to more than 100%, therefore are decreased for all runners, resulting in a house edge.
​
But in GTA Online's Inside Track, there are other scenarios, because of the small field, and the way that they are put together.
In some cases, the represented percentages when added up, are LESS than 100%, meaning that the actual winning chances of all runners, are INCREASED.
This creates profitable bets for the players, because in the long run, you're expecting to win more money than you lose. This is a gambler's dream, pure and simple.
So, according to the in-game information, the three groups of horses are divided as follows:
-Favorites: EVENS to 5-1
-Outsiders: 6-1 to 15-1
-Underdogs: 16-1 to 30-1
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Let's take the two most extreme examples to show what's happening.
The worst possible field to bet on: two runners at EVENS, two runners at 6-1, and two runners at 16-1.
EVENS represents a 50% chance, 6-1 is 14.29%, and 16-1 is 5.88%. Add those up and you land on a total of 140.34%.
This means that the actual winning chances of the horses are decreased by 28.75% (to get that 140% down to 100%), which makes betting on this field extremely unwise.
A horse at EVENS will only come in as a winner 35.63% of the time, instead of 50%,
a horse at 6-1 will only win 10.18% of the time,
and an underdog at 16-1 will only win 4.19% of the time.
​
The expected return on a bet on any of the horses in this field is only 71.26%, so a maximum bet of 10,000 chips on any of these horses holds an expected LOSS of 2,875 chips.
These returns are the same, because the winning chances are scaled equally, according to the payout numbers. So it really doesn't matter which horse you bet on, in the long run, you expect the same results.
But as explained before, it does influence variance, and therefore your short-term result, which can swing both ways.
​
But now, the best possible field to bet on: two runners at 5-1, two runners at 15-1, and two runners at 30-1.
Odds at 5-1 represents a winning chance of 16.67%, 15-1 odds means 6.25% chance, and 30-1 odds means a 3.23% chance of winning. Add these six horses together, and you only get 52.285%.
This means that, to get from 52% to 100%, the actual winning chances of these horses will be almost doubled! Multiplied by 1.91 to be exact.
So the 5-1 favorites will now win 31.88% of the time, instead of 16.67%,
the 15-1 runners will win 11.95% of the time,
and the underdogs at 30-1 odds will still win 6.17% of the time.
When betting on this field, the expected return on your bet is 191.25%!
This means that a max bet of 10,000 chips will result in an expected PROFIT of 9,125 chips.
This is printing money, if there ever was such a thing.
Optimal strategy for Virtual Horse racing
So all you have to do, is only bet high on the games where you have an expected positive return, and bet the absolute minimum on the games where your expected return is negative. Or back out of the racing game to refresh the field.
If you don't have a way to quickly add up all the percentages, and until somebody shows up here with a neatly formatted table, just use a few general rules of thumb:
-Always bet the maximum on a race with favorites at 2/1 and 3/1 or higher in it.
-Simply skip all races with two favorites at EVENS in it, and at EVENS and 2/1. Or bet the minimum, if you can't skip or refresh the field.
-To decide if you should play races with other favorite combinations EVENS and 3/1, EVENS and 4/1, EVENS and 5/1, or two favorites at 2/1, the payouts on the other four runners determine whether or not it's profitable to play them. The results of betting on these fields vary from an expected 1,330 chip loss (worst-case) to an expected 1,680 chip win (best-case), with a max bet of 10,000 chips.
But if you're not looking for another strategy chart, you might just want to skip these borderline cases, and just cherry pick the best ones, which are easy to recognize, and with which you can never go wrong.
It's difficult to put a number on an expected win-rate, because it all depends on which fields you get presented with, but it's not unreasonable to state that you can maintain a steady win-rate of around 200,000 chips per hour, with about 50 seconds per race.
Remember, you're not trying to win every race. You're trying to win the most money per hour. So don't sweat it when you bet on a 4/1 favorite, and lose a couple of races in a row. It will still be more profitable in the long run. You have the math on your side.
