My Gambling/Money Making Theory

Off Topic
41

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
Jeffe wrote:
Randiago wrote:
Another thing to take into consideration is the size of the players.

Take this for example. Two individuals are playing a game where they flip a coin and if it is heads player A wins, if it is tails player B wins.

If both players start with equal money, such that both have 50 and the first to have the whole lot (100) wins the game. Both players will have equal odds of winning.

however give player A 75 and player B 25, player A now has a much greater statistical chance of winning over player B.

you now have in a sense you vs the casino, $10 000 Vs $1000000000000 or whatever number the casino is worth. Even more so when you take into account the fact that the house has better odds, you lose more often on average and there is nothing you can do about that. end of the day you will probably be down money making double sized bets just to get your money back. On top of this when you are down to the $10 000 bet that gets your money back, it isnt the 0.05% odds anymore, its straight back to a 1/2 (or .474 whatever was posted) and you are statisically going to lose. This is a pretty known strategy and in finance its not as fool proof as you may think.

If the casino has 100 billions dollars and I have 100, I have exactly the same odds of winning as I do if I have 100 billion, also. I can’t think of any game in the casino where the point is to see who can run out of money last.

There are 2 games that can be very favorable to the player and not the house. Roulette (dbl or single, single being better) and Texas Holdem against the HOUSE.

The winning strategy for roulette is pretty simple. Assume a minimum bet of $15 (this is the weekend and nighttime minimum in AC) Bet 5 straight numbers, means any 5 individual numbers, not 5 on one, or 3 on 1 and 2 on another, it must be five with a dollar each.

Now split the other 10 dollars for your bet on 20 different numbers (numbers you have not already bet on) You will always have enough time to do this during betting, because the numbers you pick don’t make a damn bit of difference, so don’t get caught up on birthdays and shit, just drop the chips where you feel like it.

Now look at what you’ve done here. By splitting it up this way you’ve covered 25 different numbers…the entire board only holds 37 (36 on single 0) which gives you a coverage of a hair over 67%.

Your odds of hitting are already to your advantage, and a big one. Statistically speaking you will hit 2 of every 3 spins. (From my own personal experience this does generally work out to be the case, of course you have bad runs and good runs. A few weeks ago I played for nearly 5 hours on the same $60 initial buy in and hit splits every spin for 11 spins in a row)

For those who don’t know, hitting a straight number in roulette pays 35:1, and a 2 number split pays 17:1. So by betting the 15 (or 11-13 if the minimum is 10) you will slowly grind a profit 2 dollars at a time with the occasional straight number hit.

The house obviously regains some of their advantage with the payout odds by not paying 37:1 and 19:1 but you still maintain a big advantage. I love playing this way as it’s low risk, care free, and it lasts a long time.

I see people come and drop 10-15 dollars on a couple of numbers, or, even worse, on the outside and being busted in 15 minutes while i quietly pocket $300-400 in a night.

I can’t be arsed to sit and work through the odds but I know you are wrong. The way I know you are wrong is that if this gave you a statistical edge, the casino would change the table in some way.

Without counting cards, Baccarat is usually the best odds you can get in a casino. With counting cards Blackjack beats it but as has been mentioned, your betting patterns have to vary with the count and this gives you away. If you are winning big, you will be ushured to a different game.[/quote]

I’m not wrong. Working out the odds takes about 30 seconds. You have a 67% chance of hitting, whether for 35:1 or 17:1.

42

No but the odds against payout

Edit because that made no sense:

When you stack the costs, the odds and the payouts, you lose. I could work it through and prove it but I am in a meeting at the moment.

43

[quote]artw wrote:
TheBodyGuard wrote:
artw wrote:
TheBodyGuard wrote:
artw wrote:
The only game with anywhere close to decent odds in a casino is blackjack. If you know how to play basic strategic blackjack perfectly, the house only has a .5% better chance than you do, a virtual coinflip. The odds fluctuate a tiny, tiny bit depending on whether or not the casinos let you double down on a split hand, split a hand that’s already beeb split, or if the dealer has to hit on soft seventeen or not.

Even if you can count cards flawlessly, unless you can ALSO play flawless strategic blackjack, you don’t improve your chances very much. But if you CAN count cards and play with perfect strategy, then you can tilt the odds in your favor and have as much as a 2.5% advantage over the house.

