CRUISE CONNECTION

As of the 23rd May 2022 this website is archived and will receive no further updates.

understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining.

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For the 2017/2018 New Years, I decided to book a 4 day cruise on Carnival Inspiration leaving out of Long Beach, CA. Had a wonderful time and then returned to my home in the Las Vegas area (Henderson, NV) afterwards. About 250 miles away from Long Beach. On 1/6/18, I decided to play table games at the M Resort in Henderson and was playing a Texas Holdem table game. This is against the house and known as a "carnival" game. The dealer was killing us and all the other players had walked off. I was leaving and mentioned the cruise to the dealer who was interested in what that was like. I showed him pictures of the cruise party. At that moment, the pit boss, a nice British lady, walked by and noticed the pictures. She inquired what we were looking at. I explained and then she surprised me by saying that she had worked previously on that exact same cruise ship. What are the odds? Out of the blue, the dealer then said that I should try my luck at the next table playing a variation of black jack where you can play a side bet and receive tokens that translates into various payouts depending on how many tokens you accumulate in a hand. This is based on double downs and pairs dealt to you in one hand and is called Free Bet Black Jack. For instance, if you get a pair of 8's you would split them and receive token. If you get another pair of 8's, you again split them and get another token. So I played for a few minutes and then was incredibly lucky and received 5 tokens that payed out 100 to 1 on my side bet. The dealer stated he had never seen anyone get 5 tokens before, ever. The same British pit boss came and approved my pay out of 500.00 for my 5 dollar side bet. I consider this a nice case of fortuitous serendipity.
Total votes: 462
Date submitted:Mon, 08 Jan 2018 21:07:39 +0000Coincidence ID:9726