Oscar's Grind
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Oscar's Grind is a
betting strategy A betting strategy (also known as betting system) is a structured approach to gambling, in the attempt to produce a profit. To be successful, the system must change the house edge into a player advantage — which is impossible for pure games of pr ...
used by gamblers on wagers where the outcome is evenly distributed between two results of equal value (like flipping a coin). It is an archetypal positive progression strategy. It is also called Hoyle's Press. In German and French, it is often referred to as the Pluscoup Progression. It was first documented by Allan Wilson in his 1965 book, ''The Casino Gambler's Guide''. This progression is based on calculating the size of bets so that in the event of a
losing streak In sports, a losing streak (a.k.a. a cold streak, losing skid, slide, schneid, or losing Slump (sports), slump) is an uninterrupted string of contests (games, matches, etc.) lost by a team or individual. A losing streak is thus the opposite of a ...
, if and when a same-length
winning streak A winning streak, also known as a win streak or hot streak, is an uninterrupted sequence of success in games or competitions, commonly measured by at least three wins that are uninterrupted by losses or ties. In sports, it can be applied to te ...
occurs, a profit is obtained. The main concept is that there are periods of many wins and periods of many losses. Losses and wins often come in streaks. Ideally, bets are kept low on losing streaks and increased on winning streaks, which hopefully will follow.


Description

Oscar's Grind divides the entire gambling event into sessions. A session is a sequence of consecutive wagers made until 1 unit of profit is won. Each session begins by betting 1 unit, and ends by winning 1 unit of profit. If the gambler loses, the session continues and the bet is repeated. Each time the gambler wins the game following a lost game, the bet is increased by 1 unit. This increase is not performed if the current bet warrants achieving at least 1 unit of profit in total, in case the next game is won. On the contrary, the bet size in such a situation should be decreased to assure exactly 1 unit is won.


Algorithm

''unit'' := 1 ''betsize'' := unit ''profit'' := 0 repeat bet if bet_won then ''profit'' := ''profit'' + ''betsize'' if ''profit'' < unit then if ''profit'' + ''betsize'' + unit > unit then ''betsize'' := unit − ''profit'' else ''betsize'' := ''betsize'' + unit else ''profit'' := ''profit'' − ''betsize'' until ''profit'' = unit


Example


Analysis

Oscar's grind is the same as Martingale-based and
Labouchère system The Labouchère system, also called the cancellation system or split martingale, is a gambling strategy used in roulette. The user of such a strategy decides before playing how much money they want to win, and writes down a list of positive num ...
in the sense that if there is an infinite amount to wager and time, every session will make a profit. Not meeting these conditions will result in an inevitable loss of the entire stake in the long run. Only 500 losses in a row can come from a 500 unit bankroll, and if occasional wins increase the betsize, this number decreases significantly. Oscar's grind is based on losing streaks being "compensated" by winning streaks in the short run, and in the example above, a five-long losing streak was equalised by a three-long winning streak. If there is "compensation" with a five-long winning streak, three units of profit are gained. The base of the system originates in a hot-hand bias, but winning and losing streaks in gambling have no mathematical ground or proof.


Variations

Oscar's Grind can be applied to non-even bets as well ("streets" in
roulette Roulette (named after the French language, French word meaning "little wheel") is a casino game which was likely developed from the Italy, Italian game Biribi. In the game, a player may choose to place a bet on a single number, various grouping ...
or "doubling" in
blackjack Blackjack (formerly black jack or ''vingt-un'') is a casino banking game. It is the most widely played casino banking game in the world. It uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as " twenty-one ...
); one just has to keep track of the amount and increase the betsize after wins accordingly. There are also variations that try to reduce the
variance In probability theory and statistics, variance is the expected value of the squared deviation from the mean of a random variable. The standard deviation (SD) is obtained as the square root of the variance. Variance is a measure of dispersion ...
by waiting for a couple of wins before increasing the betsize. As it is with all betting progressions, no variation of Oscar's Grind will make a profit in the long run. Another variation involves setting aside a portion of each win as profit that is not used for future bets. This method seeks to guarantee that some amount of money is retained even if a losing streak follows a win, thereby reducing the overall risk.


See also

*
Gambler's fallacy The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the belief that, if an event (whose occurrences are Independent and identically distributed random variables, independent and identically dis ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oscar's Grind Betting systems Roulette and wheel games Gambling terminology