To reduce negative variance, always bet on the favorite, when betting on profitable fields. We're not gambling anymore, we're grinding out a steady profit. We want to keep the swings to a minimum.
I contacted Rockstar support to verify if this is indeed how it works, but the only reply I got after 6 weeks is that they were "looking into it".
User u/Garsant made a useful Excel-worksheet, available for you to download, where you can quickly type in the payouts on the horses, to see if it produces a profitable bet or not. You can find it in his post here: https://www.reddit.com/gtaonline/comments/ekp8na/gta_online_inside_track_odd_calculato
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1) Wheel of Fortune
The number one profitable casino game in GTA Online is obviously the Wheel of Fortune, because it costs you nothing to play.
Unfortunately, you only get one free spin per day, but it holds great value, so make sure you do it.
With a chance to win a super car, vehicle discounts, expensive mystery prizes (which also can be vehicles), and a lot of cash and chips, the expected return on a single spin is around $100,000 in value.
So don't forget your daily spin, it's definitely worth your time.
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2020 Update:
As of the Diamond Casino Heist update, the Inside Track horse racing is confirmed to still be as profitable as outlined above.The only thing that seems to be changed, is that you can't refresh the field anymore by backing out of the screen. This does affect your hourly rate in a negative way, but does not change the fact that this game has a huge positive expected return, and should be your go-to when you're trying to take money from the house, without having Lester's nagging voice in your ear. That should also be worth something.
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And with that, I conclude my 5,000 word essay on gambling in GTA. Questions, comments, feel free to add your input to this guide.
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Cliffs:
-Gambling games should only be played for fun, not for big money. You should expect to lose in the long run. The house always wins.
-A casino game doesn't have a memory, and betting systems don't work.
-Set your limits before you start, how much you are willing to lose or win, and then walk away when you get there.
-Don't play slots, roulette, or three card poker.
-Only play blackjack following a basic strategy chart (https://prnt.sc/olct6g).
-Inside Track betting can be played profitably, if you only bet on fields WITHOUT a heavy favorite.
-Wheel of Fortune is always your best bet, because it's a free bet.

This is not mine, the creator of this is u/enderpiet
​
Since the Diamond Casino update, I have seen a large number of 12-year-olds posting Blackjack memes on this sub. As a parent, this has me very worried.
On top of that, I have seen some of the most trustworthy GTA Youtubers giving flawed gambling advice, which can have damaging impact on their gullible audiences.
So that's why I decided to write this up, to educate everyone on the subject, so there will be no more misunderstandings.
(2020 Update down at the bottom.)
If you're one of those Youtubers that wants to use this information in a video, feel free to do so. The more people (especially kids) that become educated about gambling, the better.
But then also please go back and review your own work, and delete or edit the videos that are giving out the wrong advice, like where you're saying you have "a good strategy for making money with roulette", or some other nonsense that I've heard this week. Delete that please.
Before I get into the individual games, I need to discuss a few concepts first, that will make understanding the rest a lot easier.
Expected return and variance
A game like Roulette or Slots has a fixed expected return on your bets. This is a percentage that you have no way of influencing. Say you are flipping a coin against a friend, and you both put up $1. The winner gets the pot. Since the odds are even at 50%, in the long run, you will expect to break even. Your expected return is 100% of your bet.
But imagine if you would play this coin flipping game in a casino against the house. On the "house rules" listed at the table they would probably say that you would only get 95 cents back for every win, while you are forfeiting a dollar on every loss. Would you still play?
Sounds stupid to do so, but still, everybody does it. Every bet they place on Roulette, every coin they put into a Slot machine, is based on the same concept.
Those few cents they take on every bet are their profit margin, and has paid for all the Vegas lights, the Mirage volcanoes, and the Bellagio fountains. Make no mistake - casino gambling games are not designed to make you lose, because sure, you can get lucky on a single night, but they are designed to make them win. That's the beauty of it. They can both exist at the same time.
