How necessary are quantitative skills in order to trade profitably?

[oldtime]

If I understood math and could write all those formulas, I would concentrate on understanding luck.

What is it?

How often does it occur?

For example, let's say you're testing a 50/50 system using a coin toss.
Well, the first 25 flips come up heads. What do you do? I'll tell you, you scrap those and start over because they will not help you test your system, and you say, "That was just luck."

 

[IronFist]

Quote from HFStartup:

I was intrigued by how they utilized time decay to swing the probabilities in their favor.

Please elaborate. I understand how casinos have a mathematical edge. what does time decay have to do with it? Do you just mean the longer people play the more the casino wins? That's not time decay.

 

[ammo]

Quote from IronFist:

Please elaborate. I understand how casinos have a mathematical edge. what does time decay have to do with it? Do you just mean the longer people play the more the casino wins? That's not time decay.

loosely it's time equals the gambler giving back his winnings,his acct decays over time,i know that's not what you meant,not sure if its what he meant

 

[oldtime]

Quote from ammo:

loosely it's time equals the gambler giving back his winnings,his acct decays over time,i know that's not what you meant,not sure if its what he meant

another vote for sweeping the account each month (if there's anything to sweep)

 

[Dustin]

I've been profitable daytrading as my sole income since 2000 with no math background. In fact I was really terrible at math in school. Off the top of my head I can think of four trading friends more profitable than myself with no math or programming skills... so yeah it is being done. If you get enough screentime, your feel for the market can be your long term edge.

 

[HFStartup]

Quote from IronFist:

Please elaborate. I understand how casinos have a mathematical edge. what does time decay have to do with it? Do you just mean the longer people play the more the casino wins? That's not time decay.

"Time Decay - Definition of Time Decay on Investopedia - The ratio of the change in an option's price to the decrease in time to expiration."

What I was referring to was that the casinos are able to convert the passage of time to work in their favor as a ratio of change in the statistical probablities. They do this by not installing windows on the casino floors, removing any clocks or timekeeping devices, offering free drinks and low cost food, etc. I simply sought out how I could apply the same principle to trading which translated into the selling of options while using quantitive models to determine entries and risk managment.

 

[SrRuthenate]

Spooking or frontloading the dealer's hole card works well.

 

[virtualmoney]

Quote from bone:

There is a saying amongst the old hands: "the dumber the better"

In other words, " Your loss is my gain",i.e. the house always win, if not, you are not allowed to leave ...does not matter if you are good in math or not. Math explanations can be twisted e.g, If a game is rigged, it is called The Law Of Large Numbers,Black Swans, etc.

 

[DontMissTheBus]

Is there any probabilities calculation in craps that goes beyond day-2 of introduction to probabilities in high school? Why would you need to build "intuition"? There's a definitive right answer to every question posed and methodical ways to derive it. Your thinking sounds very "new math" to me.

Quote from bumblebuzzard:

I did, though, spend a lot of time shooting craps, and that built up a really good intuition about probability. (I'm serious.)

 

[Visaria]

Quote from HFStartup:



What I was referring to was that the casinos are able to convert the passage of time to work in their favor as a ratio of change in the statistical probablities.

Ratio of change? I don't understand.