Advice From An Expert: Vol II. A Gamblin' GM speaks

I jokingly twittered from a casino in Palm Springs last week wondering if the odds on the craps table were better than the odds of investing in a Broadway show.

Well, craps and Broadway are no joking matter to my good friend and uber-General Manager, Mark Shacket, who is currently in office at Alan Wasser Associates, one of the largest General Management firms on Broadway.

Mark worked it out . . . so I thought I'd include his musings on the subject as volume II of our Advice From An Expert series!  Enjoy!
 

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CRAPS - EXPECTED LOSS

If we assume the following things:

- that a typical craps table rolls the dice every 30 seconds
- that the point or seven hits every 5 rolls (meaning each "cycle" from the coming out roll to the end of the session is 5 rolls on average)
- that you play the pass line bet with maximum allowed odds every time, with max odds 3X-4X-5X (House edge: 0.37%)
- that you make 2 place bets every "cycle" (Average House edge: 4.06%)
- that you make a hard way bet every other "cycle" (Average House edge: 10.10%)
- that you make 2 prop bets every "cycle" (Average House edge: 12%)
- that your craps session lasts 2 hours

then the expected loss for your 2-hour session is 37.48%.

BROADWAY - EXPECTED LOSS

If we assume that for every 10 Broadway musicals produced, the following results are achieved:
- 0.25 musicals are HUGE hits (Wicked, Phantom): 1000% return
- 0.75 musicals are big hits: 250% return
- 1 musical is a hit: 130% return
- 5 musicals lose some money: 60% loss
- 3 musicals loss everything: 100% loss

And we assume for every 10 Broadway plays produced, the following results are achieved:

- 0.25 plays are HUGE hits: 250% return
- 0.75 plays are big hits: 150% return
- 1 play is a hit: 120% return
- 5 plays lose some money: 60% loss
- 3 plays lose everything: 100% loss

then the expected loss for your average Broadway investment is 36.88%.

(It should be noted that the above assumptions are based on little more than my whim.)

Therefore, Broadway has a slightly better expected return than craps (36.88% loss for Broadway vs. 37.48% loss for craps).  Ken's question was which has "better odds", and these figures suggest Broadway investing has better odds.  But not so fast!  Broadway investing may have a better average return, but the mean return is far lower.  What does that mean?  Let's look at an easy-to-understand example:

The New York State Lottery paid out 54.7% of their receipts in prize money.  Does that mean that if you play the lottery regularly that you can expect to make a return of $0.547 on each dollar?  No!  In fact, your return will almost certainly be far less than that.  Consider how much of that 54.7% payout is paid to the small handful of multi-million dollar jackpot winners.  That will most likely not be you.  So playing the lottery may have an average return of 54.7%, but the mean return (what the majority of people experience) will be much lower, since they don't share in the big payouts.

The Broadway investment analysis above assumes you can invest in every Broadway show evenly, which you can't.  Broadway's average loss is mitigated in large part by being able to invest in the huge hit.  In fact, if you remove only the huge hits from the equation, the expected loss on Broadway jumps to 52.50%!  But because investors can only put their money in select shows, there is a good chance that they will never find the very rare, huge hit.  Note that 8 out 10 times you invest, you will lose 60% or more.  So the average return on Broadway may be slightly higher than on craps, but the expected return (ie, the mean return; what most investors will experience) is much lower.  Broadway is therefore a far RISKIER investment than craps, even though the overall average expected loss rate is lower.

What can we learn from this?  Well, first, only invest in hits.  But there's another important thing to remember: When you're rolling the dice on the felt, you have absolutely no information about what the next number rolled will be.  But when you're rolling the dice on a Broadway investment or producing opportunity, you have plenty of information to consider.  Who is the producer and what is their reputation and track record?  How does the budget look to you?  What does the current marketplace look like? Are there other similar shows on the boards and how have they performed? Who is in the cast or on the design team?  Is the script well-structured? Is the show marketable?  Read, learn, and study everything you can about your investing or producing opportunity and you will be sure have more than your share of the success.

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Thanks, Mark!  See you at the tables!