AMERICAN ROULETTE

Old habits die hard. They are like a permanent flu that some guys genetically inherited and in some cases, the casket serves as the portent anticlimax to the kooky wont. Clearly, I don’t know the thin line that demarcates that boundary between addiction and a flaky habit. Yet, when a habit gets out of hand, especially the covert ones, like a tot, you need guidance until that point in life when you can walk on your own. 

And gambling is one such habit that never ceases among those who develop it when young because it may regurgitate at any given point in time when you especially thought you are done with it. Well, at the end of the day, life itself is a gamble. The decisions we make and the repercussions, whether good or bad can only be likened to gambling only that we do not need to necessarily lose money when we engage in whatever action that comes into mind.

Take smoking for instance, we have been told a thousand and one times that cancer sticks are just that, cancer sticks. Medical research corroborates the same. In light of the situation, I think being a cancer stick salesperson could have been a very lucrative job, but because stringent policies have come to radically deal a big blow to the sector, the unrivaled sales from the product have plummeted in contrast to those of mainstream ale makers which fall under the same category of sin stocks. Had this not been the case, tobacco farming would have been booming and sin stock investing in the same product spiraling to unprecedented levels because cigarettes have an inelastic demand and are recession-proof. That’s economics one’o’one.

Men, I hate the evocative scent that permeates after smoking cheap to mid-range cigarettes.  The smell sticks like strong incense and it takes days for it to completely fade away which in an anathema. I wonder how partners married to smokers feel given that they must tolerate the stench that emanates from both the clothes and breathe. Yet they must cope with the noxious smell if the partner is an addict and cannot do without a midrange scented cancer stick in a day.

That said, my bedding are still laced with the redolent smell when a smoker who spent the night playing PS3 lay on it for about two hours after getting spent during the day after voting as he could no longer stay astir. The worst thing is that the scent became part and parcel of my blankets. It’s more than a week ever since the bugger slept on my bed and the struggle that I have gone through to sleep on it is not worthy a description. It’s bad, it’s synonymous to sleeping with a tramp or wearing a damp cloth and you have no option. 

Yet the culprit looked unfrazzled as if he was subtly inhaling flower-scented deodorant or he was perhaps suffering from parosmia.  And every day, I thought the inimical smoke odor would die a natural death. Sadly, it kept on decreasing at an increasing rate. That is the reason why I have hanged my blankets outside after the smell escalated, to fix the problem given that they needed the proverbial airing. I hope this will be a lasting solution because the smell was so deep into the fabric I felt like it was chocking.

American roulette. This reminds me of the first time I went to a posh casino to hawk bank products. Never mind that the policy of the institution was strict against gambling and any form of association.

I have been playing American Roulette but at an academic level. That is, Roulette mathematics and the results were awesome until I was expected to find an odd number standard deviation. It was so mind boggling I spent two days researching on what I already knew. When I got it, I felt like running nude in the estate screaming, “Eureka! Eureka! Eureka!” like the legendary Greek mathematician and Physicist Archimedes. Then I realized there was no discovery I had made and I coiled like a millipede that has sensed danger ahead.   

An American Roulette has 38 divisions; 18 of the numbers are red, 18 are black and two are green. As a player, the main objective, which any player pursuits, is to predict, which numbered pocket the roulette ball is going to settle into. A ‘sure bet’ in roulette is tantamount to picking one of the main colors, either black or red. You either win or lose an equal amount of money when you have placed such a bet. And the expected value irrespective of the type of the bet you place is a constant -0.0526 for every dollar. The expected value is the weighted average of how much you can win or lose.

Consequently, I inadvertently bumped into a research that was carried out in the US on the correlation between gambling and smoking and there is no evidence to authenticate the fact that most gamblers are smokers. The scenario depicts an almost equal number in comparison to the general population with a slighter margin on gamblers who smoke. The casino I went to did not have so many smokers. In fact, the Indian guy we sat next to who had gone to gamble was taking tea. And it goes without doubt that majority of gamblers in in Kenya are Indians (me opine). Why? You need money and to be living beyond the mere tenets of being able to pay bills. You also need to have a fall back plan which is to come from a well-to-do family or having a reliable cash cow that you can milk to sustain the addictive behaviour that is gambling.

