Re: Laundering money through commodity futures

>Date: Sun, 17 Apr 1994 19:37:02 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Sandy Sandfort <sandfort@crl.com>
>On Sun, 17 Apr 1994, Eric Hughes wrote:
>
>> . . . [quotes from another poster]
>> You still need infinite pockets with transaction costs of zero.
>> . . . [blah, blah, blah]
>
>Almost everyone posting on this subject keeps forgetting that this isn't 
>an exercise in probablity theory.

I believe Eric's point was a little off, anyway.  The bank at Monte Carlo
was broken using exactly the method which he was attempting to discredit.

A man went to the casino with several suitcases full of money and proceeded
to play roulette using the progressive betting strategy.  Eventually he
broke the bank.  That's when casinos started imposing house limits on the
tables.  I don't think this story is apocryphal.

With no house limit, I think it is far more likely that someone with *lots*
of money will break the bank than it is that, say, 'red' will come up 30
times in a row.

I don't think the commodity exchanges have the same sort of limits set up.

Not that they can't change the rules on you in mid-stream.  Remember what
happened to Bunky Hunt?

tw

p.s.: Kids, don't try this scheme at the casino.  With house limits,
progressive betting strategies are just systems for giving money to the
casino.

tim werner says:
> I believe Eric's point was a little off, anyway.  The bank at Monte Carlo
> was broken using exactly the method which he was attempting to discredit.
> 
> A man went to the casino with several suitcases full of money and proceeded
> to play roulette using the progressive betting strategy.  Eventually he
> broke the bank.  That's when casinos started imposing house limits on the
> tables.  I don't think this story is apocryphal.

In that case, please provide the time, place, and location -- also
provide references to original sources so that we can look it up
ourselves.

Anyone who believes martingales work is invited to try simulating them
by computer. You will find that they aren't effective.

> I don't think the commodity exchanges have the same sort of limits set up.

You don't know anything about the commodities market, then. There are
limits on how large a contract position you can hold, and they are
there specifically to prevent attempts at market corners.

Perry

>I believe Eric's point was a little off, anyway.  The bank at Monte Carlo
>was broken using exactly the method which he was attempting to discredit.

I was talking about a mathematical model only.

The model doesn't apply to rigged trades or to two players, both with
finite resources.  If you have as much money as the bank, you can
break the bank.

Eric

C'punks,

On Mon, 18 Apr 1994, tim werner wrote:

> . . .
> I believe Eric's point was a little off, anyway.  The bank at Monte Carlo
> was broken using exactly the method which he was attempting to discredit.
> 
> A man went to the casino with several suitcases full of money and proceeded
> to play roulette using the progressive betting strategy.  Eventually he
> broke the bank.  That's when casinos started imposing house limits on the
> tables.  I don't think this story is apocryphal.

Actually, I think it is.  In all casinos that I've heard about, the "bank"
is just an amount that each game is allowed to lose in a given period of
time.  If roulette table #1 has a bank of $10,000 and it loses more than
that amount, the bettor has "broken" the bank.  Whoopdeedoo.  Great for 
casino publicity, but not that big a deal for the casino in the overall 
scheme of things.  It is exactly stories like the one you repeat that 
keep the rubes coming back to the tables.

 S a n d y