_
I suppose I could say I feel wracked with guilt for ignoring my favorite blog for more than a month.
But since I have not been swamped with anxious e-mails from concerned readers wondering if I'd fallen off a cliff somewhere, I am going to assume that no one noticed!
In any event, I have a passing good excuse. My friend in China (I'll call him Peter Punter to protect his privacy and good name) persuaded me to take a closer look at his chances of using mathematics to make money betting on baseball, football, basketball, hockey and all those other games I don't understand and don't want to.
As I feared, the project had me hooked within a few hours, and I have spent most of the last 33 days building up a database of prior games, along with odds and other gambling-related stats, and running it all through the wringer.
I told Pete at the outset that I could not see how money could be made betting short odds and trying to overcome the the river of red ink that's bound to flow when you win more often than you lose, but lose more when you lose than you win when you win.
Target betting, as regular visitors will know by now, takes a negative expectation ranging from around 1.0% to 5.0% or more, and turns red to black by winning more when it wins than it loses when it loses.
It does very well at baccarat, so long as Banker bets are excluded, but the moment the so-called "5 percent" commission kicks in, the 95 cents returned for every $1 bet against Player results in all manner of monetary mayhem.
Pete's idea was that the "less than 50-50" return that applies to most smart bets made in a sports book can be spun into gold by heeding the advice of the best of the hundreds of tipsters who make their living predicting the outcomes of ball games.
He sent me stats that demonstrated that long-established experts (called "cappers" or "handicappers") routinely claim win rates of 55% or more - some boast well over 60% - and suggested that a long-term positive expectation must be a potential basis for consistent profit.
Pete fervently believed that it would take me less than a week to come up with a definitive answer to his Big Question: Could target betting (or Turnaround) be successfully applied to sports betting?
He admits he's not a numbers guy, and I was constantly reminded of that as I slogged through one week, then two, three, four...and realized that I had taken on something more complex than I could have predicted (and I was not optimistic about the one-week estimate to begin with!).
Pete started his own sports book experiment with real money at the end of July, and for a while was doing pretty well.
Then the wheels fell off.
I am tempted to challenge the cappers' win rate claims by testing them under precise scrutiny, but what would be the point?
I'm taken back to my halcyon days at English racecourses, where shabbily-dressed and often malodorous tipsters would walk up and down among the crowd wearing what we knew as "sandwich boards" claiming all manner of insights into the best bets of the day.
Their "tips" were mostly sure things that a novice could figure out in five minutes of reading the day's card.
And at Warwick Racecourse in particular, I did a whole lot better paying attention to Len, a flat-capped veteran of at least 70 years of racing who worked the bar in the Press tent, and relied on me and other "young 'uns" to place his bets for him while he pumped ale.
I never went too far wrong backing Len's picks, and could not help but notice that most of the chalk boards I walked past on my way to the tote disagreed with him. He won a lot more often than they did, that much I remember.
I plan to give the blog a brief respite from blackjack and other card games, and will post regular bulletins as I press on with a hopefully unbiased and realistic assessment of Pete's hypothesis.
I can tell you right now that if you consistently back favorites, as the crappers almost invariably recommend, you can win more than 55% of all your bets, and still lose money.
My guess is that Pete was undone by the fact that he relied on a slew of cappers, at least a half dozen of them, and bounced back and forth with them, sometimes betting $50, other times risking more than $1,000 to win just a few hundred bucks.
I suggested early on that he should apply my suggested adaptation of the old Turnaround rules to multiple betting lines, perhaps grouping his bets by handicapper, or categorizing them according to start times and time zones.
Pete went a different route, figuring out his bets with a cancellation "system" that I looked at and quickly dumped way back in the 1980s.
My advice was that, in essence, the result of a game between two groups of overpaid professional athletes is no different than the outcome of a hand of cards, a roll of the dice, or a spin of the wheel.
The only sure way to win is to bet consistently and confidently, avoiding emotional responses and betting differently on a roll than during a prolonged recovery.
Pete had other ideas, and I doubt he now has either the stomach or the cash to go back to square one in the aftermath of losses of several grand, and do things the way I wanted them done in the first place.
