article: September 2008 Archives

Kelvin Morrin's  Impact of a Finite Bankroll on an Even-Money Game deals with gambler's ruin and other mathematical phenomena:

Calculating the average cost of playing a table game is usually equated to the product of the
house edge, the average wager and the number of hands played. A linear amount that is static, providing that the player has enough financial resources to play for the specified duration. However, in the twilight of a healthy wallet, the probability of survival creeps into the equation, creating the associated cost of not having enough capital to guarantee play for the intended length of the session.

  Download a pdf here.

Rob Jay submitted a brief paper.  Here's an excerpt:

Online gambling on sports in America has surpassed the total handle of Las
Vegas casino-based sports books.
A December, 2002 Congressional Report by the US General Accounting Office stated
that online gaming reached new heights in 2002 as worldwide revenues topped $4 billion.
Of that amount, over $2 billion was wagered by US residents. Bear Stearns backed up
these findings by estimating the worldwide market would have been in excess of $5
billion had many American credit card providers not discontinued offering transfers to
offshore sports books. Meanwhile, the Nevada handle on sports books was less than $2
billion in 2002; this is the first time in a decade that the Nevada handle dropped below $2
billion.
Certainly, part of the decline in the Nevada handle can be blamed on less Americans
traveling and an overall downturn in the economy. Perhaps an even bigger factor,
however, is the proliferation of slot machines in Nevada casinos. Slots now represent
70% of the profits of Nevada casinos and offer a 6% hold while sports books have an
average 3% hold. Thus, it is not surprising that sports books are losing square footage
overall in casinos while slots are gaining in space allocated to them.

Click Profile of the Online Gambler (pdf) to read the whole thing