Too many people that don't see how this works, are just destined for disaster. Just because you went on a lucky streak and won 8 games out of 10, does not mean that flipping coins is a profitable game, or that choosing tails is a winning strategy. Always be aware of the house edge, your true chances of winning, and just realize that you got lucky. There is no such thing as a strategy in flipping a coin that will give you a higher expected return, so it's just pure gambling, just like Slots and Roulette.
Most casino games are made in such a way, that your expected return is a little under 100%. This means that from every dollar bet at the tables, the casino expects to keep a few cents. For individual players, results may vary. Some will win, most will lose. But for the house, it doesn't matter. They take millions of bets each day, so for them, the expected average works out a lot sooner. In short: the house always wins.
When looking at the house edge, we're talking about the expected long-term result, based on the game's house rules. But for a player, it can take literally tens of thousands of hands or spins before you also reach this average number. Until that time, you can experience huge upswings and downswings, that are the result of nothing but short-term luck, which is called variance.
Some games and some bets have a much higher variance than others, which means your actual results will differ enormously from what you're expected to be at.
Take for example betting on red/black at the Roulette table. This is a low-variance proposition, because it has a high percentage chance of occurring, and a low payout.
Contrast this with betting single numbers in Roulette, which only win once every 38 spins on average. This bet has a much higher variance, meaning you can easily hit a dry spell, and not hit anything for 200 bets in a row, or you can see a single number hit three times in five consecutive spins. This is not a freak occurrence in high-variance bets.
Even though the expected return in both these bets is exactly the same, there's a huge difference in variance, causing massive differences in short-term results, which can go both ways. You need to be aware of this, before you decide what types of bets you are comfortable with placing.
Gamblers' Fallacy
Another thing to realize, is that each individual game, hand, or spin, is completely independent from the one(s) before it, and after it.
Gamblers tend to believe, that the chance of a certain outcome is increased, based on previous results.
The most famous example comes from the Casino de Monte Carlo, where the Roulette wheel managed to land on black 26 times in a row. Gamblers lost many millions during that streak, all frantically betting on red, believing that the odds were in favor of the wheel coming out on red, after producing so many blacks. This is not true. Each round is completely independent, and the odds are exactly the same.
You will hear people say things like a Blackjack table being "hot" or "cold", which is completely superstitious, and should be ignored. The exception was when Blackjack was being dealt from a shoe. It made card counting possible. But with the introduction of shuffle machines, and continuous shuffling like is being used in GTA, this no longer exists.
This is also why "chasing your losses" is a very bad idea. After being on a losing streak for some time, many gamblers believe that now it's their turn to start winning. So they will often increase their bet size, believing that when their predicted winning streak comes around, they will win back their losses, and more.
The reality of it, more often than not, is that people will indeed start playing higher and higher limits, until they are completely broke. Nobody is ever "due for a win". There is never a guarantee that you're about to start winning. In fact, the opposite is more likely to be true. You are, after all, in a casino.
Betting systems
Some people like to think that they have a fool-proof betting system, like the Martingale system. Simply increase or even double your bet when you lose, and keep doing that until you win. In theory, this system will always win. So that's why table limits were introduced, and where the system fails.
If you start at the Roulette table, playing red/black, with a small 750 chip wager, and just double your bet every time you lose, you only have to lose 6 times in a row, before you will be betting the table limit of 48,000, just to get that 750 chip profit.
Sure, you can go on all evening without this happening, winning 750 chips each time, but this losing streak only has to happen once, and you're bust. Any betting system like this is ill-advised, because you are hugely increasing your so-called "risk of ruin", and that's what we were trying to avoid.
And even if your starting bet is only 100 chips, after only nine straight losses, and nine doubled bets, you are betting the table limit at 50,000 chips. If you lose that bet, you're 100,000 chips in the hole, with no way to recover that with your 100 chip base wager.
So don't believe anyone that says this is the perfect system to always win in the casino. Sooner or later they will understand why they were wrong, when they're asking you for a loan.
