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Kelly Can't Fail

(win-vector.com)
389 points jmount | 1 comments | 19 Dec 24 23:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.208s | source
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pcthrowaway ◴[20 Dec 24 02:34 UTC] No.42467756[source]▶
Note that you need to be able to infinitely divide your stake for this to work out for you all the time.

For example, if the deck has 26 red cards on top, you'd end up dwindling your initial $1.00 stake to 0.000000134 before riding it back up to 9.08

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boothby ◴[20 Dec 24 03:06 UTC] No.42467915[source]▶
If you start out with a $1e12 stake, you're able to avoid catastrophic rounding errors even in the worst case. There's probably a life lesson here.
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fragmede ◴[20 Dec 24 03:28 UTC] No.42468021[source]▶
Is the lesson: choose to be born to wealthy parents?
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1. renewiltord ◴[20 Dec 24 16:20 UTC] No.42472397[source]▶
A popular view is that having wealthy parents gives one a great advantage. Another popular view is that working extraordinarily hard for money is a waste of one’s life even if one gets the money. But the two are only consistent if one believes that one’s own life is the optimization target. If I live a life of misery so that my children live a life of prosperity that would strike me as a phenomenal result.

So another reading is “choose to give your children wealthy parents”.