But counting cards without being noticed usually requires two people, like in “21”. I know how to count cards pretty well, but it’s very tough to do that and play perfect strategy at a multiple deck table, which is where the real high deck counts in your favor are most likely to occur. I’ve actually made a lot of money at dogshit Indian casinos before since they’re always a lot slower to spot a counter there, but even then I eventually drew a crowd by betting the table maximum for several hands at a time.

If you want a foolproof way to make money at a casino, there isn’t one. But the best chances you have are by counting cards while playing with flawless strategy at blackjack. If you Wikipedia Blackjack, there’s a chart that shows you every possible situation you can face in blackjack based on your hand and the dealer’s faceup card. It shows you when the best odds are to split, double down, hit or stay.

Counting cards is not illegal. You watch too many movies. Certain betting patterns may draw their attention, at max table stakes, but you aint getting thrown out. For every guy that can really count successfully and beat the house, there are 100s that think they can, and lose.

Your very best odds in the casino are poker. It’s not a house game. You only pay rake.

You’re right, counting cards is not illegal. That being said, I have been thrown out of a casino twice specifically for counting cards, and I have also been told that I am welcome to play any game BUT blackjack, also for counting cards. It’s called reserving the right to refuse service. The Peppermill and the Atlantis in Reno have booted me.

But you don’t know a fucking thing apparently. Since you play poker against random people and not the house, there are no chances of beating the casino. Your odds are often 50/50 against a random hand, but they can also be 95/1. If you play blackjack correctly and count cards, your odds over the course of six full decks is 50.5/49.50 no matter what. You can never say that about poker.

I’ve been in the casinos before I was old enough to be there legally. Blackjack was my first game, I was capable of playing perfect strategy and counting a little. So, apparently, you don’t know a fucking thing. Tell me, are you retired with all your blackjack winnings? And if you a poker player is “50/50 against a random hand, but they can also be 95/1. If you play blackjack correctly and count cards, your odds over the course of six full decks is 50.5/49.50 no matter what. You can never say that about poker” - can you explain to me those that make a living playing it? No, forget them. Can you explain that with + return over a large sample? And the return is larger than a mere point genius.

It takes a ton of skill to be able to make money playing poker and despite popular opinion, only a small handful of poker pros are truly successful. It also takes years and years and perhaps thousands of dollars lost before someone develops the skill to win consistently at poker. And then of course, there is the skill of the other players to take into account as well. In blackjack, there is little skill involved; it’s a very mechanical game and the only skill is really just memorizing the different situations to hit, fold, split or double down in along with learning how to count cards. The house has no “skill” in blackjack and once you have nailed the strategy and counting methods down pat, there are zero outside factors that can influence your success.

But in poker, there are a limitless amount of circumstances that can effect the outcome of a hand, which is why it is not uncommon to see players with the best hands fold and players with horrible hands win. If your hand is played against a full table (eight other players) and they all see the flop (which is rare, but even if only half of them do, which is common in a cash game) you rarely have better than a 50/50 chance of winning, even with a huge hand. Anybody who knows how to count cards and play perfect strategy can walk into a casino with a virtual coinflip’s chance of winning, whereas only a small handful of poker players can walk into a casino and say that, and the list is virtually non-existent if that poker player is playing with other top pros. If you’re not a legit poker pro living in Vegas and doing nothing but playing poker for a source of income, you’d be a fool to think you’re going to make money over the long haul; if you really were that good, you’d be a pro. You’re exactly who the pros want to play with.

As for my bankroll, I actually did have a pretty decent-sized one for a while (roughly25K) but I blew it all gambling on sports. I used to have a pretty serious gambling problem so I rarely gamble at all anymore, but I live about 30 minutes from a couple of Indian casinos and I’ll go there a couple times a year and play blackjack at a 5-100$ table and make a couple hundred bucks more often than not. I consider myself to be an above average poker player too, but I’m probably several grand in the hole playing poker.[/quote]

well for all that experience you’re still wrong. a wining poker player is still better than a single point edge in blackjack. roi is going to be higher. and i didn’t imply it was easy to be a winning poker player. i can buy in with 500 and sit 2/5 cash and easiy double or triple it. you cannot do the same in blackjack with a 500 roll. you have to risk more.

44

Of course a winning poker player can make more money than a one-point edge. My entire point is that it takes SO much more to become a winning poker player than it does a winning blackjack player and there are always going to be other factors that can be stacked against you. What if you’re playing against eight other “winning” poker players?