Fair's fair, it was his money and his call. He is still a believer in cappers, but with all but one or two of them now showing "win rates" that at under 50% should actually be called "loss rates," I'm confident that I could do better.
Matter of fact, I have, just by doing what dear old flat-hatted Len did way back when and looking at the numbers, not the names of the horses (teams) or the colors on the jockeys' backs.
Len did not like short odds, but he liked long ones even less. He aimed for a middle ground, counting on his belief that the folks who set the odds did so on the basis of science and rationale, not on a whim.
I can tell you now that whatever Pete decides to do in the long run, I will be making regular sports book bets on my own account (much smaller than his, for sure!) and will do so without feeling the need to learn more about how the actual games are played.
I am well aware that down the years people far smarter than me have studied the pro sports pastimes that obsess a significant percentage of American adults, looking for clues to trends that they can exploit for profit.
The cappers may be the cleverest of us all. They don't have to risk their own money on the games, they just have to convince other people that they have special expertise that enables them to pick winners more often than a blind man with a sharp dart and today's schedules taped to a wall.
I have my doubts. But plenty of punters (Pete, for example) believe that if you pay for advice, it has to be better than whatever you can get for free.
Thursday, October 8:
A few days ago, my friend "Peter Punter" objected to my potted description of his sports book plan, but did not really explain why.
He did, however, make it clear that he is no more inclined to trust paid advice than the free alternative, which begs the question, Why pay for tips in the first place?
Pete has shelved his project after around $8,000 in losses, but has kindly sent me info about the bets that he "woulda" made if the funds for his brave foray into betting by remote control had not run out.
The great irony is that IF he had kept going just a few days longer, and IF he had let target betting dictate the value of his wagers, he "woulda" been out of the hole by now.
And IF he had followed the principles of target (or recovery) betting from the get-go, he would not have paddled so far into and eventually drowned in red ink in the first place.
IF is, of course, the most over-used word in the gambling glossary, usually followed by coulda, woulda or shoulda, and sometimes all three wistful reveries on how things might have gone differently IFONLY...
While I was working on Pete's short-lived project, I made regular visits to my local casinos for impromptu tutorials from sports book staff and players on a subject that I knew nothing about.
And naturally, I spent some time at the blackjack tables, breaking my long-standing rule that prevents me from playing without big money in my back pocket.
My rationale was that the research fee that Pete sent me was already "gambling money" when it dropped into my bank account, so I could convert it into chips with a clear conscience.
I more than doubled it before the house edge bit down, and pulled out with about a 90% return on my original investment by applying my informal rule that the bad guys should never be allowed to get all "their" money back.
The exercise confirmed just how smart Pete is in looking for an alternative to the bumpy and frustrating ride that almost always awaits anyone attempting to profit from casino table games.
Target betting is not the problem. Playing in a fishbowl is!
And then there's the atmosphere of a casino, and the temptations and distractions created by the very nature of the environment, along with other players who stand on A,3 against an 8 (true!) and dealers who behave as if your every win is being extracted from their own wallets at gunpoint.
Pete's right: dispassionate, numbers-ruled betting in a milieu in which the sky's the limit and no one is watching seems like the perfect, lucrative alternative to hours and hours spent in smoky casinos day after day.
When a bet reaches one bookie's limit, as it must once in a great while, there is plenty of time to spread the load across as many tickets as it takes to get it covered.
And while the long delay between outcomes seems frustrating at first, especially when compared to the blinding speed of heads-up blackjack, it actually promotes the discipline and consistency that can sometimes be left behind in casino play, even by a player who drinks only bottled water served at room temperature!
The baseball season ended last weekend, and the database I started for Pete now has just 737 contests in it, proof of nothing, perhaps, but containing more bets than most sportsbook customers will make in an entire year.
Analysis of the games played from August 12 through October 4 naturally confirms that at best, a 56% win rate for bets on favorites is only enough to break even.
On average, favorites paid $0.86 to $1, which dooms flat betting to long-term losses but can be profitable if basic target betting rules are applied, adapted to allow for multiple lines (or series) of wagers set up to allow multiple bets to be placed in a single daily trip to a sports book.