Is there a correlation between gambling and smoking? I strongly believe there is. While the research I was relying on for analysis was carried out ages ago, probably more than a decade, the reality is that so much has changed post that period. I cannot fail to factor in the fact that awareness levels among the public has increased. More people have gone to school and the media has played a vital role in spreading the message far and wide.

****

A former primary school pal who I met while training to be a clerk is now a weed addict and he smokes sticks with abandon. Apparently, we were also in the same campus but doing different courses having different tastes and preferences and during different time periods. He intimated how a couple of times he forfeited using public transport just to use the bucks to sustain his thirst to get stoned. I wish I saw him walking, making his way into Kibera to finally be in Langata were he resides. I told him he was hooked on substance but like the perennial addict he denied the allegation though seceding when I pressed further. What he confessed was he will never move to the ghetto because, “Unawezaenda hio mtaa ukute uko na mamorio wenye wanakugeuka ukitoka nao rave juu wanasaka na hivyo ndio wanakuruka vitu zikienda mbaya.”

Then we started reminiscing the good old days. The times we were considered bookworms and chops, now we were both together hustling as clerks. What an embarrassment it would be having worked hard in both primary and secondary school only to find yourself jobless looking for whatever they might throw to you to make money. Damn, it can never be that serious, right? He is yet to finish school and reminds me of an uncle who dropped out of campus to be a watchman because as he intimated, he did the course he did to please his peeps. He never did what he liked and that was the reason why he never felt like completing what he started.

So, at the end of the day life is like a roulette, you spin the wheel hoping that things will go in a certain way only for them to give you the complement of what you had staked on in terms of probability. Even clairvoyants and psychics predict the natural course of life and fail miserably. That is well depicted when the Financial Times noted that, “The clairvoyant society of London will not meet Tuesday because of unforeseen circumstances.”

Hasta La Vista Baby.

[Picture Source: Google Images].

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THINKING BIG

Every week, for the past few months, I have been able to cobble up something for this blog. It’s frivolous, I know. Yet it’s also what I can term as a succor. Thought I could write on a full-time basis but I cannot. Hence, I do it on a partime basis and have made Friday my date with the blog. It’s noteworthy to consider that I even did an online course on fundamentals of blogging and search engine optimization and marketing to ameliorate my skills but am still not yet there.

I have been doing some studies on programming and that has gobbled up a huge amount of my time. Programming is fun at first. You find it easy and enjoyable. The codes work and you start wondering why programmers are paid so much for not having to do much other than stay behind the screen scripting something that we take for granted while we are using. As I continue immersing myself in this field of solitude, I am optimistic it will eventually lead to fruition once I have mastered the skill to the core. Sounds silly, well it’s not. Somehow, the process gets protracted as you delve deeper into what you want to do. Frustrations set in and things seem not to work as you start being nerdy with codes. And there is a point where you hit a snag as it gets derailing and pesky. Anon, you furiously fold the computer and take a rest because you have had too much thinking that you will never do it again.

To be truly honest, the field of programming requires a lot of patience. I will try to be as candid as I can in trying to depict a scenario that happened. Let’s jump straight into it. I normally watch a video, read few scripts and blogs then use the knowledge to work out on some tasks and exercises that are online. I am into R programming. Men, it’s crazy. Even the patience to watch the video to the end can thin when you think you are ‘floating’ instead of ‘sinking’ the knowledge being dispensed. I guess that’s probably the reason why I dreaded the thought of programming at first.

When you write a code, you think that RStudio, the program I am using, will execute it and the syntax will turn out to be correct. Hell no. Coding platforms are very sensitive. Let me explain why, say you decided to use capital letters instead of small letters, when you run the codes, you will get an error warning. Again, if you miss something like a comma, the codes will not be submitted smoothly as you thought. So, you may be thinking, but I have written everything correctly. Yet there is an omission of a comma or you used capital letters and because most programs are case sensitive, the execution becomes naught. That is why inspecting codes is a must if you want to run them without experiencing structural problems. Plus, you need to continuously check the codes to be able to ascertain there are no errors failure of which you may built something which ends up malfunctioning at the very end of the project.