Set your limits BEFORE you start playing
One final point before we get into the games, a general tip for people that head out to play: money management.
Just like in real life, before you go to the casino, decide on a maximum amount that you are WILLING TO LOSE.
Bet small enough, so that amount can last you through the entire evening, and you will not be tempted to run to the ATM to continue playing.
Considering GTA money, some people will be comfortable losing 1% of their GTA bank balance, some people will be comfortable with gambling away 5% of their total GTA savings. It's up to you what you can handle. Decide for yourself where it will start to hurt, and don't cross that line.
But whatever number you decide on, as soon as you lost that amount, get up and walk away. Don't chase your losses, stick to your limits, and accept that this has not been your day. There is always another game tomorrow. Always agree with yourself on a simple stop-loss rule, how much you would want to lose at most, and simply stop playing when you get there.
Same goes for winning. You can decide on a number, how much profit you would like to take away from the casino. You can go on a hot streak and be up half a million in a short period of time, but if you would continue to play longer, looking for more, chances are that you're going to lose it all back.
Most people are happy with doubling their daily casino budget, for example. Others are looking for 10 bets profit in Blackjack. Whatever you choose, when you hit that number, you can stop playing and bank your profits, or you can continue playing if you're still enjoying the games, but then only just play minimum bet sizes. Then you're just playing for fun, not for money. You've already made your profit, so simply keep it in your pocket, and don't risk losing it again.
Either way, decide on what your money management strategy will be, and STICK TO IT.
Casino games in GTA Online
Now, I'm going to dive into the games that you can find at the Diamond casino, ordered from worst to best.
6) Slots
Generally the rule is this: the less strategy a game has, the worse it is for the player. And with slots, this is definitely the case.
The only influence you have, is choosing what type of machine you're going to play. Basically, there are two types of slot machines:
-high frequency, low payout slots
-low frequency, high payout slots
In the first type, there is no huge (progressive) jackpot on offer, just your average selection of prizes that don't go up to crazy amounts.
This will result in a player having many more spins resulting in a win. The amounts that you win on the bigger prizes, will be smaller, but they do come around more often. This type of slot machine has a lower variance, which means that your money should last you longer, winning many smaller prizes along the way to keep you going.
The second type of slot machine lures you in with the temptation of a huge jackpot prize. Even though the long-term expected return on these machines is the same as the previous type, the prize distribution is hugely different. The large jackpot prize weighs heavily on the scale of expected return, but the chance of it hitting is extremely small. This results in a much higher variance on this type of machine. Usually your money will go down very fast, because the smaller prizes are less rewarding than on the other type of machine.
At the Diamond, the info screen says the player return at slots is set at 98.7%. This means that, on average, for every maximum bet of 2,500 chips, you expect to lose 32.5 chips.
This might not seem like a lot, but the danger of slots is that the game is extremely fast. You can spin about once every 6 seconds, which would result in an expected LOSS of about 20,000 chips per hour of playing.
But again, in this long-term expected number, the large jackpot awards are also factored in, and as long as you don't hit those big prizes, you'll see your money go down a lot faster.
In any case, thank heavens the max bet is only set at 2,500, or else we would see more players go bankrupt at alarming rates.
Optimal strategy for slots:
There is none. Because after betting, you have no more influence over the outcome. The only choices you have, is what type of machine you want to play at, and how much money you are going to risk. And those are all personal preference. As long as you stick to your loss limits, as discussed above, there's no harm in having a go every once in a while, hoping to get a lucky hit. Just realize that you don't have a high chance of scoring a big win, so as soon as you do, get up and walk away.
5) Roulette
Roulette is also a game where you have no influence over the outcome. There is zero skill involved. You place your bet, and that's it.
In traditional French roulette, a table has only the single-zero, but of course, for American casinos that wasn't enough of a house edge, so they simply doubled their profits by adding a second zero. The house edge was increased from 1/37 to 1/19, which is huge.