What if you’re playing with a bunch of novices who continually make calls that they shouldn’t but win anyways? What if you sit down and there are two highly aggressive AND skilled players to your left? Let’s say you have a hand that gives you a 45% chance of winning against three other players.

Does this take into account any other factors at all? No. It doesn’t take into account whether you are likely to fold when faced with a bet, it doesn’t take into account how much money you have versus other players and your implied odds and it certainly doesn’t take into account how you might play given any number of possibilities after the flop, turn or river.

Let’s say you have a pair of fives and you face a huge preflop raise from a very tight player who never raises with anything less than a huge hand. If he has AK, you are basically 50/50 to win. But will you even call the raise half the time? How often in reality will you win that hand? It’s hard to say due to all the outside factors. But a winning poker player probably lays that hand down 9 times out of 10, thereby losing 90% of the time he has a 50% chance of winning.

There is no mathematic formula that can take these factors into account so even a winning poker player never really knows his odds of winning a hand. And those odds change constantly. At blackjack, I KNOW that if I sit down and play perfectly and count cards perfectly, I have a .5% advantage over the house.

Because I’ll be betting larger as my card count gets higher in my favor, I stand to make a far larger profit than a .5% increase of my initial buy-in. If you could bet according to what your odds were, you could make a lot of money, but knowing what the odds are is the hardest part. In poker, you can make an educated guess as to what your odds are, but in blackjack, I KNOW what my odds are as the count goes up and down since the count itself is a direct representation of them. It’s not foolproof, but it certainly beats poker.

It doesn’t always work out this way and that’s why they call it gambling. But it is far less of a gamble when there are no outside factors that can influence my play. The dealer HAS to hit 16, HAS to hit soft 17, HAS to stay on 18 and so on. There’s no chance of being beaten by a more skilled player and no chance of a boneheaded play turning out well, which happens all the time in poker.

By memorizing the basic blackjack strategy, I eliminate any decision-making that may lead to error and I reduce the game to a purely mechanical endeavor. The games that have the best odds for a player, regardless of skill, are the ones that eliminate variables, and card counting combined with playing correct strategy at blackjack is as close as anyone will ever come to eliminating variables in a card game or any other game of chance. Bottom line.

45

Oh yeah, I can also easily triple a $500 bankroll in blackjack. It’s called hitting blackjack, and I know precisely when my odds of hitting it are high, whereas in poker, you never know when you have a good chance of doubling up, regardless of what hand you hold.

Doubling up requires playing through the river and there is absolutely NO way you can figure out the odds of this happening. In poker, especially cash games, there is a very low frequency of hands that go to the river with all of a player’s chips at risk.

46

OK Jeffe here we go, your 5 straight up bets and your 10 split bets have a Expected Value of -$0.053 on the dollar therefore you are over time losing an average of $0.795 per spin.

Yes you are having numbers come up more often than not but the wins are not covering your losses. What is happening is the hits make you feel like you are winning even though you are trickling money out every spin. Of course sometimes you might play just a few spins and walk away up but over the long term, you lose.

47

[quote]Jeffe wrote:
I’m not wrong. Working out the odds takes about 30 seconds. You have a 67% chance of hitting, whether for 35:1 or 17:1.[/quote]

Your mistake appears to have been neglecting the other bets you made.

You bet $1 on five different numbers and bet $1 on ten other splits.

Scenario A: You hit one of your five numbers
In this case, you win $35 and lose the other $14 you bet for a net of $21.
This scenario happens 5/38 times on a standard 00 board.
(5/38)*$21 = $2.76

Scenario B: You hit one of your splits
In this case, you win $17 and lose the other $14 you bet for a net of $3
This scenario happens 20/38 times on a standard 00 board.
(20/38)*$3 = $1.58

Scenario C: You miss completely
In this case, you lose as $15 for a net of (-$15)
This scenario happens 13/38 times on a standard 00 board.
(13/38)*(-$15) = (-$5.13)

So each spin you lose about $0.79. ($0.79)/$15 = 5.27%, which, not-coincidentally happens to be exactly the house edge for roulette if you account for the rounding errors.

Another way to think of this problem is that if you spun 38 times, you could expect to win:

$215 + $320 - $1513 = (-$30)
Over 38 spins you will bet 38$15 = $570
(-$30)/$570 = 0.056 = 5.26%, which again, is the house edge for roulette.