First of all, let me explain that I am a novice programmer. I am not even a junior when it comes to programming. Therefore, I really need to harness my potential in this arena on a continuum until a time when I will be fully fully conditioned to get my act right out there. In a nutshell, because I have free time, I am into binge learning. It never hurts to learn, right? Again, I am the bad programmer kind of guy. I am content with the little that I learn from the Datacamp platform I subscribe to and never go beyond the exercises to find out something that would give me an extra edge in terms of the knowledge that I have. Programming is an uphill task that requires a lot of twitches here and there. It’s like learning a new language altogether, to master it you need to practice it. Yet when I think of what I can do by programming. It makes sense to stick for a while to see if things will work out.

Programming requires a scientific mindset. It is not for every Tom, Dick and Harry. The first thing you should have is a problem to solve. That means critically thinking into what you are to do. This means you need to deconstruct the problem and then apply logic to the solution in a structured way to come up with a meaningful outcome. Then you start digging in and doing so much in terms of research to arrive at a solution. The bottom line here is that you require some intrinsic motivation like a soldier fighting for his country in a battlefield. Where, albeit crimson garish flows and cadavers litter the grounds with souls that had long departed with celestial planes to go dance with the spirits and ancestors, the oath of 'no retreat, no surrender' keeps you put.

Either way, one needs to be on top of his game with various tools that give or arrive at the same answer. My assumption is that once you are able to master one tool, you can be able to easily transfer the knowledge into another one seamlessly without much ado. Here is why. Sometimes back, I did a course on web design. Never mind that I never progressed beyond the academic knowledge that I acquired in class. All in all, I could be able to use the knowledge I had learnt in one platform and integrate it into another and it worked. While web development was my first incubation into the world of programming, it became a dodo when I joined campus. I sometimes use the knowledge on this blog occasionally.

The fact that programming is challenging makes me regard it highly. Again, as opposed to sales, the community outside there is super welcoming and you feel like you are not in it alone. It’s strange that as you plunge into this field, there are people who genuinely want to help you with the journey. Talk of sites like Quora, CodeNewbie and an avalanche of others. This is where the slogan of Liverpool fans ‘You’ll never walk alone’ comes in.

Beyond that, it’s only fascinating when the codes that you have scripted run seamlessly and you become better and better. But gain, choosing on what works is the best thing when it comes to programming. You don’t need to bog yourself with hard stuff just to prove to be the guy who can do it when you can reproduce what you were doing on a less stressful platform. The bottom line is that what counts is being able to make mincemeat out of what you are doing. Knowing how to manipulate the variables is another concept that makes it fun when you are coding. Then applying the knowledge in cracking puzzles and solving problems to arrive at a meaningful result is another thing altogether.

For instance, more than a year ago, I came up with a winning formula of how I could be able to win seven-match games with all the possible outcomes in a betting competition. Recently, I saw a ten-game jackpot that I thought can be leveraged on by using the winning formula I had conjured. Yet, the only setback I have been having is the number of people who can be able to play with the bets successfully at a very small price. The interface to use to execute the codes is what has been worrying me for quite some time now.  If only I can come up with a good user interface, it will not be a big deal to find people to subscribe to my bets. That in place I cannot be worried about finances. I will be more concerned with building up on my fortunes henceforth.

As such, I am looking at programming as a tool that can help me to unearth some of the inadequacies of my thoughts. Once I can figure out how to do it, I will comfortably use it to be able to come up with algorithms to find hidden insights without being explicitly programmed where to look to get the winning games. If machine learning can help me out in this, then I am sure things will be a smooth sail.

While creating a machine learning platform for soccer prediction may be superfluous, there is need for one that can read a team’s form before a match on its website, the players who are going to play, past performance and commentator reviews on the stakes of that match. In short, if the program can collect all this useful information and act on it, there is nothing stopping my ambition of turning into an overnight millionaire with a mobile app to quench the thirst of the many guys who love betting.