This makes playing on a double-zero roulette table by definition a sucker's play.
The payouts scale evenly, which means that a bet on a single number, and a bet on half of the numbers, and everything in between, yields the same expected return. The only difference, again, being the variance that you are willing to subject yourself to.
The player return for double-zero Roulette for all bets is 94.74%.
Except for the 5-number bet, which can only be made by placing a bet on the two top rows that contain 0, 00, 1, 2 and 3. The expected return on this bet is lower: 92.1%. This is because it only pays out 6-1. Why? Well, the number 36 isn't divisible by 5, so the greedy people that came up with double-zero Roulette had to round it off someway, and as expected, it wasn't going to be in the players' favor.Just remember that that 5-number bet is the worst bet at the table, and should be avoided. All other possible bets have the same expected return.
So it really doesn't matter how you spread your bets, if you bet only one chip, or if you litter the entire table with a bucketload of chips. Each chip you put out there, has the same expected return, so there is no strategy that will improve your long-term results.
Assuming that you're betting the maximum table amount of 50,000 chips, you will be looking at an expected loss of about 2,630 chips per spin. Considering that a round takes about 45 seconds to complete, your expected LOSS at the GTA Roulette tables will be around 200,000 chips per hour of playing.
Optimal strategy for double-zero roulette:
Stay away. Stay far away.
4) Three Card Poker
With Three Card Poker, we come across the first game where there is actually some strategy involved. You get to look at your cards, and then decide if you want to fold, and surrender your ante, or double your bet.
Additionally, you can choose to place a side bet on "Pair Plus", which offers progressive payouts.
There are some websites out there that ran all the numbers with computer simulations, and even though I would like to quote the source here, these websites are understandably littered to the max with online casino ads, so that's why I have decided against doing that.
Optimal strategy for Three Card Poker:
For this game you only have to remember one strategy rule: Always bet on any high card queen-six-four or better, and fold any high card queen-six-three or lower. That's it. Just don't forget to double check if you're not folding a straight or a flush, and you'll be fine.
This strategy will result in an expected return of 96.63%.
The Pair Plus sidebet, with the payout table that is used at the Diamond casino, gives you an expected return of 97.68%, which is actually a bit better than the main ante bet.
So by playing both wagers, you're reducing your expected losses per bet, but since you're betting more, you're also increasing your expected loss per hour.
My advice would obviously be to not play this game at all, but if you do, put as much of your bet as possible on the Pair Plus, while making our Ante bet as small as you can.
To be able to compare it to the other games at the Diamond, let's stay on that 50,000 maximum wager, meaning making your ante bet 35,000, and your pair plus bet 15,000, if the table would allow it.
This results in an expected loss of about 1,525 chips per hand, and with a round taking about 45 seconds, this adds up to an expected LOSS of around 120,000 chips per hour of playing. In comparison, if you would only play the ante bet for 50,000 per hand, you expect to lose 1,685 chips per hand, which means an expected LOSS of about 135,000 chips per hour. So the more out of that 50,000 wager you can put on the "Pair Plus" sidebet, the better.
Even though it may be fun to try out this game for a bit, since there's only one simple strategy rule to follow, you'll soon find yourself robotically grinding down your bankroll until it has vaporized. You're not missing out on anything if you skip these tables, there is no real challenge.
Just like with Roulette and Slots, if you want to try it out nonetheless, you can just bet the minimum amounts and only play for fun, so it won't matter if you win or lose.
3) Blackjack
Blackjack is the most complicated game by far. Simply because the player has to make a series of decisions, which will largely decide the outcome. Luckily, there is such a thing as an optimal strategy, which will be outlined below.
However, the strategy is also dependent on the house rules. These not only affect your expected return, but in some places also your decisions.
Here are the house rules at the Diamond casino:
-The game uses 4 standard decks, and a continuous shuffle.
-Blackjack pays 3 to 2, dealer checks for early blackjack.
-No insurance offered, no surrender.
