Why I stopped helping people

Why I stopped helping people


Prologue

I hope some people will be helped by reading this seemingly untrue story.


Part I

Back to the time when I was less old, after I learned that there was something called Casino in the world, I quickly figured out a way to beat them 40% of the time. Combining that with the other stuff I learned earlier in my life, I developed a method that could help a lot of people.

I recruited 100 people from my local area. These people had two things in common: they didn’t know math (they wouldn’t need my help if they knew math themselves) and they had money (it takes money to make money). Each one was required to bring $31,000. I told them I thought most of them would make $1,000. I was being conservative there. What I really thought was a great majority of them would make $1,000, but I’d rather give them a positive surprise than a negative one.

On a windy but cold winter day, a bus loaded with 100 brave hearts departed from New York. The old man in the driver’s seat looked exactly like me.


Part II

In a single game, if I bet $1, I had 40% chance of winning $1 and 60% chance of losing $1. The plan was to start with betting $1,000 and play up to five rounds. If I lose, then double up the bet next round. For example, if I lose the first $1,000, I bet $2,000 in the second round. If I lose the second round, I bet $4,000 in the third round, and so on. If I win any round, then stop and enjoy the $1,000 winning. Here is a list of the number of the people I helped after each round.
Round 1 -- 41 out of 100
Round2 -- 20 out of 59
Round 3 -- 12 out of 39
Round 4 -- 12 out of 27
Round 5 -- 5 out of 15

In less than one hour, I had helped 90 people to make $1,000. You could imagine that I was surrounded by smiley faces on our way back to New York. I also felt sorry for the 10 people who didn’t win. They knew and I knew; it was all about luck.


Part III

Time passed, some of the people I helped went to college; some entered into workplace. One day, I received a call from one of the people I helped who went to college. The question was simple, “did you receive any reward from the casino?” His tone made it sound like he had already known the answer. What he didn’t know was the cost of bringing 100 people from New York to Vegas took more than the $500 I got from the casino. However, as I thought harder, his question was still legitimate even though it was probably out of jealousy or something more evil. The casino didn’t ask me to recruit people from that far away. I could’ve found 100 people from Vegas or I could let them pay their own transportation. The casino still would’ve paid me $500.

It took me a whole weekend to ponder his question, which was quite long at that stage of my life. It wasn’t the first time I couldn’t answer a question but it was the first time I started wondering whether I was as smart as I thought I was. Not being able to find an answer to the latter question had greatly reduced the number of people I would’ve helped.


Epilogue

Years later, I was admitted to college and minored in math. Now I fully understand why the casino gave me the reward. I hope you do too. By the way, during the holiday season, I still receive cards from those people I helped.