Pete's in China and has to place his bets online, coping not only with a 15-hour time difference but the fact that Internet bookies offer odds that are almost always less generous than those found in my neighborhood.
So he has to risk more to win less.
I used a mix of online and land-based odds in my database, keying in real-world numbers whenever I had a sportsbook printout to work from, and relying on Internet sources when I didn't.
The average "dog" (underdog) return from my sample of 737 baseball games was $1.24 to $1, which made it theoretically possible to sidestep a long-term loss with a pick accuracy rate (or win rate) of 47.6%.
I have not yet reached the point where I can confidently advocate a "dogs only" approach to sports betting, but when I applied a cautious set of selection criteria to my baseball sample, I ended up with a 9.85% return on action in spite of a win rate of 49.3% (or a loss rate of 50.7%!).
That's encouraging, to say the least.
Making the right "dog" choices brought back to my mind's eye a picture of old Len squinting through blue-tinted spectacles at the day's race card, looking for numbers that hit a middle ground between too much risk for too little return and a snowball-in-hell's chance of a win.
Len, of course, was able to add inside knowledge to the mix, and what I know about baseball, you could "stick up your nose and still have room for your finger," as he might have said.
Moving in to the hockey, basketball and pro-football seasons, my plan is to make up to five funny-money bets on each sport every day that the lineup permits, posting my picks right here in advance of game time.
I will split the selections into separate lines to determine wager values, and publish a progress report at least once a week, detailing the win or loss to date for each series.
I have not yet figured out how individual bets will slot into the various lines, but their value and placement will be posted here ahead of time so that readers can evaluate the process with untainted data.
From the work I have done so far, which has extended way beyond the few short hours that Pete commissioned, I don't see how a combination of target betting and sports outcomes can fail in the long run.
What I don't yet know is how huge bets will sometimes need to be to ensure EOS (the table games acronym for end of series).
Wherever sports betting is discussed online, the phrase "money management" is invariably part of the picture, and that makes absolute sense to me.
Imagine the sheer joy of making steady money at the expense of the casino industry without having to endure hours in badly-lit, smoky conditions in the company of bad-tempered dealers and ignorant players possessed of a death wish!
I should add right now that most dealers I know are the personification of charm, wit and friendliness, just as most players I encounter are not a hazard to my bottom line.
But the horrendous exceptions, however tiny a percentage they may represent, tend to stick in the mind!
For the record, I sent Pete a breakdown of all his bets, with target betting applied to one a day, simulating a circumstance in which he would have waited for an outcome, then used it to determine the value of his next bet.
Monday morning quarter-backing is always a whole lot easier than picking the right moves ahead of the game, but I believe there is real relevance to an unbiased analysis of a representative data set. It works in politics, so why not in sports betting.
If my pal Pete had bet systematically, one pick a day, and had refused to put his hard-earned money on any proposition paying less than even money, he would have done a whole lot better than falling eight grand or so into a deep, red hole.
That's a fact.
As it was, his cappers ended up with nine more right picks than wrong ones in the two months in which Pete bravely soldiered on.
Because of the crappy odds (and because Pete placed bets ranging from $20 to over $3,000 while ignoring target betting and relying on a selection process that was essentially random) more wins than losses did not save him from the slide.
In the 65-day trial period, permitting only one bet a day, there were only 21 picks that offered odds of even money or better.
Backing them "my way" (cue for a tune!) would have required an average bet value of $885, action of $22,100, and a risk/exposure of $3,890.
Pete's way involved $66,000 of action, an average bet of $297, and a final loss of $7,432 (-11.16%).
The target betting final win, betting only picks offering 1-to-1 or better, was $3,280 (+14.84%).
Applying a slightly more complicated selection process to the 737 baseball games between August 12 and October 4 "woulda" given me a flat-bet win of $2,380 from 215 "dog" bets, or 9.85% of total action of $24,190.
As I showed earlier, my "dog" WR was 49.3%, giving the bookies an edge of 1.4% that coincidentally is in the same ballpark (hah!) as the NE for craps, baccarat and blackjack.
