On Mon, 04 Oct 1999 20:49:41 +0000, mortongr@flash.net wrote:
[...]
>>GM>I will assure you that casino's the world over fix their machines so
>>>that the odds are in their favor. Fixing horse races is not the same thing.
>SJ>Glenn might be right about the USA, but he is not right about Australia. I
>>rang our State Gaming Commission (the Government Department which
>>supervises gambling in Western Australia) and I was told quite definitely
>>that the gambling machines at our one and only casino in Perth (Burswood
>>Casino) are random as regards the chance of winning, but by law they are
>>programmed to return only 90% of the money taken back to the gamblers.
>>That is, the casino by law can only make a 10% profit.
GM>Since I don't want to waste more time on this thread, I will respond to
>this only. Programming them to return only 90% of the money taken, IS IPSO
>FACTO fixing the machines. Thanks for proving my point, Stephen.
First, I cannot accept Glenn's thanks. As the excerpt of his quote above
states, all along he had been arguing "that casino's the world over fix their
machines so that the *odds* are in their favor" (my emphasis) and my
argument all along has been that all they needed to do was ensure that their
*profit* was deducted first. To do this they could keep the *odds* fair but
return less *prize-money* to the gamblers. This is clear in the part of my
post which was immediately before Glenn's comments above (which Glenn
deleted):
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On Thu, 30 Sep 1999 06:40:21 +0800, Stephen E. Jones wrote:
>I note that Glenn does not provide any *facts*. Clearly there are two ways
>for a casino to make a profit out of gambling machines:
>
>1. design the machines with a non-random bias so that the players lose
>more than they win; or
>
>2. have them perfectly fair and random, but deduct up front from their prize
>money the casino's profit. For example, if the statistical probability of
>winning the top prize is on average only one win per player every thousand
>games, and the price of each game is one dollar, then all the casino has to
>do is set the prize at $900 to make, on average, a $100 profit.
>
>I would have thought that 2. is the preferable way to do it, since it avoids
>all allegations of rigging the machines. I know that in Australian horse-
>racing if a bookmaker sets his odds so he makes a profit that is OK, but if
>he fixes the race so that his horse wins, then he would go to gaol. I would
>assume the same rules apply to casinos here.
>
>But as I admitted, I don't know much about casinos, so if Glenn and Art
>know for sure that in the USA the casino owners do 1. and not 2., then I
>will chalk it up as one of the differences between our two countries!
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Second, and more importantly, Glenn for the *third* time Glenn has
chopped off my documentation of his altering one of my paragraphs in such
a way that the change could not be detected:
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On Mon, 04 Oct 1999 21:09:48 +0800, Stephen E. Jones wrote:
>Here Glenn just chops off without ellipses the rest of my post, including
>my documentation of his deleting my words without ellipses and altering
>both the punctuation and an adjacent word in such a way that it was
>difficult to notice the alteration.
>
>But just in case Glenn overlooked this, I have posted it again to give Glenn the
>opportunity to explain why he:
>
>1. Deleted 3 words of mine "what humans call" without ellipses;
>2. Changed a comma at the end of "chance," to a full-stop.
>3. Changed a lower-case "b" in "but" to an upper-case "B" making "But" look
>like the start of a sentence:
>
>=========================================================
>On Thu, 30 Sep 1999 06:40:21 +0800, Stephen E. Jones wrote:
>
>[...]
>
>SJ>Note also how Glenn subtly changed what I wrote. Here is what
>>appears on the Reflector archives on 19 September at:
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>http://www.calvin.edu/archive/evolution/199909/0512.html
>>
>>So the real question is not, can God work through what humans call
>>chance, but *did* he work *solely* through chance? The God of the Bible
>>indeed worked through chance at times but that is not the *only* way He
>>worked.
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>Glenn changed what I wrote above by: 1. cutting out without ellipses my
>>important qualifier "through what humans call chance, b", 2. inserting a
>>full-stop, and 3. capitalising the "b" to make "But" look part of my
>>sentence. Here it is how it appears in the archives to show that it is not
>>something that I have changed on my copy:
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>http://www.calvin.edu/archive/evolution/199909/0525.html
>>
>>So the real question is not, can God work through chance? But *did* he
>>work *solely* through chance? The God of the Bible indeed worked through
>chance
>>at times but that is not the *only* way He worked.
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>I find it hard to believe that this is a simple mistake by Glenn. Eliminating
>>my words "through what humans call chance" makes my argument appear
>>internally inconsistent. Glenn would at best have only saved one line and in
>>fact as it turned out, he did not save any lines by cutting out those 5 words.
>>
>>However, as a matter of natural justice I will first give Glenn the
>>opportunity to explain why he cut out my 5 words without ellipses,
>>inserted a full-stop and capitalise the "B".
>=========================================================
>
>Note that I was wrong here about it being "5 words". In fact it was only the
>*3* words "what humans call" that were deleted. This makes it even less
>likely that Glenn was motivated by a desire to save space.
>
>Again, as a matter of natural justice, I will give Glenn another opportunity to
>explain why he cut out my 3 words without ellipses, inserted a full-stop and
>capitalised the "B", with the result that it was difficult to notice the change.
*******************************************************************************
Since: 1) the above 3 changes had to have been deliberate (ie. they could
not have been an accident); 2. there was no material space-saving involved
(the only legitimate reason to delete someone else's words); 3. they altered
what I said to Glenn's advantage; and 4. Glenn just keeps deleting my
requests for his explanation; I see no alternative but to conclude that Glenn
deleted my words *fraudulently*.
For me this matter is now closed.
Steve
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Stephen E. (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ Email: sejones@iinet.net.au
3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Web: http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
Warwick 6024 -> *_,--\_/ Phone: +61 8 9448 7439
Perth, Western Australia v "Test everything." (1 Thess. 5:21)
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