48

I really didn’t want to give this my time, but I’m starting to understand why you’re some thousands in the hole for poker. I’m going to address your post, as reluctant as I am to do that:

[quote]artw wrote:
Of course a winning poker player can make more money than a one-point edge. My entire point is that it takes SO much more to become a winning poker player than it does a winning blackjack player and there are always going to be other factors that can be stacked against you. What if you’re playing against eight other “winning” poker players? [/quote]

First, I agree it’s difficult to become a winning poker player ever, if at all. Lessons are not free. They are paid for. At 1/2, 2/5, 5/10 your chances of sitting down with eight other winning pokers players is not great.

[quote]artw wrote:
What if you’re playing with a bunch of novices who continually make calls that they shouldn’t but win anyways? [/quote]

The above is EXACTLY what you want. It’s how you get paid on your good hands. Losing those hands ties directly to variance and variance is managed with proper bankroll management and funding for the stakes you play. This is a very simple concept. If I have any advantage of my opponents hand, I want the money in the middle. This is simple.

[quote]artw wrote:
What if you sit down and there are two highly aggressive AND skilled players to your left? [/quote]

Adjust your game. Simple. Failing that, seat change. Failing that, table change. Winning poker is as much game selection as anything else. You play games you can beat. Period. You don’t play games/opponents you cannot beat or don’t have an edge over.

[quote]artw wrote:
Let’s say you have a hand that gives you a 45% chance of winning against three other players. Does this take into account any other factors at all? No. It doesn’t take into account whether you are likely to fold when faced with a bet, it doesn’t take into account how much money you have versus other players and your implied odds and it certainly doesn’t take into account how you might play given any number of possibilities after the flop, turn or river. [/quote]

Sorry sir, a good poker players calculates ALL the above. Perhaps because you’re poor at calculating the above, you are not a winning player?

[quote]artw wrote:

Let’s say you have a pair of fives and you face a huge preflop raise from a very tight player who never raises with anything less than a huge hand. If he has AK, you are basically 50/50 to win. But will you even call the raise half the time? How often in reality will you win that hand? It’s hard to say due to all the outside factors. But a winning poker player probably lays that hand down 9 times out of 10, thereby losing 90% of the time he has a 50% chance of winning. [/quote]

LOL you are really bad at poker aren’t you? A very tight player is raising there JJ or better. AK is a drawing hand. Stop watching WSOP - it’s a tournament. A good poker player will put him on a range, AK won’t be part of it for a very tight player. How much is the raise? What’s he got behind him? How likely is he to call off his stack if you hit your set or two pair? These are all considerations. Your math is just plain wrong at the end of your conclusion.

[quote]artw wrote:
There is no mathematic formula that can take these factors into account so even a winning poker player never really knows his odds of winning a hand. And those odds change constantly. [/quote]

That’s why it’s called poker. It’s the ability to win with or without the best hand, among other things. It’s probably why you’re more comfortable playing a game with your hand face up, with no decisions to make - because judging from your comments about poker, you play your poker hands face up, like a fish :slight_smile:

[quote]artw wrote:
At blackjack, I KNOW that if I sit down and play perfectly and count cards perfectly, I have a .5% advantage over the house. [/quote]

Over a large sample size and assuming an adequate bankroll. If it were this simple, you would be retired by now. There is still variance at play.

[quote]artw wrote:
Because I’ll be betting larger as my card count gets higher in my favor, I stand to make a far larger profit than a .5% increase of my initial buy-in. If you could bet according to what your odds were, you could make a lot of money, but knowing what the odds are is the hardest part. In poker, you can make an educated guess as to what your odds are, but in blackjack, I KNOW what my odds are as the count goes up and down since the count itself is a direct representation of them. It’s not foolproof, but it certainly beats poker. [/quote]

It does not beat poker for the winning player. A winning player is likely to have a greater than .5% edge on any given game. And your bankroll requirements are higher to make similiar profits. About the only thing I agree with is “it’s not foolproof” because it’s not, and that of course is my point and, it does NOT beat poker for a winning player.

