Can't Beat The Casino?

I'm not sure which lie is worse, the one that says you can easily beat the casino with some simple system, or the one that says you can't beat the casino. The truth is that there are ways to get the statistical edge over the casino. Unfortunately, they are generally not easy.

In the nine years I worked as a blackjack dealer, I saw many hopeful schemes and ideas, and some of them worked. Card counting, in particular, has a proven track-record of making money for those who are willing to do it right. Card counting is a technique for "beating the house," or making more money than you lose in the long run, but not necessarily on any given day. You beat the house by playing in such a way that the odds are in your favor. How do you get the odds in your favor?

You watch and wait. When the deck is "rich" enough in high-value cards (10,J,Q,K,A), the odds tilt slightly in favor of the player. This has been proven statistically, although how much the odds favor you depends on the "house rules," meaning the exact rules of the game in that particular casino. The odds also depend on the number of decks that the dealer deals from, and how far into the "card shoe" (the holder that the cards are dealt from) the dealer deals before re-shuffling.

The basic idea is to monitor the cards as they come out, and when the deck has more high-value cards than normal in it, bet more. Bet less when the house has the edge, more when you have the edge, and the odds are in your favor. In other words, you should make money in the long run.

The above is a simple explanation, and you need to study a good counting book to make this work. You need to know "basic strategy," or when to take a "hit" and when to "stand." Your play has to be precise to have the edge. You need to practice at home for hours. It can be tough at first to keep track of all those cards flying out of that shoe, while the other players talk and waitresses interrupt you.

The "counting" part is essentially assigning a value to the cards and tracking them. This is done more easily at tables where the cards are dealt face up (except the dealer's "hole card"). In one system, aces and face cards are given a value of -1, two through six are valued at +1, and seven, eight and nine are considered neutral.

Watching the cards, you add and subtract their values, betting the table minimum all the while. When you arrive at a predetermined count, let's say +7, you raise your bet. The high count means that there are a higher percentage of high-value cards left in the deck than normal. The odds are in your favor.

One card counter I dealt to for years would sit at the table for most of an evening, betting the $2 minimum. He shifted chips from one hand to another, his own way of tracking the "plus or minus count." When the shoe (five decks of cards in this case) was rich enough in high-value cards, he would suddenly start betting two hands at $20 each.

He made money, but not much. Do this well, and you may still only get a 1.5% edge on the casino. If, between your minimum bets and the others you average $8 per hand, and 75 hands per hour are dealt, you'll make about $9 per hour. This assumes you can tolerate alternating losing and winning days and hours of concentration. Betting more brings that hourly rate up, of course, along with the risk of bigger losing days. Card counting is definitely not for everyone.

Beating The Casino - Roulette Wheels

One of my favorite roulette players used to win regularly. When I ran the table, we would talk philosophy while he patiently made his simple bets all night. I knew he was winning, but not how much. After I quit the job, I met him for coffee and discovered that he had made over $90,000 in sixteen months of part-time play. That made it more interesting.

This is a longer story than I want to tell here, but the point is clear: It is a lie to claim that one can't beat the casino. There a number of ways to do so. The question is whether it is worth the effort. It may seem like it at first, until you sit there concentrating and bored at the same time for hour after hour.

By the way, there is a simple four-step formula for finding a biased roulette wheel and making money playing it. It starts:

1. Find a roulette wheel.

2. Watch 5000 spins, writing down the number the ball falls into on each one.

3. Start betting any that came up more than...

You can read the rest of the story, and get the formula for winning at roulette, in Chapter 19 of "You Aren't Supposed To Know - A Book Of Secrets," at:
http://www.TheSecretInformationSite.com/99lies.html

99 Lies | Can't Beat The Casino?