Winning with Target Betting: I have been a busy bee betting baccarat lately, posting a lot of bet-by-bet demos on YouTube and building a slow-growing but welcome audience. Check out the links below with my hope that they will help you become a better bettor at baccarat and blackjack!

Something for nothing (but it's worth a lot more)

They say that if you get something for nothing, that's usually all it's worth. Not in this case. Ignorance is among the casino gambler's worst enemies, right up there with greed, stupidity, a pitiful bankroll, and a thirst for "free" cocktails. If you choose to learn the target betting strategy described in these posts, all it will cost you is your time. And it will be a valuable investment. There's a narrative thread here, so if you can spare enough time to start at the beginning (the "ghost story" below) you will hopefully get even more out of the blog. The blackjack simulation illustrated in logs here is Ken Smith's Blackjack Strategy Trainer and if you choose to apply my rules and log your results accurately in the format I use, I would welcome access to your data. Please e-mail scanned logs to me. Thanks! Seth

BST has some quaint little quirks you need to be aware of...

Ken Smith's Blackjack Strategy Trainer is invaluable to anyone wanting to learn the game (and how to beat it!) without risking any real money.
Aside from the irritating $1,000 table limit, there are a couple of minor bugs to watch out for.
When you are asked if you want to add another Grand to your bankroll, be very careful of your cursor's position before clicking the "money button" to draw more dough. If it's a little too far to the right, you will accidentally choose to quit, and then it's game over.
I play BST using my laptop's touch panel and tap to draw or stand. Once in a great while, finger bounce occurs, and an extra card is "dealt" unasked. Boy is it maddening to accidentally draw a 10 to a perfect 21...but it can happen.
Generally, Mr. Smith's app is about as perfect as these things get. The same card is never dealt twice between shuffles, and that's saying a lot.

An easy way to test the lie that progressive betting can't win.

Too many people accept without question the house-biased conventional wisdom that progressive betting cannot win over the long haul.
But there is a quick and easy (and also profitable) way to disprove this nonsense.
Next time you are in a casino, stroll up to a low-rent blackjack table, and start betting a Martingale progression (-5, -10, -20 for example).
Within a very few minutes, the dealer will do as he/she is trained to do and comment on the trouble you are headed for if you keep on doing what you're doing.
If you ignore the friendly tip, a pit boss will soon appear at your elbow, make polite introductions, and repeat the advice the dealer gave you.
If you persist, you will be discouraged from further play.
What is especially revealing about this scenario (one that you will find never varies) is that the same consideration and friendly advice is never offered to drunks and other fools who are throwing their money away all around you.
Why is that, do you think...?
I absolutely do not recommend double-up betting other than for the test I just described.
I avoid it not because it doesn't work, but because casinos will not permit it to be played.
Mathematicians can "prove" the hazards of progressive betting with simulations built on a random numbers generator.
Such simulations require that the "player" be barred from taking any defensive action under any circumstances. In other words, he has to bet like a mythematician.
Real players have more sense. Some of them, at least.

A couple more things you should know...

My extensive use of Ken Smith's Basic Strategy Trainer (BST) blackjack application in this blog does not and is not meant to imply his endorsement of target betting. Mr. Smith is an advocate of card counting and advantage play, and as such does not recognize any alternative betting method as viable.
Target betting is a generic phrase meant to convey the core premise of my betting method, which is to maximize the positive effect of winning trends and minimize the damage done by negative trends.
Some years ago, a systems promoter named Jerry Patterson devised a method that he described as Target Betting (with a capital 'T' and a capital 'B') which drew its name from...well, that was never quite clear.
My version of target betting has nothing whatever to do with Mr. Patterson's ideas, and could as easily be described as "pattern betting" because it relies on predictable, reliable actual patterns that can be seen in any sample of random outcomes from games of chance.
So let's be clear: Ken Smith has no connection with anything you see in this blog, and target betting (small 't' and small 'b') owes nothing whatever to Jerry Patterson.

Thursday, December 11, 2025

I have been a busy bee betting baccarat lately, posting a lot of bet-by-bet demos on YouTube and building a slow-growing but welcome audience. Check out the links below with my hope that they will help you become a better bettor at baccarat and blackjack!

Boy, that was a lot of bees!

When I first started posting to YouTube a couple of years back, I knew I was in the wrong place to pitch logic and common sense on a platform built on quick thrills and even shorter attention spans.

No one who subscribes to the likes of Vegas Matt and Jason Boehlke ('Mr. Hand Pay') cares that when these gambling gurus--bad influencers!--win or lose sums with a lot of zeroes, they are not in real jeopardy.

For them, losses are merely overhead and part of the never-ending act, and wins are a bonus. Whatever happens, another big cheque from Google will pick up the tab at the end of the day.

The rest of us have to work hard to win.

And as always, I do what I do to get out the message that anyone who tackles tilted table games without a big bankroll and a viable betting plan probably deserves to lose his or her money.

It's not a popular message, for sure, but it is a lot more honest than the patent pap peddled on YouTube by Vegas Matt and his many imitators.

I may be swimming upstream, but I'm not done yet! Here are a few recent posts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfBdY5OGVZc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzEngI0Gkok

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTjNsPr0SVw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8H8tgwou40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qujag7t-E7M&t=294s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnfgM1qy0hE&t=9s

Unlike some of the professional losers on YouTube, con-men all, I don't claim to be the world's greatest at what I do: I'm just a normal human bean making an effort to expose one of the most deadly propaganda campaigns of modern times (the oft-repeated 'axiom' that casino games of chance cannot ever be beaten, and trying and losing is fun).

OK, so Russian suppression and defenestrations are worse and the drug trade is too, but the pretense that gambling is harnless fun can also lead to crime and broken homes and even fatal consequences, and maybe we should all take it more seriously.

An important reminder: The only person likely to make money out of this blog is you, Dear Reader. There's nothing to buy, ever, and your soul is safe (from me, at least).

Winning with Target Betting

Featured Post

It's fine by me if the gambling biz wants to portray me as a clueless crackpot. But stupid? Now they have crossed the line! Oh, and if you're looking for gambling's holy grail* it's been right here for years...

Three zebras meet their first horse (or a trio of mythemat- icians discuss a new winning strategy?)

Something for nothing (but it's worth a lot more)

BST has some quaint little quirks you need to be aware of...

Blog Archive

An easy way to test the lie that progressive betting can't win.

A couple more things you should know...

Thursday, December 11, 2025

I have been a busy bee betting baccarat lately, posting a lot of bet-by-bet demos on YouTube and building a slow-growing but welcome audience. Check out the links below with my hope that they will help you become a better bettor at baccarat and blackjack!

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