Gamblers love to play credit card roulette. If you don’t know what that is, it’s where everyone throws their credit card into a hat (or whatever container), and then the server randomly picks a credit card. The person whose card was drawn has to pay the entire party’s bill.
Now I’ve never played this game before, since I’m not really a gambler, and neither are most of my friends (that I know of, anyway). I’d imagine this gets pretty scary in a large group, or at a very expensive restaurant. I was staring at an almost $800 check for four last week, and I was thankful we weren’t playing credit card roulette. And that didn’t even include tip!
It’s easy to see (I hate when people say that, but I’m saying it because I’m a hypocrite) that your expected profit from this game is $0. Assuming that everyone’s share of the bill is equal and that everyone’s credit card is equally likely to get drawn, you have a 1/n chance of having to pay (n-1)x more than you normally would, where x is the amount per person, and a 1 – 1/n chance of having to pay nothing, which is a profit of x. So your expected profit is -1/n*((n-1)x + (1 – 1/n)x = 0. On the surface, it would seem that you have nothing to lose from this game, at least monetarily. Is that really true though?
I would imagine that knowing that credit card roulette is coming at the end of the meal would change people’s spending habits. I mean, not that everyone’s going to splurge and order the lobster and Kobe beef (at least, if you’re with non-assholes), but little things like an appetizer or a beer that I normally wouldn’t order would suddenly become much easier to order. I’m either not paying for it at all, or I’m paying for everyone, so that appetizer or beer is just a drop in the bucket compared to all the money I’m going to have to pay. But then everyone else probably also feels the same way, so they’re probably going to be ordering appetizers and drinks and whatnot, so the costs add up. I’m going to guess, based on absolutely no scientific evidence, that the average bill per person is higher when credit card roulette is involved.
On the plus side, there’s none of this dividing the check business, which can be such a hassle. Everything will be on the one card, with no transferring of money between people. Quick and easy.
So, as in most types of gambling, the winners are happier, and the losers are sadder. The winners have gotten to enjoy a possibly slightly better meal than usual for free, while the loser has to foot a potentially gigantic bill. And, like gambling, the house (the restaurant) will win in the long run, since people will end up spending slightly more. But it sure sounds like a thrill, doesn’t it?