Does True Randomness Actually Exist?

Order and randomness are not opposites, they are points on a continuum of existence.
Order can be seen in randomness and randomness emerges from order.
If not, existence would be static and void of possibilities.

In some defined session on slot machines, each gamble has a statistical distribution of outcomes with negative expectation. A measure of the randomness of the outcome is the ratio of the standard deviation to the expection. When this is high (eg one bet) it is closer to a fair gamble. When it is low (a long session of betting in a casino), it is less fun, with loss increasingly dominating win in the overall outcome.

Many people have observed that the least bad gamble in a casino is to make one bet on a colour on the roulette wheel. There is slightly less than 50% chance of doubling your money and slightly more than 50% chance of losing it. A guy called Ashley Revel from London did this in 2004 with his entire net worth - having sold all his possessions including clothes. He doubled his net worth, invested his money in an online poker company, and it went down the plughole due to tightening of the laws in the US.

Well, according to the "education" I received slot machines function on what is referred to as a variable ratio. The randomness is what keeps the players addicted.

Well, I have ended up stranded and penniless in Vegas more than once

Because Vegas preys on addictive personalities. I would stay far away from there.

Dio - I would have to agree with you but sometimes I get so drunk I have ended up there on a one-way ticket!

I agree and are fascinated by all of these points except "randomness emerges from order"... I think if the order is a pure as the randomness we are talking about then there is no room for randomness.

Order tends to fall apart (see law of entropy), though some people only see it go to where it falls apart and never figure how it will get together again. If one only looks at one side of a multivariable equation, they'll never get the whole answer.

Thats pretty interesting and I do believe in entropy, and honestly a convincing enough argument to make me definitively say that true randomness exists.

okay. Do Hummingbirds and Butterflies etc. travel vast distances over the face of the earth randomly or determinably? Oceanic mammals etc. do the same?

Humans on the other hand do not migrate, they travel randomly.

The behaviour of all living organisms and other processes in the world has a random component and a deterministic component. The degree to which the deterministic component dominates varies (eg some birds fly huge distances to literally the same spot, but it is safe to say that the migration of butterflies has a larger random component).

Humans can of course travel as precisely as birds, but their travels are not generally dominated by an annual migration, but by more varied objectives.

Opt - 2 bucks

guess what ??...I know how to get a $100 from gambling in las vegas !!...

...start with $1000. 

That's a good one.

I won 1500 bucks last time I went but then lost it all ....as usual!

Gambling can be detrimental to ones health/finances. But then again so is alcohol and tobacco.

They give free booze to gamblers in casinos.

See the connection?

Could a cunning drunk drink alcohol worth more than their gambling losses, on average?

Are they betting gallons/pennies?

what was you question shang? what # post?

Only if they are rude enough to never tip the drink servers, who will eventually avoid them.

Dio - you are wrong.

been banished from Ceasars Palace in Las Vegas if you can conceive that!

I tipped them well.