[quote]artw wrote:
It doesn’t always work out this way and that’s why they call it gambling. But it is far less of a gamble when there are no outside factors that can influence my play. The dealer HAS to hit 16, HAS to hit soft 17, HAS to stay on 18 and so on. There’s no chance of being beaten by a more skilled player and no chance of a boneheaded play turning out well, which happens all the time in poker. [/quote]

Of course it doesn’t. I’ve told you that :slight_smile: And, we want boneheaded plays to turn out well. It keeps the fish coming back, and it keeps this fish paying off our better hands. The odds do not change because you take a bad beat. Poker is one long session of games, not any single session. And it does NOT happen all the time. Guy hits his flush on you 10 times in a a row? He’s still 4-1 the next time not to. All you can do is weather the variance and get your chips in the middle when you’re ahead.

[quote]artw wrote:
By memorizing the basic blackjack strategy, I eliminate any decision-making that may lead to error and I reduce the game to a purely mechanical endeavor. The games that have the best odds for a player, regardless of skill, are the ones that eliminate variables, and card counting combined with playing correct strategy at blackjack is as close as anyone will ever come to eliminating variables in a card game or any other game of chance. Bottom line. [/quote]

Decision making seems to be your weak point, hence your failure at poker :slight_smile: And bottom line, mistakes are made in the count all the time. The ability to count, keep the count, adjust the count for the deck, calculate odds, proper bet sizing, bankroll management, etc. etc. etc. are ALL variables. Again, if it were that easy, you’d be retired. And you’re not :slight_smile:

49

[quote]artw wrote:
Oh yeah, I can also easily triple a $500 bankroll in blackjack. It’s called hitting blackjack, and I know precisely when my odds of hitting it are high, whereas in poker, you never know when you have a good chance of doubling up, regardless of what hand you hold.

Doubling up requires playing through the river and there is absolutely NO way you can figure out the odds of this happening. In poker, especially cash games, there is a very low frequency of hands that go to the river with all of a player’s chips at risk.[/quote]

Well, you’re wrong again. Again, if it were that simple, you’d be retired. And you’re not.

In poker, you do not need to double up. 2/5 and better are robust enough games where a winning player can easily double or triple in a winning session. Typical 2/5 game, raise to 20 PF, 3 callers. $80 PF. Flop. Raiser Cbets $50, gets one call. Pot is now $180. Turn and River? The foregoing is typical of 2/5 and at 5/10 the dynamics are the same, the pots are just bigger. I don’t need to argue this with you any longer. I’ve played thousands of hours of poker. I’ve paid for my lessons.

50

[quote]Cockney Blue wrote:
OK Jeffe here we go, your 5 straight up bets and your 10 split bets have a Expected Value of -$0.053 on the dollar therefore you are over time losing an average of $0.795 per spin.

Yes you are having numbers come up more often than not but the wins are not covering your losses. What is happening is the hits make you feel like you are winning even though you are trickling money out every spin. Of course sometimes you might play just a few spins and walk away up but over the long term, you lose.[/quote]

Good post. There is some very tortured math in this thread.

51

[quote]artw wrote:
card counting combined with playing correct strategy at blackjack is as close as anyone will ever come to eliminating variables in a card game or any other game of chance. Bottom line.[/quote]

No it is not, Bacarat is as I ahve alraedy pointed out

52

BodyGuard,
Over the course of my blackjack playing, I’m probably close to 20k in the black. Considering that I used to play poker at blinds of 20/40, not 2/5, being down a couple grand in poker over the course of about ten years isn’t much. Despite what you may claim, I’m actually a pretty skilled player.

That being said, I can most certainly make an educated guess as to what a player is holding based on past hand history, but I can never be certain about the odds, whereas in blackjack I can. As far as your point about making mistakes counting cards, sure it happens, but I’m not likely to make one. In single-deck blackjack, when the deck comes down to the last card, plus the burned card, I can tell you what the last two cards will be, suit included, although it’s a guess as to which one was burned and which one was not.

The reason I’m not retired has nothing to do with my skill at poker or blackjack. I had a very serious gambling problem and while I almost always made money playing blackjack and never blew a ton of money playing poker, I gambled heavily on sports for large sums that were well above my blackjack paydays. I did not do well at this, clearly. I could probably start playing blackjack on a regular basis and build up enough of a bankroll to retire over time, but I would have start with a tiny bankroll which take a long time to build up, and I know myself well enough to know that eventually I would start gambling on anything and everything like I used to and very well may piss it all away again. I still play blackjack once in a blue moon and pretty much always win, but I play very low stakes now and I don’t play anything other than blackjack in casinos because it is the game I am best at.

