I am watching tv roulette at the moment and there is this young guy who says anything to get people to bet and sign up. He said it is good for beginners to start betting on colour cause it is 50:50. This roulette has 0 but not 00 so casino has a small edge. Most of people who are betting at this time on Friday or Saturday propably couldnt care less about casinos small edge and Im not interested of emailing them or correcting them but all im thinking is if it is against the law in UK or more importantly unethical to tell wrongs odss to people who don't understand it (Even the edge is very small)

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I don't know about legality for your scenario, but 50:50 is just plain flat wrong. It's 19:18.

You should definitely call them out on it. I think a US casino would probably be subject to a fine for this if an employee was saying it or they otherwise advertised wrong odds.

You could also call it 51.4 to 48.6. For double zero it's 20:18 or 52.6 to 47.4. There is no such thing as a 50:50 bet on any roulette wheel.

He's correct that red and black are 50:50 -- just as I would be correct stating on an American wheel that the probability of "0" vs "00" is 50:50. Unless he made any claims about the payoff, he doesn't need to note that there are other outcomes.

I disagree, there is no such bet you can make of red vs black. You can only bet red vs non-red. Or black vs non-black. Even saying you are betting on red vs black is a lie. When you bet on red, the other numbers might as well be one of every color in the rainbow, it's irrelevant. The OP says that the enticement was to bet on "color" because the bet is 50/50. There is no such bet in roulette, and it's deliberately misleading. The hawker wasn't pointing out that the red and black numbers have equal counts, he was talking about placing a bet. There is no bet you can make that could be referred to as "50/50" in roulette.

Wow, epic fail.

OP, you should sign up making it clear that you are there to play the 50:50 gamble and then sue them to kingdom come for false advertising.

Of course there is. Just bet 19 numbers on an American wheel. It's 50/50.

Every bet you make on Roulette is 50/50. You either win or you don't.

No, it isn't, and I know you know better. For every 19 bets, you win 18x the bet. 19:18 is not 50:50.

You're changing the subject.

As I said in my original post, "Unless he made any claims about the payoff ..."

19 numbers on an American wheel is 50:50 win:lose. What you're paid is a different story. OP didn't mention anything about payoff.

Why is it fifty-fifity? Never mind the payoff, there are 18 ways that you can win but 19 ways that you can lose. That isn't 50:50.

Surely this can't be right.

Using that reasoning, this is a correct statement:

No ... there are 38 numbers on an American roulette wheel. If you bet 19 of them, you have a 50:50 probability of winning.

No. 50/50 refers to the probability of two possible outcomes. Given two outcomes, if there is an even chance one or the other will occur -- they are 50/50 (relative to each other). It does not imply you will be paid even money. It does not mean there are not other possible outcomes.

As I said earlier - the probability of "0" vs "00" is 50:50.

If you bet 19 numbers then you will lose 19 units half the time, and you will win 18 units half the time (36 -18). It has nothing to do with other outcomes. Those are the outcomes.
(19*.50) to (18*.50) is not 50:50, it's 19:18.

When every loss is greater than every win, you can't honestly refer to it as 50/50 in a gambling context. Arguing that you can is disingenuous.

Thank you for making my case. I did not review your math, because it's not pertinent to the discussion.

The OP referred to betting on colour. The two zeros on an American wheel are not included in the red/black bet.
Out of the 38 possible outcomes only 18 will give you a win and 20 result in a lose.

Again -- you're confusing the payoff with the probability.

"The two zeros on an American wheel are not included in the red/black bet."

Then Red vs Black is 18 vs 18.

0 vs 00 is 1 vs 1.

Let's not do odd and even

Angleshooting

Yes ... but that's what the OP's post was about

With all due respect, it looks to me like it is you who has reversed those two concepts in the red/black example. A color bet pays even money, which could be referred to as 50:50. If you bet 50, you either lose 50 or win 50, every time. But the "odds" of winning are 19:18 on single zero, or 20:18 on double zero. The odds of winning are not 50:50. So you win $50 fewer times than you lose $50.

Some bets on roulette do not pay even money, as in your 19 numbers example. If you bet 19 numbers (00 wheel), you will win 50% of the time and lose 50% of the time, but the payoffs are not even here. The payoff for hitting is not 19*2 or 38:1, it is only 36:1. So if you bet $50 total ($2.63 on 19 numbers), you will lose all 19 of them half the time, and you will lose 18 of them and win 1 half the time. But the one win only pays 36:1. So you will lose $50 the same number of times that you win $47.34.


So let's compare the two types of bets:

Bet $50 on a color:
You win $50 fewer times than you lose $50.
- 19:18 ratio on outcomes and 50:50 ratio on money.

Bet $50 on 19 numbers, evenly spread:
You win $47.34 the same number of times that you lose $50.
- 19:18 ratio on money and 50:50 ratio on outcomes.

So which one of those is a 50/50 proposition? Most people would say neither, since what matters is the product of outcomes and money, not one or the other. The pitchman in the OP misleadingly talks about only half the equation.


** obviously I rounded off for purpose of an example, since you can't evenly spread $50 on 19 numbers.

Thank you Spadebidder, I knew something didn't sound right.
As for misleading the public, there is so much of that in every other type of advertising why should the casinos be any different?

The probability of an outcome is generally expressed as either favorable outcomes vs. all outcomes or as the decimal representation of that ratio. Sometimes it's expressed as favorable outcomes vs. unfavorable outcomes -- but there's some subtlety in the language. A coin flip is often referred to as 50/50, 1 out of 2, or 1:1. In any case, none of them refer to the payoff, only the probability of the outcome.

Odds, on the other hand, represent the payoff. So at a racetrack when you see 3:1 it represents the payoff vs. the wager -- wager 1, get 3 back = win 2. In this case the ":" symbol represents "for". On a craps table 3:1 generally represents the win vs. the wager -- wager 1, win 3 (keep the wager) = win 3. In this case the ":" symbol represents "to". The casino sometimes mixes "for" and "to" wagers on the layout, and they are very different.

Sometimes you have to simply take representations in context. If a person uses the expression 50/50 or writes 50:50, that has to be interpreted as a representation of outcomes and not payoff. Why would someone choose 50 to represent a wager? They might as well say 1832:1832. Why not say 1:1? It's clear in context that they're talking about the probability of an outcome. If the two possible outcomes being considered are clearly defined, the representation can not be assumed to include all possible outcomes. In roulette, the probability of red vs. black (as an outcome) is 50/50.

Again, I didn't check your math because it's not pertinent to the discussion.

So which one of those is a 50/50 proposition? In the first case, you did not mention a specific color, just "a color". If you're thinking red/black, then it's 50/50.

In the second example it's definitely 50/50.

That would be expected value -- not probability or odds.

Of course he does.

So what you are saying is that although red or black have an equal chance to be the result, the chance that the result will be red or black is not 50/50.

The chance that the result will be red or black is not 100%.