There's mathematics, and then there's mythematics (the "proven" notion that casino games of chance are ultimately unbeatable!).

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The only thing that is demonstrable about the (hopefully) random win-loss patterns derived from house-biased games is that a player who bets flat amounts or bets randomly is certain to lose in the end.

It's a simple enough truth, although some academics have felt the need to produce formulae that run to several pages to demonstrate that if you lose more bets than you win, then you must also lose more money than you win.

And if it is inevitable that losses must always exceed wins, the question that has to be answered is, What's the point of playing?

The lure of gambling of course is that it is possible to win in the short term, if you get lucky either by winning more often than you lose, or by accidentally timing your bets in such a way that the combined value of your fewer wins exceeds the combined value of your more numerous losses.

The problem for must gamblers is that the more they win, the more likely they are to keep playing. And the more they play, the more likely they are to lose. If you're a blackjack player (and a fan of satirical novels) you could call this dilemma a Catch 21!

Much has been written down the centuries about what's known as the "gambler's fallacy" or the idea that after an unusually high ratio of losses to wins (a ratio that exceeds the known negative expectation for the game at hand), a win is more likely.

It's not, of course. In a game with a 2.0% house edge, your odds of winning are 49-51, or a tad less than 50-50, every time you make a bet. So a betting strategy that depends on a win being "more likely" at any point in the game is doomed to failure.

Target betting dramatically boosts the next bet (NB) value in response to a mid-series win not because a second consecutive win is "more likely" than a loss, but because if fortune should smile in spite of negative expectation, all prior losses for the series (LTD) will be recovered, plus a small profit.

(If you are new to this method, a series begins with an opening minimum bet, and ends when turnaround or end of series aka EOS has been achieved. If a series opens with one or more successive wins, it continues until a loss, and the value of that loss becomes the LTD, with the NB value = LTD+T. If the streak-ending loss is immediately followed by a win, the series ends and the bet reverts to the opening minimum. If not, it continues per the strategy rules until EOS is achieved).

Mythematicians love to heap scorn on the Small Martingale or double-up betting method, which opens with a 1-unit bet and risks -1, -2, -4, -8, -16 and so on until a win finally comes along, recovering all prior losses with a single successful wager and delivering an overall profit of 1 unit.

The method is derided as suicidal because of the fact that repeated doubling is certain eventually to bump up against the table limit, and if the required x2 bet can't be made, an overall loss is inevitable.

That would be true if a double-up bettor was too dumb to move to a layout with a higher table limit before he got into serious trouble, and in theory, it might be possible for so many successive losses to occur that a $5 bet grows to exceed even the most generous house limit in Las Vegas ($25,000 is about average on "The Strip" these days, and high rollers can add several zeroes to that amount with special dispensation).

It's possible, but not likely. And gambling is all about what's likely, or probable, with blind luck ruled an irrelevance.

Interestingly, there is not a casino I have ever heard of that will permit x2 betting for long. Why? Because it is much more likely to succeed than to fail. And gamblers can never be permitted to win for long.

"Martingalers" can be seen in action in any busy casino if you know what to look for. The guy who muscles into a blackjack game, places two or three consecutive losing bets and then moves on is an x2 bettor in search of a single win. Blackjack is the perfect game for him, because a natural or a successful double/split will greatly boost his bottom line, giving him a final win exceeding his target 1u.

So, target betting is progressive betting, and progressive betting is certain suicide, right? Wrong.

In the current target betting trial, the TA/T strategy is ahead $184,000 or 5.6% of total action against a house edge of 4.6% indicating a mythematically expected loss of $149,000. A Martingale would be $37,000 (10.5%) ahead against the same outcomes. Average bet values and overall risk or exposure are both much lower for x2 betting, but it doesn't much matter because casinos do all they can to block the use of a Martingale.

My target betting method needs two successive wins to achieve turnaround/EOS/recovery, which is twice as tough to come by as a single win. But if you take a typical game session such as this one...


(Click on the image to enlarge it)

...and then highlight the paired (or better) wins, it is easy to see why my method is very tough for the house to beat. You will win more often with a Martingale, with less risk. But since the bad guys won't let you play it, why not win with a method that they have not yet figured out?



There can be some scary gaps between paired wins from time to time, it's true, but they become less of a threat to your bankroll the longer you play, as long as you take my advice and add at least half of each session's profits to your war chest.

Fact is, it is not the house edge that blows most gamblers out of the game: it's their pathetically inadequate bankrolls, coupled with the fact that they consistently fail to fully exploit winning streaks.

You WILL lose more bets than you win, in the long run. So you have to bet opportunistically (and optimistically!) in response to a potential winning streak, knowing that every positive trend has to start with a single win, but not knowing for sure that that win will be immediately followed by another.

