Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Rocket: Analyzing Rtp (Return To Player), Payoff Distribution And Player Behavior In Crash Games, Mikhail M. Sher, Robert Haywood Scott Iii, Jonathan A. Daigle

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Abstract

Rocket is a crash game developed by DraftKings, an American publicly traded online casino, sports betting and fantasy sports company. DraftKings Rocket is a game played with a rising rocket. Players must exit the rocket at any point before the rocket crashes. In that case they receive the payoff in accordance to the multiplier of their exit point. If the rocket crashes before the player bails, player’s payoff is 0 (and they lose their bet).

The game boasts an unprecedented 97% RTP (Return to Player). For comparison, Atlantic City casino slots typically have a 91-92% RTP, while Vegas casino …

Kelly Fraction Estimation For Multiple Correlated Bets, William Chin

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

It is well-known that expected portfolio growth is maximized by maximizing

expected logarithmic utility. This investment criterion is known as Kelly betting.

It has many optimality properties but is considered to be risky. Blackjack

teams and other advantage gamblers practice a fraction of the Kelly optimal to

decrease risk. Some hedge fund managers are thought to practice according to

Kelly principles. We use a continuous multivariate Geometric Brownian motion

model and present an interval estimate for the historical fraction for a portfolio

of correlated bets, possibly including a risk-free asset. Historical data comes

from a range of sources and the …

Optimal Strategy For Gambling Pools, Aaron C. Brown

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

In gambling pools, entrants submit predictions and the prizes are awarded to the prediction or predictions closest to actual outcomes. Some well-known examples are football pools (both the global and American game versions), toto, NCAA March Madness bracket pools and horse racing tournaments. For small pools with complete information about outcome probabilities, exact game theory optimal solutions are straightforward to compute. If there is also complete information about the number and strategy of other players, optimal exploitive strategies are even easier to derive. These problems have been treated in the literature.

This paper argues that the complete information approaches are …

Self-Correcting Kelly Strategies For Skeptical Traders, Aaron C. Brown

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

The Kelly criterion gives the appropriate bet size in idealized situations with known parameters. In financial trading situations parameters are generally unknown and the mathematical assumptions underlying the Kelly proof are not met precisely. Moreover a risk manager typically must cooperate with a trader who may be skeptical about both the Kelly criterion specifically and the concept of mathematical optimization of bet size in general.

This presentation tackles the problem of designing a Kelly-based system for setting trade risk management parameters that is both self-correcting (the system delivers good results even if initial parameter are misestimated or parameters change) and …