There is, of course, no sense in putting money on teams that the experts (the real handicappers, not the flashy tipsters Pete relies upon) suggest have almost no chance of winning.
On the other hand, if you bet $3,000 on a "sure thing" that will pay the equivalent of 1-to-5 if it wins, you had better have a strong stomach and stay away from the TV while the game is on.
In spite of his protests to the contrary, Pete is not much interested in numbers, and he has that in common with most gamblers.
It's not a sin or a crime, and perhaps not even stupid, to think of betting as a thrill...an opportunity to beat the odds and be rewarded for it, or to think of losses as a fair price for a unique moment of excitement.
I have heard many times that my laborious reliance on gigantic data sets and the probabilities they reveal takes the "fun" out of gambling, and I cannot argue with that.
Pete's sports betting idea appealed to me from the start because I know how vulnerable I am to the pressures and distractions that upset and sometimes derail my fun-free process when I take on a table game in a casino.
I know a lot more about sports today than I did a couple of months ago, although even now what I know could probably be matched or exceeded by the dumbest of the regular punters I have met and chatted with in recent weeks.
I plan to wring some more dry, un-fun numbers from the baseball database, and eventually expand it.
I also intend to collect representative samples of data from NBA, NHL and NFL archives, to see if the little I have learned from nine weeks of baseball can be applied at least in part to other sports.
I am leery of college football, because at first glance it seems so chaotic and overwhelming, but I daresay I will take a closer look at it one day.
Watch this space!
Today's NHL lineup has a dozen matches, and "the numbers" recommend the following picks:
NEW YORK ISLANDERS/Ottawa Senators
PITTSBURGH PENGUINS/Philadelphia Flyers
CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS/Detroit Red Wings
ATLANTA THRASHERS/St. Louis Blues
COLORADO AVALANCHE/Nashville Predators
Sunday's (Oct 11) NFL lineup includes odds so short they're almost out of sight (1 to 12 for the Philly Eagles and the NY Giants against their separate opponents!) but a few more palatable options are suggested by the numbers...
WASHINGTON NATIONALS/Carolina Panthers
ATLANTA FALCONS/S.F. 49ers
DENVER BRONCOS/New England Patriots
HOUSTON TEXANS/Arizona Cardinals
TENNESSEE TITANS/Indiana Colts
It's not cool to back underdogs, probably, but two out of five wins from these two sets of uncool picks would come close to recovering losses from the other three, something that a selection of five favorites with three gone south could not hope to do.
In the MLB sample in my files, 106 winners out of 215 "cherry-picked" dogs delivered a 9.85% profit (win/action) even though less than half of the selections actually won; 45 winners out of 83 cherry favorites represented a 0.11% profit.
Those numbers may be a onetime fluke that has nothing to tell us about upcoming baseball games, or any other sport.
But maybe, just maybe, Peter Punter is onto something good...
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.
_
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Just as I'm closing in on $700,000 my 1T21 bankroll takes a hit. Twice! Aug 31 is no longer a viable target, but we'll get to $1m eventually!
_
I know pretty much where I went wrong, but excuses won't save the day...only getting back on track and playing on will do that!
I let myself get caught in two traps that I have been warning students of target betting about for years: greed and complacency.
I guess I could blame the double-whammy losses on the forced narrowing in the spread from 1 to 5,000 to 1 to 1,000 but in all fairness I don't think that was the problem here.
As if a win equal to about $10,000 an hour was not enough, I decided to experiment to see if I could goose the win rate still further.
That's a definite no-no, and I promise to behave in future...
Here's what happened.
Pushes at blackjack and ties at baccarat are a time-wasting pain in the ass, and I have always responded to them by doubling NB to a maximum added value of $100, meaning that a $100 bet becomes $200 after a push, and a $200 bet bumps up to $300.
It is an arbitrary or random way to boost profits without significantly adding to exposure, and I have been happy with it for as long as I can remember.
Lately, I have been fooling around with variable responses to pushes, redoubling NB or adding an extra $100 if the pushed hand was worth 19 or better.
I have also been doubling PB if the hand total was 21, even if the increase in the bet value was considerably more than $100.
Worse, I experimented with PBx2 in response to a dealer natural, with no limit on the increase.