I once had a gambling aunt who would tell me: "Luck won't find you, you have to step out in front of it." And that is what target betting is all about. (Auntie Betty once owned a nightclub in London's Soho, and was a died-in-the-wool gambler until the day she fell off her perch; when she won, she gave most of the money away; when she lost, she kept on cranking until the next big hit came along).

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). Test my ideas and use them or don't. It's up to you.
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The difference between winning and losing at casino table games isn't luck. It's all about discipline.

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You may not know it, but the casinos you love to frequent have a plan for you, and it goes like this:

You will...

• Go to the table with an inadequate bankroll.
• Bet within a very tight spread (probably not more than 1-5) so that even a relatively short negative trend will wipe you out.
• Respond to a downturn by dropping back to minimum bets and playing scared or pushing out ever-larger bets until your money's all gone.
• Gratefully accept "free" cocktails so that your play becomes increasingly reckless and self-destructive as your inhibitions are buzzed into oblivion.
• React to a run of luck by raising your bets, then stubbornly sticking to high wagers when luck deserts you (as it always will) until all your winnings are back in the dealer's tray.
• Go home a loser, convinced that it was not your fault that you made another "contribution" and
• Come back again for another drubbing because you never learn anything from being beaten.

Casino personnel are trained to have a very low opinion of their customers' common sense quotient and to steel their hearts when they see someone losing far more than they can afford (no one forced the fool to gamble, after all).

The house's fat bottom line depends primarily on the fact that the vast majority of gamblers have no idea of the negative odds they are challenging, and assume that whatever the numbers may be, they don't apply to them.

A consistent winner, on the other hand, will...

• Accept that luck is an irrelevance because it favors the house as much as the player and
• Recognize that the house advantage makes it inevitable that over time, the smartest punter will lose more bets than he wins.
• Be fully aware of the negative odds he faces, while knowing that the tiny edge the house enjoys is far less of a factor in player losses than poor money management.
• Know that winning requires a substantial bankroll (something the house knows, too) and that long-term profit without risk is a mathematical impossibility.
• Grasp enough math to understand that if he is going to lose more bets than he wins in the long run, then the only way he can make any money is to win more when he wins than he loses when he loses (an objective that sometimes requires balls, but never crystal ones!).
• Learn the best way to play any "house game" he chooses to venture and ignore side bets and sucker traps such as Royal Match at blackjack and Pair Plus at 3-card poker (which is itself only suited to players with too much money).
• Play consistently and cautiously, knowing that what many people assume is conservative betting actually increases the house's already favorable odds.
• Study win-loss patterns and see in them the simple truth that they key to winning is exploiting positive streaks in such a way that cumulative losses can be recovered in fewer bets than it took to get into trouble in the first place.
• Do everything possible to avoid attracting the attention of paranoid pit personnel who assume that anyone who wins "too often" must be cheating. Effective camouflage includes:
• Varying strategy rules without ever flouting the core principle that a mid-series win must always be followed by a loss to date plus target bet (LTD+).
• Never spreading bets so wide in one location that pit staff or other players notice the low-high gap.
• Bailing out of any prolonged negative trend, knowing that house "spikes" are not the norm (in blackjack and baccarat, at least!) and that betting against a losing streak can be more damaging than moving.
• Knowing that moving from one layout to another (or a different game or even a different casino) has no effect on probabilities, as long as the next bet (NB) and loss to date (LTD) values are maintained.
• Never playing when tired, bored or otherwise uncomfortable, because winning can always wait a while and the tables aren't going anywhere!
• Never taking losses personally, because they are almost always temporary.

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). Test my ideas and use them or don't. It's up to you.
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Take the time to learn the strategy rules, playing against "funny money" games until you are an expert. Then, you will be ready to be a real winner!

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Target betting simply means knowing at all times how much you are "in the hole" in a given series, a series being a string of bets that starts with a minimum wager and continues until a profit has been achieved.

Your objective is to make a steady profit, and because you know ahead of time that in the end you will lose more bets than you win, you also know that the only way you can make money is by winning more when you win than you lose when you lose.

Psychic ability is not required.

What's needed is a set of responses tailored to circumstances and requiring a different reaction to a win than to a loss. In this way, the damage done by a string of consecutive losses will be less than the benefit derived from a similar string of consecutive wins, and over time, the value of your average winning bet will be greater than that of your average losing bet.

For example, 49 wins at $11 will offset 51 losses at $10 and overcome a house advantage of 2% (negative expectation being a loss of $21, replaced by a win of $29 or 2.8% of overall action).

It is not my purpose here to explain in detail why the method works, but to challenge skeptics to try it themselves and discover its merits from their own experience rather than mine.

Step one is to learn the rules below. Step two is to put them into action without risk until confidence (and competence) has been gained. Step three is to take what you have learned into a casino and kick ass.

