Techniques for Computing the Probability of a Gambler’s Ruin with Applications to Playing Roulette

Abstract

An interest in gambling has greatly increased over the last few decades with the more common use of slot machines and online gambling, especially sports betting. A concern that has been publically raised is addiction and eventual gambler’s ruin (loss of all money). In this paper we provide a solution to the Gambler’s Ruin problem in regards to roulette. We compute the probability of a gamblers ruin with applications to the various betting opportunities playing roulette by determining the W+1 roots of the relevant polynomials and from there determine the probability of a gamblers ruin. We find situations where the payoff becomes higher, the probability of ruin becomes lower. Lower goals of gain are associated with a lower probability of ruin and larger bets and larger odds payoff also increase the probability of ruin.