-Dealer stands on soft 17.
-Double down on any two cards.
-Player can split only once, but doubling after split is allowed.
-Seven-Card Charlie.
Under these rules, and following the "basic strategy" chart, your expected return at Blackjack is a shade under 99.6%, which is extremely good for a casino game, that's why Blackjack should be your table game of choice.
But it comes at a price: you are going to have to memorize the relatively complicated strategy chart, or at least stick it to your monitor until you have it in your head. But in case you ever stumble into a real-life casino, you won't regret having this table memorized, so I would definitely advise you to work on that.
The strategy chart might look complicated at first, but you will be able to notice certain patterns. Your decisions are mainly based on the dealer's upcard, which is basically divided into a weak card (2 to 6), and a strong card (7 to ace).
When a dealer shows a strong card, you will be hitting more often with the risk of going bust, but when a dealer shows a weak card, you're not taking that risk, and you will be standing more, but also doubling and splitting more. You want to increase your bets when the odds are in your favor, and get out cheap when they're not.
But it also helps to take some time to think about why a certain advice is given. For example, why does it say that you always have to split two eights, even against an ace. Well, that's because two eights equals 16, which is the worst total you can have. It's better to split them up, and give yourself a chance of finding a 17, 18 or 19 with the next card. Once you see the logic in that, you'll have one less thing to memorize.
The playing advice in the basic strategy chart is a result of computer simulations that ran all possible outcomes against each other, and produced the most profitable decision for each situation. So you can't go wrong following it.
Optimal strategy for Blackjack with Seven-Card Charlie
The added house rule of Seven-Card Charlie, adds a small advantage for the player, and it does influence a few strategy decisions. For example, you might have a 14 with 6 cards, against the dealer's 5 upcard.
Normally this would be an automatic stand, but if you're only one card away from the Seven-Card Charlie, meaning an instant win for the player, regardless of the dealer's hand, it turns it into a hit.
Here's the most optimal strategy chart to follow for the Diamond Casino house rules:https://prnt.sc/olct6g
You'll see that two fives are missing from the chart, and that's because you never split them. You treat them as a regular 10. You also never split tens. Just stand on 20.
If you follow this strategy religiously, even with a maximum wager of 50,000 chips, you only expect to lose about 215 chips per hand, and with rounds taking about 30 seconds, that amounts to an expected LOSS of 26,000 chips per hour, which is only half a bet. A small price to pay for an hour of entertainment.
But since the expected return is so extremely close to 100%, you will see more positive short-term results than with other games. But obviously it can also swing the other way. Again, this is supposed to be the game where your money lasts you the longest, but always set your loss and win limits before you sit down. That rule simply always applies.
Still, even with optimal strategies applied, all these games are expected to lose you money in the long run. So betting any kind of large amounts is not advised. If you simply want to enjoy playing these games, there's nothing wrong with betting a minimal amount. Playing these games for a longer period of time will already cost you money anyway, since your daily property fees will still be charged while you're playing in the GTA casino. As long as you can play for fun, there's nothing wrong, but when you see yourself betting insane chunks of your entire bank balance to try to recoup some unfortunate losses, you're doing it wrong.
As the commercials in Britain all correctly say: when the fun stops, stop.
2) Virtual Horse Racing
Now onto the good stuff. I ran some numbers, and I believe Rockstar has made a mistake with the horse racing game. Because as it stands, and if I read the numbers correctly, this game is actually profitable for the player. You can actually make money with this, at least, until Rockstar figures out their mistake and patches it.
If anyone wants to jump into the math and double check this to make sure, please do so. I will add any corrections to this post. This is one of those "to good to be true" things, so I keep thinking that I might have overlooked something. So please verify it if you can.
The setup is this. There is a pool of 100 horses, each with their own attached payout. These are divided into 3 groups, ranked by their odds. From each group, 2 horses are randomly selected to provide a pool of six runners for you to bet on.
