(Corrects question 4 (ii) to show that the host knows the location of the winning box.)

Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Are you a good gambler?

Take our short quiz and find out whether you're lucky to have the shirt on your back or you're a casino's worst nightmare.

Questions

1. Blackjack:

You are playing at a table with six decks and the dealer always stands on 17.

i) You are dealt an Ace and a 4. The dealer is showing a 4.

You should:

a) Double down (double your bet and take one final card)

b) Take a card/hit

c) Stand

ii) You are dealt a 5 and a 7. The dealer is showing a 2.

You should:

a) Double down

b) Take a card/hit

c) Stand

2. Craps: In this dice game, what odds are paid for a bet on rolling a ``hard 8,'' or two 4s?

a) 7-1

b) 8-1

c) If you think I'm going to bet the hard eight, you're nuts.

3. Poker: Which cards would you prefer to be dealt as a starting hand in Texas Hold 'Em?

a) Ace, Queen (not the same suit)

b) King, Queen (same suit)

c) 10, 10

4. Proposition bets (unique wagers on a specific outcome):

i) How many people do you need to have in a room for there to be a 50 percent chance that two of them have the same birthday?

a) 23

b) 37

c) 52

ii) You are on a game show and there are three doors. You are told that behind one door there is a box with $1 million and behind the other two a box with $1. You choose a door. The game show host, who knows in advance where the winning box is, opens one of the other doors to reveal a box with $1. He then offers you the choice to switch from your original door to the other door. What should you do?

a) Stick with your original choice

b) Switch doors

c) It doesn't matter what you do

iii) You are in a bar and someone offers you a bet on the last digit of the serial number of the $1 bill the barman is about to give you as part of your change. Should you bet on odd or even?

5. Football: You learn that an ice storm with 40 mile-per-hour winds is forecast to hit the Green Bay Packers' Lambeau Field during a game against the Miami Dolphins. The betting line has not yet moved, and you can bet on the outcome of the game as well as the total points scored by both teams. (In these ``over/under'' bets, you wager on the two teams' points totaling more or less than a level set by the bookie.) What is the best bet?

a) Bet on the Packers because they have more experience with playing in the snow and high winds.

b) Parlay the Packers and the ``over'' on the basis that there will be more fumbles and turnovers and the Packers should handle the experience better.

c) Bet on the ``under'' as both teams are likely to struggle in the conditions.

Answers

1. Under basic Blackjack strategy, you should:

i) (a) double down (2 points). Because one of your cards is an Ace, you are guaranteed not to ``bust,'' or go over 21, on the next card. By contrast, the dealer has a significant chance of busting with a 4 card showing.

ii) (b) take a card (2 points). You have a hand value of 12, which has a lower chance of busting than the dealer's hand showing a 2.

2. (c) is the best answer (2 points), but mathematically (b) is correct (1 point).

The ``hard 8'' pays 8-1 but is one of the worst bets on the craps table, with a house edge of 9.09 percent. Only the hard 4 or 10, which have a house edge of 11.11 percent, are worse bets.

Although craps is generally a poor value proposition for the casino bettor, it can be one of the best if you bet right. The casino has only a 1.4 percent edge on bets on the Don't Pass line. If you're getting complimentary or discounted rooms, they are probably losing money to you.

3. (c) The pair of 10s. (2 points). Poker players can use probabilities to determine the ``expected value'' of a hand. The higher the number, the better the chances of winning. The pair of 10s has an expected value of 0.58, versus 0.31 for hand (a) and 0.39 for hand (b). Experienced players will point out that there is a difference between the value of starting hands in tournament and cash poker and factors such as table position and depth of chip stacks will change the expected value of starting hands.

4. i) (a) (2 points). The answer to the ``birthday paradox'' is one that instinctively feels wrong but can be proven mathematically. The key is that it's not just the chances of one person having the same birthday as any of the others in the room, it's about the number of pairs in the room. With 23 people there are 253 possible pairs, which computes to a 50.7 percent chance that one of the pairs will share a birthday. In a room of 57 people there is a greater than 99 percent chance. ii) (b) (2 points). You should always swap doors. At the start you have a one in three, or 33 percent, chance of choosing the $1 million door. Revealing the $1 door doesn't change your odds but it does change the odds of the remaining door being the correct to 2 in 3, or 66.6 percent. So you should always swap. iii) You should always bet on odd. (2 points). The government may have issued an uneven number of notes, so there is a higher probability that there will be more odd numbered notes in circulation than even ones.

5. (c) (2 points). The biggest move in the odds is almost certain to be on the total points, which linesmakers will drop anywhere between 2 and 5 points on news of an ice storm. Although fumbles and turnovers do increase in these extreme conditions, statistically it's much harder to score, and betting the ``under'' on total points will return a higher profit than any of the other bets.

Scoring

0 to 3: The complimentary casino limo is sitting outside ready to whisk you off to Atlantic City. 4 to 6: Don't give up the day job. 7 to 10: Not bad, but your gambling math could use some work. 11 to 14: You're on the road to gambling riches. 15 to 16: Are you a professional gambler already?

(Joe Saumarez-Smith is chief executive officer of Sports Gaming, a U.K. management consulting firm to the gaming industry. He also owns European online bingo companies and odds comparison Web sites. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Joe Saumarez-Smith at jss@sportsgaming.ltd.uk

Last Updated: October 8, 2007 05:35 EDT