What Are The Odds?

Gambling appeals to people who love the prospect of taking risks and emerging successful. The greater the risk, the more they enjoy the game. For the novice gambler, they accept losses as easily as their wins. As they say, you win some, you lose some. However, for a person who considers gambling as a great form of investment, he doesn’t rely on the wheel of fortune or Lady Luck. As the stakes go higher, he will up his bet depending on the odds of winning.

Calculating the odds is not as simple as it sounds. It requires a great deal of mathematical analysis. There are even formulas used in arriving at the perfect staking system. Many men have tried to unlock the secret for their own advantage. One of the most known in this field is Michael Shackleford.

Born in Pasadena, California, Shackleford did not show a passion for gambling per se. In fact, before he gained notoriety as “The Wizard of Odds”, he was a claims adjuster. What could be the connection between a person responsible for investigating damages of a property in cases of accidents and one of the renowned specialists in the mathematics of gambling? Apparently, Shackleford has a mind of a statistician. He made it big when he made a table of the most popular names of baby in the past decades. This endeavor started a Social Security Administration tradition of publishing an official list of well-accepted baby names every year.

Now, Shackleford is busy using his talent in statistics in his website Wizard of Odds. The website is dedicated to explore the possibilities and the odds in different casino games. He is not called the Wizard of Odds for nothing. His analyses of casino games are well-founded. It even came to the point that online casinos are submitted to his approval before they become available for the public. Some of the big names in online gambling such as Hilton, Shuffle Master, and Playtech are among his long list of clients. Aside from his website, Shackleford also write books about mathematical analyses for casino games like Baccarat and Black Jack. His book Gambling 102: The Best Strategies for All Casino Games are given good ratings.

If a person is not that gifted in figuring the odds, then it’s a good thing that people like Shackleford are very willing to share their expertise. Gambling is fun, but winning makes it even more so. Before taking any chances, a person may as well get all the help he needs. What are the odds that he will lose more after seeking advice from the master?