Now it's not an actual race you're looking at. You are looking at a raffle. This is important to realize.
Each horse gets awarded a certain number of raffle tickets. The favorites get awarded more tickets than the underdogs, and therefore, have a higher chance of winning.
If this distribution works like it does in the real-life casinos, then the raffle tickets are awarded according to the betting odds.
Example 1: imagine a race with 3 runners, all have 2/1 odds, representing a 33.3% chance of winning. (Because 2/1 means 2 AGAINST 1, so 3 total.) In this case, each horse gets one third of the raffle tickets, giving them an equal chance to win.
Example 2: imagine a race with 3 runners, one has 1/1 odds (or EVENS), representing a 50% chance of winning, and the other two horses are marked up as 3/1, with a 25% chance of winning. The favorite gets half the tickets, the other two get a quarter of the tickets each.
A ticket is drawn, and you'll have a winner.
It doesn't matter in this game which horse you bet on, because the expected return is always the same: 100% or break-even, for the above examples.
Now, what happens if the percentages don't exactly add up to 100%?
They must add up to 100%, because there will always be a winner. And only one winner.
So when this is the case, the actual winning chances of the horses are adjusted to meet the 100% requirement, using their payout odds to determine the scale.
So, if the represented percentages add up to more than 100%, the actual winning chances of the runners will be DECREASED, resulting in all bets becoming losing propositions for the players.
Example: In a 6-horse race, all runners are listed at 4/1, representing a 20% chance. Only with six runners that amounts to 120%. So all chances are scaled down by 1/6th, to end up at 100%.
This means your horse's chances are reduced from 20% to 16.67%, turning it into a losing bet: 5 times you will lose your bet, and 1 time you will win, but only get 4 bets back in this instance, instead of 5. A losing bet in the long run.
This is the type of odds that you find in regular casinos, with fields as large as 15 runners to bet on, where the assumed winning chances always add up to more than 100%, therefore are decreased for all runners, resulting in a house edge.
But in GTA Online's Inside Track, there are other scenarios, because of the small field, and the way that they are put together.
In some cases, the represented percentages when added up, are LESS than 100%, meaning that the actual winning chances of all runners, are INCREASED.
This creates profitable bets for the players, because in the long run, you're expecting to win more money than you lose. This is a gambler's dream, pure and simple.
So, according to the in-game information, the three groups of horses are divided as follows:
-Favorites: EVENS to 5-1
-Outsiders: 6-1 to 15-1
-Underdogs: 16-1 to 30-1
Let's take the two most extreme examples to show what's happening.
The worst possible field to bet on: two runners at EVENS, two runners at 6-1, and two runners at 16-1.
EVENS represents a 50% chance, 6-1 is 14.29%, and 16-1 is 5.88%. Add those up and you land on a total of 140.34%.
This means that the actual winning chances of the horses are decreased by 28.75% (to get that 140% down to 100%), which makes betting on this field extremely unwise.
A horse at EVENS will only come in as a winner 35.63% of the time, instead of 50%,
a horse at 6-1 will only win 10.18% of the time,
and an underdog at 16-1 will only win 4.19% of the time.
The expected return on a bet on any of the horses in this field is only 71.26%, so a maximum bet of 10,000 chips on any of these horses holds an expected LOSS of 2,875 chips.
These returns are the same, because the winning chances are scaled equally, according to the payout numbers. So it really doesn't matter which horse you bet on, in the long run, you expect the same results.
But as explained before, it does influence variance, and therefore your short-term result, which can swing both ways.
But now, the best possible field to bet on: two runners at 5-1, two runners at 15-1, and two runners at 30-1.
Odds at 5-1 represents a winning chance of 16.67%, 15-1 odds means 6.25% chance, and 30-1 odds means a 3.23% chance of winning. Add these six horses together, and you only get 52.285%.
This means that, to get from 52% to 100%, the actual winning chances of these horses will be almost doubled! Multiplied by 1.91 to be exact.