I highly doubt you are as skilled at poker as you say you are, or you would either be a pro, or a retired pro. That seems to be your line of logic. But I can assure you that I am most certainly as skilled at blackjack as I claim to be. I am NOT skilled at all at setting limitations for myself or managing my bankroll. All of this talk about odds and strategy and whatnot aside, knowing your limits and managing your bankroll are the true keys to making money at gambling, and since you have never acknowledged this once, I have to assume that you aren’t much of a poker player. That and the fact that you apparently play 1/2, 2/5 and 5/10 poker.

If you are as good at figuring out ambiguous odds as you claim to be, sit down at a 20/40 table with some serious cash and play. According to your previous posts, you’re quite the player, so sitting down at one of these tables should be an even bigger guaranteed payday for you. Trust me, there are a lot of “fish” at those tables, too.

53

[quote]jtrinsey wrote:

If you play a negative expectation game (such as roulette), where the house has the edge, the house will ALWAYS win in the long run. There is no way around that. Betting systems can only change how much and in what increments you put your money on the table, they can do nothing about the odds. If the odds are against you, you will lose in the long run.

[/quote]

This is why I like poker. No house advantage means all I have to do is be better than my opponents. Besides, you can manipulate your odds in poker, which means if you can do basic math correctly and not “tell” you can win decent amounts of money. Analyzing human opponents is a helluva lot more successful than trying to thwart the laws of mathematics. With humans all you have to do is manipulate math in your favor.

54

[quote]P-Ha wrote:
infamous wrote:
This is a common flaw in thinking.
It is explained really good on this site The Truth about Betting Systems - Wizard of Odds

There is definately a betting system that works.

The author of that analysis fails to account for comped drinks.

If you make minimum bets on the pass line and order double shots of something every time the waitress comes by, you easily make up the .5% disadvantage to the house in liquor.

Roulette moves to fast for this to work, but a pass line bet in craps can easily take a few minutes to fall.

It is not really gambling. It is actually standing in a circle watching other people gamble while you get drunk on the casinos liquor.[/quote]

Lol. I like this guy.

Actually there is a man who wrote a book on playing video poker (negative expectation game) and who has successfully made money at it. You can find the book on Amazon (I read it at a Barnes/Noble, but I forget his name). He is a professional gambler, and his “system” is basically what you just said—there’s negative expectation on the machine which cannot be voided, but if you manipulate the “benefits cards” you get for being a member of the casino you can take advantage of special offers in Vegas to make up the difference in expectation. Basically you’re making your “money” on products and specials while playing a losing game.

I explained that really poorly. But he doesn’t violate the rules of probability. He manipulates special offers and cardholder benefits to make up for the negative expectation of the machine itself and provide a total positive expectation (machine + products + food + special offers) in the long run. He also plays a mathematically perfect game of video poker so he minimizes all losses. He also has a big ass bankroll to start with, which is the only way it works.

He also takes advantage of those 100.8% machines when they are on limited runs.

55

[quote]malonetd wrote:
Uncle Gabby wrote:
If you think you will ever make money from gambling you are an idiot. Gambling is an expensive form of entertainment. I’ve occaisionally won money in poker games, or at the race track, but I only go to have a good time, and only take as much money as I can afford to lose. I used to work in an off-track betting parlor. I saw a lot of people come through, and those who expect to make money usually end up miserable.

It is very possible to make money off poker. The problem is that most people don’t have the patience, the math skills, and/or the ability to pay detailed attention to other players.[/quote]

Poker is the greatest gambling invention of all time. A level headed guy with basic math skills can make asinine amounts of money off of people as long as he doesn’t panic or go on tilt.

56

[quote]artw wrote:
Oh yeah, I can also easily triple a $500 bankroll in blackjack…[/quote]

oRly?

My intention is not to start an e-war here, but…

This statement tells me you have never seriously been a card counter, or that perhaps you have learned the basics of it but you just gambling anyway rather than working the game as a serious advantage player. I suppose you could “easily triple” a $500 bankroll, but even playing at a $10 table, your risk of ruin is going to be over 90% with a $500 bankroll.

If by easily you mean, “over 10-15 hours I could expect to triple a $500 bankroll, provided I have the money to refill my bankroll to cover the inevitable swing that will occur,” then yes, I will agree with you.

