| Hiniker starts by giving 49% of the base vote to each party. Incumbency then adds 4.5%. Each percentage point in the growth of real income adds 1.4% for the incumbent, while each point rise in inflation subtracts 0.6% from the incumbent's vote. Despite its apparent simplicity, the Hiniker model performs spectacularly well in an analysis of elections in the modern area, not only predicting the actual result of the elction but also the margin of victory to a very high degree of approximation. Crucially this precision extends not only to past elections but also to the 1988 election (which was some months after Hiniker's letter) and the 1996 election, predicting the victory margin to within 2%. However, in the 1992 election the model performed very badly, forecasting a huge victory for Bush when it was almost a foregone conclusion that Clinton would win his first term in office. This illustrates the limitations of any handicapping model. Hiniker's model is what is known in academic circles as "Vulgar Marxist", a belief that events occur exclusively because of economic factors. Bill Clinton appeared to subscribe to this belief with his famous "The economy, stupid" poster kept above his campaign desk to remind him of the priority in winning the election. Ironic, then, that Clinton should be the candidate to buck the trend and mess up the prediction. A number of studies have been conducted into the effects of shuffles over the years by a series of highly respected theorists: Arnold Snyder, Bryce Carlson, Ken Fuchs, Mason Malmuth and Stanford Wong. The findings are interesting. Firstly, though each study produced different results, the universal opinion was that extreme forms of shuffling do produce some differences in player expectation that theoretical probability would contradict. Further, as a practical matter in most casinos, these effects were negligible or non-existent. A final consideration is that, even though their results produced strange effects on player expectation, they do not increase or decrease the probability of a streak beyond that predicted by theoretical probability. In fact, I believe some shuffles may produce very minor increases and decreases in streaks under special conditions. This is because of the casino practice of setting minimum cut-card limits, a factor ignored or downplayed in the above studies. The reason is simple and can be illustrated by a thought experiment. If the cards located behind the cut-card are low in value, the player will receive a higher than average number of high cards. Because high cards are good for the player, he is likely to win more money than expected. If the cards located behind the cut-card are high in value, the player will receive a higher than average number of low cards. Because low cards are bad for the player, he is likely to lose more money than expected. Now, what happens to the cards behind the cut-card after the shuffle? Depending on the particular shuffle, some of the cards may be shuffled back into the pack, and some cards remain roughly where they are. Unless you are a skilled shuffle-tracker (a very powerful form of advantage play used by advanced card counters) who can follow the discards, you don't know where they go so it doesn't matter, right? Because the deck will be cut at some random point and the cards will be dispersed?Here's a list of the top ten casino games. This list is not the top ten games for the recreational gambler. That's usually just a question of measuring house percentages. This list addresses a more complicated question: What are the top ten casino games for the serious player, the one who is either a professional or is only interested in winning? 1) Poker Poker is the number one game for the professional player. The reason is fairly obvious: you are not playing against the casino but against other players. The gambler who makes a serious study of probability and psychology will always be able to find enough players at lower levels of play who are essentially guessing about correct strategy and donating their money. The poker table is essentially a centre for the transference of wealth from the unprepared to the studious. Poker's chief drawback is that it becomes increasingly difficult to win money as the quality of opposition becomes tougher at higher levels of play. |
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