I am imagining that there are people who will also be betting. Statistics never lie because there are so many people who love betting and that is why there are so many betting platforms. The app through machine leaning will be able to work on the feedback of the people who bet on various games, say it is a jackpot. The app will then review the data and look for patterns and arrive at a conclusion on the best bets given that I already have all the possible outcomes of the games to be played. And it should be such that anyone who uses the platform to look for potential bets will have a customized predictive aspect that will be personalized for individuals who bet. And Monte Carlo simulation ensures that all the possible outcomes of your decisions are thoroughly analyzed depending upon the number of games specified. This will allow for better decision making under uncertainty.

So that is why the fire of my journey into programming has never waned. It rejuvenates like a disappearing river and can be likened to a fad. The best thing is that it gets seasonal nourishment every time I find myself idle. While at present I am into data science programming, my long-term goal is to dive into stocks and private equities. I want to be able to model winning outcomes that take into cognizance a variety of inputs into play only a financial guru can comprehend.

To top it off, this will be a treacherous journey. I am looking at it as a long haul. The only problem is that there is so much at stake. I may get a job that may make me so absorbent in it that this dream may die just like that. In the meantime, the codes I have for a winning game remain a secret gem like those that came to be used later to bring success in hitherto unexploited territory. It’s ilk the secret ingredient that makes Coca Cola tick or the one used by KFC or other big flourishing firms.

Hasta La Vista Baby

[Picture Source: Google Images]

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BETTING, ITS A HUSTLE

The other day, my pal challenged me to come up with all the possible outcomes that you can be able to play on Sportpesa in order to win the coveted jackpot. The zeal in me got down to googling and programming and sadly, it's not as easy as we had thought. Men, being this jobless dudes, we had thought that we could easily come up with possible outcomes through permutations. As such, we took our calculators and worked out the math. Sadly, to get the possible outcomes, you need to raise the three games by the number of outcomes. If it is two games, there are a possible nine games. So for thirteen games, there are 1,594,323 possible right outcomes. Which means you need 160 million in order to win between 1 and 40 million if theoretically put. Not worth it, Right?

Damn. It looks like my dream of betting has gone to the dogs. Now I only have to concentrate on some other stuff. Even though I came up with the codes to run in the model, it was not able to fit into Microsoft Excel. Excel, unfortunately only allows for 1,048,576 cells, row-wise. I did run some input on VBA and stored it as a macro so that I could possibly view the output on Excel. Then I saw that debug error. Now I need to find a way of importing the model directly into an Excel Data Model as it can handle more than 2 million cells in a row.

What prompted my friend to ask me if I can be able to execute the outcomes? Since we had resorted to being full-time students (ideally, doing a daunting professional course can make you think you need all that time but you don’t), we sometimes found time to engage in garish banter over lunch just to sate our quest for being overnight millionaires. And in our parochial senses, we thought of investing some cash and voila, we would be smiling all the way to the bank. But the gods were not on our side. The first setback arose because we did not know how to execute the model even though he knew I had taken up some courses on programming and excel online.

So as not to shame myself, I had sleepless nights thinking how I could be able to solve the problem of aiding in us becoming millionaires. I even forgot that I had a mountain of an exam in due course and made YouTube, various betting blogs, programming sites and the knowledge I had in excel into use. After two nights of trial and error, I was able to come up with a program by modelling a seven outcome game. (You should have seen my Eureka! debut). Then a problem arose with regard to time. Even if you have all the time to play the outcomes, it will take you more than a week if betting on the games individually if you factor in you need sleep, toilet breaks, meal breaks and monotony.  My advice on this was to form a gang of like-minded pals to bet all viable games after eliminating outcomes that will not work. Like, say if Spain played with Kenya, you are sure Kenya will lose. So your bet for the game is a win for Spain.

If you choose a win for this game. You automatically reduce the chances of failure by a third. Ideally, if you can eliminate eight games which you are cock sure about in a jackpot, then you will remain with five games in the model to work with. That means with five games, the possible number of times you can play is 243 games. Those games multiplied by KSh. 100, you are sure to get your return on investments. However, you have to be contended with match fixing and the possibility of the team you had so much hope on not being in shape and therefore drawing or losing. Because football can be like an earthquake, unpredictable, right. Again, the games that are usually placed for a bet are usually very tricky to predict, zimekauka mbaya.  