57

With that said, there are plenty of ways to make money at casino games. I would say that I have been an advantage player since I was 18 (realistically since I was 16 or so if you count home games or sneaking into AC) and make enough money that essentially all I do is that and some personal training/coaching on the side and make a living off that. However, realistically my overall win rate is only in the $40/hr range because the standard deviation for gambling games is extremely high and I unfortunately don’t have a 6-figure bankroll to set aside for this stuff.

Here’s my take on casino games and some general gambling advice:

Craps- If you are just going to a casino and looking to have a good time, this is my recommendation. Most casinos have at least a couple low-minimum craps tables and if you stick the the pass line bet, the odds aren’t too bad. Most tables also allow you to make bets as low as $1 after the come out, so you can feel like you are playing a lot without risking a lot of money. It is also fun because you get to roll the dice and there is a very social element to it. It is slower-paced than blackjack, so you are not risking money as quickly and thus not losing money as quickly. As far as playing this game at an advantage, there are anecdotes abounding about players who allegedly possess “dice control” and can influence the numbers they roll. There is also convincing evidence from a physics standpoint that it can be done. It’s actually pretty interesting and is part of my graduate thesis. However, the average player cannot expect to play this game at an advantage.

Poker- Honestly, if you are a decent poker player, you can make $100-$500 every Friday and Saturday night if you go to Atlantic City, sit down at a 1/2 no-limit table and just sit on good cards. Poker is not about the math, it’s about playing the people and at that time it is loaded with drunk 20-something guys who think they are on the WSOP trying to bluff at every pot. If you just play Tier 2 hands or better and get heads-up pre-flop you can make a pretty tidy sum. I’ve been doing this since I was 16 and if you keep detailed records it is very easily to isolate a winning style and turn a mathematically predictable win rate. Other than that, poker is a fun game to play at casinos, but the downside is that, if you go with a group, they will often split you up and you don’t get to play with friends and many of the other people are douchebags.

Blackjack- Enough about blackjack has been written, but I will say that: a.) Playing blackjack as an advantage player is nothing like the movie “21” and b.) Blacjack is great (lowest house edge of any table game) if you play basic strategy but if you don’t know great basic strategy and you sit at a table with only 1 or 2 other players and a fast dealer you can easily lose $500 in an hour, even at a $15 table. Realistically, blackjack is not the game to play anymore if you want to make money at casino games as it has essentially been burned and the bankroll necessary to achieve a good win rate is too high.

Roulette- I never play roulette, it has a terrible house edge and is frankly boring to me. If you enjoy it, more power to you, but you are losing 5% of every dollar you bet and you don’t even get to spin the damn wheel.

Slots- I can’t say I’ve ever played a slot machine in my life. The odds are terrible and they don’t seem fun. It seems like paying to play a really bad video game.

Video Poker- The game that can be most reliably beaten at a casino as many casinos have progressive-jackpot video poker games that pay out somewhere in the range of 100.8%. However, if you want to press buttons on a computer for hours on end for $40-$50 an hour, I would recommend just getting a job at Dell tech support.

Other table games such as Caribbean Stud, 3-Card Poker, etc., etc.,: I have never seen evidence that any of these games are beatable without sharing information or peeking at other players cards. The odds for these games are often pretty shitty, even with perfect strategy and they are designed so that perfect strategy is often somewhat counter-intuitive. Therefore, these games are terrible for most people.

Side bets- Most casinos have side bets such as “Lucky Ladies” at their table games. Almost without exception, they are terrible and the house odds are as high as 15%. Avoid these.

Sports Betting- I’m not going to touch this topic as this is what kills many problem gamblers. It is also extremely difficult to reliably track win rates and standard deviation so you cannot know if you are winning or losing due to skill or random variance.

Asian Noodle Bars- Underrated places to hit on cute asian chicks at casinos while their aging grandmother spends her retirement check at the slot machine. If you are really looking to get the best bang for your buck, skip the table games and spend your $200 buying drinks here and you will probably end the night happier than if you had been sitting at the felt all night long.

Casinos are a lot of fun. But, as already echoed, never play with money you can’t afford to lose. Take a designated amount and think of that as money you are willing to pay for the entertainment of gambling. If you win, great, if not, then you won’t feel like you need to spend more trying to “win it back.”

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[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
artw wrote:

Doubling up requires playing through the river and there is absolutely NO way you can figure out the odds of this happening. In poker, especially cash games, there is a very low frequency of hands that go to the river with all of a player’s chips at risk.