So the 5-1 favorites will now win 31.88% of the time, instead of 16.67%,
the 15-1 runners will win 11.95% of the time,
and the underdogs at 30-1 odds will still win 6.17% of the time.
When betting on this field, the expected return on your bet is 191.25%!
This means that a max bet of 10,000 chips will result in an expected PROFIT of 9,125 chips.
This is printing money, if there ever was such a thing.
Optimal strategy for Virtual Horse racing
So all you have to do, is only bet high on the games where you have an expected positive return, and bet the absolute minimum on the games where your expected return is negative. Or back out of the racing game to refresh the field.
If you don't have a way to quickly add up all the percentages, and until somebody shows up here with a neatly formatted table, just use a few general rules of thumb:
-Always bet the maximum on a race with favorites at 2/1 and 3/1 or higher in it.
-Simply skip all races with two favorites at EVENS in it, and at EVENS and 2/1. Or bet the minimum, if you can't skip or refresh the field.
-To decide if you should play races with other favorite combinations EVENS and 3/1, EVENS and 4/1, EVENS and 5/1, or two favorites at 2/1, the payouts on the other four runners determine whether or not it's profitable to play them. The results of betting on these fields vary from an expected 1,330 chip loss (worst-case) to an expected 1,680 chip win (best-case), with a max bet of 10,000 chips.
But if you're not looking for another strategy chart, you might just want to skip these borderline cases, and just cherry pick the best ones, which are easy to recognize, and with which you can never go wrong.
It's difficult to put a number on an expected win-rate, because it all depends on which fields you get presented with, but it's not unreasonable to state that you can maintain a steady win-rate of around 200,000 chips per hour, with about 50 seconds per race.
Remember, you're not trying to win every race. You're trying to win the most money per hour. So don't sweat it when you bet on a 4/1 favorite, and lose a couple of races in a row. It will still be more profitable in the long run. You have the math on your side.
To reduce negative variance, always bet on the favorite, when betting on profitable fields. We're not gambling anymore, we're grinding out a steady profit. We want to keep the swings to a minimum.
I contacted Rockstar support to verify if this is indeed how it works, but the only reply I got after 6 weeks is that they were "looking into it".
User u/Garsant made a useful Excel-worksheet, available for you to download, where you can quickly type in the payouts on the horses, to see if it produces a profitable bet or not. You can find it in his post here: https://www.reddit.com/gtaonline/comments/ekp8na/gta_online_inside_track_odd_calculato
1) Wheel of Fortune
The number one profitable casino game in GTA Online is obviously the Wheel of Fortune, because it costs you nothing to play.
Unfortunately, you only get one free spin per day, but it holds great value, so make sure you do it.
With a chance to win a super car, vehicle discounts, expensive mystery prizes (which also can be vehicles), and a lot of cash and chips, the expected return on a single spin is around $100,000 in value.
So don't forget your daily spin, it's definitely worth your time.
2020 Update:
As of the Diamond Casino Heist update, the Inside Track horse racing is confirmed to still be as profitable as outlined above.The only thing that seems to be changed, is that you can't refresh the field anymore by backing out of the screen. This does affect your hourly rate in a negative way, but does not change the fact that this game has a huge positive expected return, and should be your go-to when you're trying to take money from the house, without having Lester's nagging voice in your ear. That should also be worth something.
And with that, I conclude my 5,000 word essay on gambling in GTA. Questions, comments, feel free to add your input to this guide.
Cliffs:
-Gambling games should only be played for fun, not for big money. You should expect to lose in the long run. The house always wins.
-A casino game doesn't have a memory, and betting systems don't work.
-Set your limits before you start, how much you are willing to lose or win, and then walk away when you get there.
-Don't play slots, roulette, or three card poker.
-Only play blackjack following a basic strategy chart (https://prnt.sc/olct6g).
-Inside Track betting can be played profitably, if you only bet on fields WITHOUT a heavy favorite.
-Wheel of Fortune is always your best bet, because it's a free bet.