So we are still stuck in a rut. I am still looking for mechanisms of running the codes in a data model as my friend looks for funds so that we can sit down and brainstorm on how to win ‘intellectually’. Given that I also performed Monte Carlo simulation on the outcomes, I am sure you can smile all the way to the bank if you muster how to work with the model given that we have been betting on a trial and error basis.

As for yours truly, I have to learn how to bet since I am not well versed with the betting industry. I should also not take for granted football noise. Noise in this case means the possibility of match-fixing, and all the various information that influences the outcome of a game. Albeit to counter this betting institutions, one only needs brainy football stalwarts who know how to predict successfully and you are good to go. This is after performing historical simulations.

Is it worth it to bet? I have been a firm believer that ridiculing that which has become a system will not eliminate it but will propagate it due to the advertisement it gets whether adverse or not. Plus, betting is for those we call risk seeking. Even though there are many people who are loss averse, the sheer aspect of not knowing the outcome makes it quite something due to the adrenaline that you might win. If my mental institutions serve me right, one day I will model a winning outcome with just 27 games. It’s possible.

Hasta La Vista Baby.

Link to outcomes of seven games

[Picture Source: My own]

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MONTE CARLO FALLACY

The broke me is contemplating starting a career in gambling. No! am just a noble speculator. The only problem with this kind of speculation or gambling is that there are no derivatives or a way to transfer risk so that you are not left despondent by hedging against the risk of losing money. I am contemplating joining one of the many football betting sites to try my hand in being a millionaire. And I want to gamble with other people’s money.  Yo! Mshwari, allow me to take this risk. When I get mullahs, you will also be smiling, right.

Obviously you are wondering why I will use loaned money to play. Practically, I have no money of my own. I am a lazy bone. I love freebies. So I have no margin to seize a probable get rich quick gamble. Since getting a job has been quite a tussle on my side. And here is why. I have contemplated going for mjengo, or car washing. But the moment I think about the same, I usually feel debased and weary. But I need money. Money to print a CV and a cover letter. I don’t believe in employment bureaus because they take money away from me. I also need money to photocopy my certificates. And some money to drop the relevant documents to the places I am interested in jump-starting a career in. Sadly it would be gloomy for me if a prospective employer heard I am into gambling. But I have a ready answer.

The other problem is that I don’t feel like working for any firm at the moment. I do not have the acumen to engage in a business and lastly, I am impatient because taking an initiative has been dreary. I have been impatient for quite a long time. Years are passing and my status has not ameliorated yet am tormenting myself undergoing mental drudgery all in the name of getting an education. Will I quit the quest? No. Notwithstanding that I am still stuck in a rut. I think that this revelation is worthy for a guy who wants to venture in a career of gambling.

As such, I am on a mission to be inducted into the career of gambling. But first, I have to finish my studies. Gambling will start once I have completed my studies which is less than a month’s time. I hope that gambling will sustain my rent, help me go places and find new interests.

Why gambling you may ask? Everything you do in life has a reason. I want to make easy and quick money. There are times I will lose, there are times I will gain. And there are times I will cry. Plus the process only involves sitting and looking at previous results, analyzing and making projections. I think am smart enough given that I know about permutations and combinations and probability and Venn diagrams and stochastic processes. I wish I could be able to perform simulations that are devoid of regrets, like Monte Carlo, huh. Anyway, those are just wishes.

You have heard naysayers with their malevolent insinuations degrade betting. They have their own reason why they spite what is ethically right given that the government gets taxes, people are employed through the betting institutions, the few lucky fellows smile all the way to the bank and people who sure bet with positive results are able to meet their short term deficits. Forget about match fixers.

On the flip-side, we have seen guys who have hanged themselves, having lost their money which is also comparable to banking your money given the high volatility with which many banks are being liquidated and finances lost. There is also the ominous effects of addiction. Which I am sure will make me captive betrothed in it once I start betting.

But who cares, man must survive. If this is not right ethically, then it should not have be instituted and sanctioned in the first place. So like any fellow who needs petty cash for survival, after am through with my exam, trust you me, gambling is the way to go.

PS: Monte Carlo fallacy is a posh name as opposed to gambling. It makes it look like some nerdy engagement though the photo discredits the whole ideology of this procedure first used out during nuclear probabilistic trials.

Hasta La Vista Baby.


[Photo Source: Google Images]

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