In my experience, programmers like poker, but not games of chance. This also describes me. Poker is a data-heavy game of skill and memory, Craps is about the opposite.

Craps is not the opposite. Quite the opposite, actually.

The magnitude of entropy casinos require you inject into the system each round is quite low in practice.

Profiting off of that is all skill.

I went with a bunch of CS/bioinformatics/MD IITians to Reno, NV once. They were just there to gamble on games of chance. Personally, I think gambling is boring and stupid if the expectation isn't significantly positive. I'd gamble if skill was the dominating factor and the expectation wasn't so abysmal.

If it was skill based, you'd be competing against a pro who does nothing else. At least with chance you have a chance :)

If skill is the dominating factor, almost by definition it isn’t gambling. This is what allows bars and other institutions not licensed as gambling centers to host poker games. (which might be of interest to you)

You would like Poker. I mostly play with friends for chips, but it still takes concentration and memory. Excellent game.

Most people appreciate the skill poker requires, but like me never want to bother learning it. If I (very rarely) go to casino I'd just play games of chance for a defined loss budget and just stop playing when I either lose it or win enough to get dinner for the group.

In my experience, potential gambling addiction has nothing to do with rationality or smartness.

I’d broaden that to addiction generally.

Eh, I’m a programmer and I go to vegas with other programmers fairly regularly. We know enough math to know the expected cost per entertainment•hour is comparable to many other pass-times.

But even so we’re actually all net-positive on the city, thanks to a couple “lucky” craps runs.

Came to make the same comment. Vegas is a fun place. We spend some money and get some fun just like anything else.

And same. A couple of roulette results has us “positive”.

I agree that's the right approach. Have a budget, play fun games. When your money runs out, quit. In the meantime, enjoy the free watered-down drinks and unhealthy food. Just like when my friends and I would go to the arcade with a handful of quarters, except they charged money for snacks.

House sets the mean and variance, how could they ever lose? Only thing left to make it work is volume, transactions volume, so variance can be minimized.