Blackjack and Craps just didn't get my attention, as proper Blackjack playing requires card counting and Craps just generally eludes me (easy considering my apathy towards it). Roulette, however, made sense. The spinning wheel is a decent randomizer for the 38 numbers, and the numbers, colors, even/oddness, and high/lowness were reasonably broken up and bet upon. The attendant running the table gradually listed the odds: 1 to 1, 2 to 1 (I do a few), 10 to 1...wait a moment...mental wheels spin...10 to 1 is wrong; she should be giving 8 to 1, and admits it! but sticks to 10 to 1! There's hope! Time to settle in for a long roulette session.
Roulette. The wheel spins, a ball is dropped in, you pick your numbers or groups thereof, the ball settles on a number, and you win or lose your odds. There's 36 numbers, including 0 and 00. The zeros are on green backgrounds. 1 thru 36 are evenly split between red and black (exact distribution is statistically irrelevant). You can bet on low (1-18), high (19-36), even, odd, red, black, various groups of 12, groups of 4, pairs, or single numbers (00-36). Odds are, respectively, 1-1, 1-1, 1-1, 1-1, 1-1, 1-1, 2-1, 8-1, 18-1, 40-1. Except that for the last three, she was giving 10-1, 20-1, and 40-1. At this table, two of them were better odds than they should have been. The statistician in me perked up. Bet on four numbers at a time, any group; keep going, and see what happens.
What happened was boredom. Sometimes I picked the same group repeatedly, sometimes I picked other groups. Statistically, it didn't matter. Wa-hoo. One chip on four numbers, repeat. Pick more than one group at a time, and the average winnings drop...so no point in that. One quad at a time. Sure, I sat on one group until I was extra bored, then picked another, and "of course" the previously sat-on group won. Statistically, it didn't matter. The money went for a while. Then the money came; I was up to $1400 at one point. Oooo...I had $1400...so what? statistically, it didn't matter: I would keep using chips (someone had more than I did, and we both wanted that DVD player) until I had enough to win the auction or until I had nothing. Then I was casually tossing $50 and $100 chips around instead of $20s and $10s; statistically equivalent, just faster processing. The money stayed. Then it went. Use smaller chips to extend the stay. Then it was gone. Three hours gone; time to go back to the office.
Chatting with a friend, I later decided the ideal strategy. Didn't think of it until too late. A very efficient strategy. Statistically (I'd have to work the numbers to be sure) same as the stretch-those-chips strategy. Simple: find the best odds (in this case, 10 to 1 in Roulette), put all the money - all $500 - on a single bet at those odds. One Bond-sized bet. $500 in, $5000 or $0 out. That would get it over with quickly (time efficient), and ultimately face the same odds. Yes, there is the chance that stretching the chips for a long time could net a higher amount, but the single law of probability says that small enough probabilities don't occur.
Once the math of gambling is understood, there really is no excitement or dejection, as gambling really is a mechanical process in the long run: insert money, run the operation, see if anything pops out, repeat. Money won will become money lost if you keep going. Except in rare cases (hey, it won't happen for us) you won't get to stop when the results have accumulated a notable amount.
So, finally, I've gambled. Never wanted to, never will again. It's dull.