Well, you’re wrong again. Again, if it were that simple, you’d be retired. And you’re not.

In poker, you do not need to double up. 2/5 and better are robust enough games where a winning player can easily double or triple in a winning session. Typical 2/5 game, raise to 20 PF, 3 callers. $80 PF. Flop. Raiser Cbets $50, gets one call. Pot is now $180. Turn and River? The foregoing is typical of 2/5 and at 5/10 the dynamics are the same, the pots are just bigger. I don’t need to argue this with you any longer. I’ve played thousands of hours of poker. I’ve paid for my lessons.

[/quote]

Bodyguard has given a pretty detailed overview of hold’em. Artw, I think the key concept you might be missing here is that the goal in poker is to win money, not ‘pots’ or games. You count your winnings from one month to the next, not from game to game or pot to pot.

You win by saving yourself bets when you lose and winning extra bets when you win. Example–when you make a mathematically proper bet, but come out short due to chance, you have played correctly because multiplying that same situation by 10, you’ll make money 9/10 times, for a net profit. Similarly, when you make a proper fold you may lose the pot but you have saved yourself money in the long-run because you didn’t waste any extra bets calling when you should have folded. Consistent play like this makes it much easier to make money in the long run because bad players will make those extra calls and those extra bets. Occasionally they will outdraw you, but 95/100 you win your money from them.

You change your strategy based on what type of players you face, how loose/tight they are, and where your position at the table is.

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[quote]Aragorn wrote:
…[/quote]

What you are referring to is sometimes known as “comp counting,” or basically playing a game where:

Loss Rate < Value of Casino benefits.

This can be done at table games as well, especially if it is on a weekend night or Holiday where the floor is packed and the pit bosses are very busy. Typically, they take your comp card, swipe it and watch you play a few hands to see your bet size and they will plug that it and only change it if they notice you changing your bet. They will also note your skill level (especially if you are playing $25 or more a hand) and the more unskilled you seem, the higher you will get rated on your comps.

So if you make a “mistake” in your play and throw a few extra bets when the boss is looking, you can easily get rated as a $50/hand “B” player while actually playing nearly perfectly and only betting $20/hand on average.

It’s a pretty cool concept and any recreation gambler who enjoys going to AC once or twice a month can use it very effectively.

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[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
artw wrote:
Oh yeah, I can also easily triple a $500 bankroll in blackjack…

oRly?

My intention is not to start an e-war here, but…

This statement tells me you have never seriously been a card counter, or that perhaps you have learned the basics of it but you just gambling anyway rather than working the game as a serious advantage player. I suppose you could “easily triple” a $500 bankroll, but even playing at a $10 table, your risk of ruin is going to be over 90% with a $500 bankroll.

If by easily you mean, “over 10-15 hours I could expect to triple a $500 bankroll, provided I have the money to refill my bankroll to cover the inevitable swing that will occur,” then yes, I will agree with you.[/quote]

Well, easily was a poor choice of words, but if I were dumb enough to wager everything I had as soon as the count got really high, I’d stand a great chance at doubling up, or more if I hit blackjack. But I would never bet everything even if the count was really high since all it would take is one unlucky turn of the cards to break me. But if I had a shitload of cash to gamble with in my pocket, I could theoretically do this with really high counts and have a much better than 50/50 chance of making a large profit.

I don’t know, the whole point of this thread was trying to beat the house, so when people claim that poker is the way to make money, it may be, but not if you want to beat the house. You don’t even play the house in poker, you play other people, so poker shouldn’t even really be a part of the discussion anyways. The fact that the table’s players can change throughout the course of the evening changes the nature of the game so much that the odds are just too hard to figure out with any real certainty.

I mean, if you play with a bunch of predictable players, of course it’s easier, but you still never know for sure what the odds are so it’s too dubious to say that the odds are in a highly skilled player’s favor. That’s why there are so few pros that make it to the final table in the Main Event each year. Luck is the great variable. Like Phil Hellmuth says, if luck weren’t involved, he’d win every tourney.

In blackjack, it’s possible to minimize the chances of losing due to bad luck because it’s such a mechanical game. Luck will always be present, but if you know the game and know how to count accurately, your odds are ALWAYS about.5% better than the house’s, regardless of the other players or the dealer. You just can’t say that about poker.