As long as you are behind in a series, carefully track your loss to date (LTD) until a win comes along, then respond to that win by pushing out a next bet (NB) that covers the sum total of the LTD plus a target profit ($5 or 1 unit is good, $25 or 5u is better).

If the mid-series win is followed by a loss (as it will be slightly more often than not) the loss becomes the new NB value, and the series continues until the next win, when the process is repeated. Eventually, a second consecutive mid-series win will bring an end to the series (EOS), and the bet falls back to the minimum 1u.

Target betting will prevail in the long run with just the LTD+TGT rule in place, but I recommend rules variations that will not only boost profitability but will serve to camouflage what you are doing and confuse the enemy (you know who they are).

After an opening loss, bet 5x the previous bet (PB).
After a second loss, bet PB/2 and do the same after a third loss.
If losses continue, repeat the bet (NB=PB) until a win, then apply the LTD+ rule.

After an opening win, bet 2x (NB=PBx2), and keep doing that after each successive win until the bet hits $200.
When the win progression (WP) x2 limit is reached, NB=PB+$100 until a loss ends the winning streak.
When an opening winning streak ends with a loss, NB= the lesser of PBx2 or PB+$100 and LTD=PB.
If losses continue, freeze the bet (NB=PB) and continue doing so until a win calls for the LTD+TGT rule.

Doubled wins (meaning any wins greater than the value of the original bet) do not affect the NB value, but doubled losses change the NB value to match the prior loss (-1, -1, -1, -1x2, -2, -2, -2x3, -6 and so on).

After a push (about 9.0% of all bets at blackjack), double the bet (NB=PBx2) to a maximum added value of $100, and do the same after a dealer natural except if a 2x bet would be due anyway (see above), in which case, add $100 (NB=PB+$100) on top of the doubled value. Treat any dealer 21 as a push, and respond accordingly.

With this method, bets can increase very rapidly, sometimes to amounts that are prohibited by the table limit at the layout where the series began. Whenever that happens, move to a higher-rent layout, and continue the series as before.

(If you are playing against Ken Smith's BST app, you will have to deal with a $1,000 table limit, which is also a 1-200 spread limit, assuming a $5 opening bet for each new series. Freeze the bet at NB=PB until you recover, and as you record each outcome in a log, console yourself with the knowledge that with a less house-biased table limit, each twin-win pattern would rocket you out of the hole and into profit! And please, send me scanned copies of your logs if they're legible - I will be happy to process them at the correct betting levels).

Higher bets mean greater risk, at least in your first few hours of target betting play, but they also mean recovery of past losses in fewer bets than it took you to get into trouble and in the end, bigger profits.

Always add at least half of every session's profit to your bankroll, enabling you to grow stronger and tougher to beat.

Whenever you feel uncomfortable or threatened in a given location, move and take your NB/LTD numbers to a new layout ("the math" will be unaffected). Never break the strategy rules, never touch alcohol during play, and never take losses personally, because they are always temporary.

And...keep reminding yourself that if you win more when you win than you lose when you lose, then losing more often than you win won't hurt you. It's sound logic, and irrefutable arithmetic. Now get out there and win.

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). Test my ideas and use them or don't. It's up to you.
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Reading that ghosts can help you win at blackjack makes me a whole lot less apologetic about my "wacky" gambling theories!

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My target betting method has been taking pretty good care of me for the best part of 30 years, and since the idea first popped into my head in Las Vegas in 1978, I must have written at least a million words about it, and illustrated it with tens of thousands of spreadsheet and photo files.

Blogging suddenly struck me as the perfect way to get other players (not gamblers!) involved because I have been working on a blog about a completely unrelated business topic for the last few weeks, and have found it an ideal forum for fresh ideas and observations.

Probably each new entry will have to be headed with a repetition of the following:

Anyone who has ever gambled for more than an hour or two knows that all casino games have a house advantage that makes it impossible for even the luckiest player to win more bets than he loses in the long term. It follows that anyone betting flat or random amounts is also sure to lose more money than he wins. Target betting is about wagering in such a disciplined and consistent way that you win more when you win than you lose when you lose. Impossible? Follow these rules, and you will learn that losing more often than you win can actually make you a winner, without the help of psychic powers or friendly ghosts.

The ghost reference comes from a post I just tripped over that makes for great reading but may not be inspirational to anyone who doubts that dead people are luckier than live ones (probably the opposite, in fact).

I don't plan to repeatedly defend the concept of target betting. I have done that in three or four versions of a book that I have been writing and rewriting for decades without changing the core concept that dates all the way back to March of '78.

One of these days, I will get the book right (write?), although by then I may have concluded that I am better off keeping my ideas to a limited audience and simply using them to make steady money in casinos.

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). Test my ideas and use them or don't. It's up to you.
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