An embarrassing downside of blogging is that posts go up in real time, more or less, and while it is possible to delete old articles to save face, doing so defeats the whole purpose of a project like this.
It's like cheating at golf: No one wins.
I talked myself into this departure from long-established target betting rules because my models do not factor in hand values, and for years I have wondered about the potential effect of more aggressive push/tie tactics.
I made the assumption that if a cautious push response benefits the bottom line (and believe me, it does), then a more assertive approach would likely do better still.
Bad idea!
With 1T21, I have also departed from standard TB rules by abandoning a losing series whenever the loss-to-win tally hit -20, a modification that has never been tested against the complete data set.
The holy grail of any betting strategy is to find a firm footing on the tightrope between maximizing wins and minimizing exposure.
The math demonstrates over and over again that if you cap losses, you will almost certainly trim profits so drastically that negative expectation for the game will prevail.
And that's not good!
I can, and have, applied the -20 "Uncle!" concept to my growing real-time blackjack data set, and can tell you that while the overall win value was cut in half, so was total action, meaning that the effect on the final AV was negligible.
Meanwhile, exposure was reduced by more than 90%.
Trouble is, the total blackjack data set consists of fewer than 90,000 rounds.
That's a lifetime of play for most punters, but not a large enough sample to prove anything other than potential.
When I can, I'll add the Uncle rule to my much larger baccarat sample.
But for now, my top priority is getting 1T21 back on the yellow-brick road to a million bucks!
In the first brief session after the second abandoned series, I scored almost $7,000 in a half hour's play.
Encouraging but, as always, proof of nothing...
Update at 1:10pm Wednesday:
It took me just over 11 minutes to add another $5,000 to the fantasy BR, and scaling back the rules to match tactics that have been in place forever dramatically reduced exposure.
The freebie 1T21 app no longer permits hits to split aces, but a two-card 21 is still indicated on screen as Blackjack and I have not yet been quick enough with pencil and paper to see if the bet pays 3:2 instead of even money.
The house edge at MobilityWare's single-deck game has held fairly steady at around 3.0% and that indicates additional problems with the application. After more than 15,000 rounds, we should be seeing something much closer to 1.0% since I have always been a stickler for basic strategy play.
Pushes remain at 8%, which is low (9% would match expectation) and time is wasted by the fact that the largest chip in play is $100. Given a table limit of $5,000, big fat $500 and $1,000 chips are called for!
The 1T21 game does not permit re-splits, but the effect of that is negligible.
The penetration level of just 75% is probably a more significant factor, but would not account for a house edge that is three times standard expectation for a single-deck game with Las Vegas rules applied.
One day, I might go wild and upgrade to the paid (gasp!) version of the app.
Meanwhile, I am quite enjoying the ads, which don't slow down the rate of play enough to be a nuisance and are far less intrusive when WiFi is out of range!
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.
_
I know pretty much where I went wrong, but excuses won't save the day...only getting back on track and playing on will do that!
I let myself get caught in two traps that I have been warning students of target betting about for years: greed and complacency.
I guess I could blame the double-whammy losses on the forced narrowing in the spread from 1 to 5,000 to 1 to 1,000 but in all fairness I don't think that was the problem here.
As if a win equal to about $10,000 an hour was not enough, I decided to experiment to see if I could goose the win rate still further.
That's a definite no-no, and I promise to behave in future...
Here's what happened.
Pushes at blackjack and ties at baccarat are a time-wasting pain in the ass, and I have always responded to them by doubling NB to a maximum added value of $100, meaning that a $100 bet becomes $200 after a push, and a $200 bet bumps up to $300.
It is an arbitrary or random way to boost profits without significantly adding to exposure, and I have been happy with it for as long as I can remember.
Lately, I have been fooling around with variable responses to pushes, redoubling NB or adding an extra $100 if the pushed hand was worth 19 or better.
I have also been doubling PB if the hand total was 21, even if the increase in the bet value was considerably more than $100.
Worse, I experimented with PBx2 in response to a dealer natural, with no limit on the increase.
An embarrassing downside of blogging is that posts go up in real time, more or less, and while it is possible to delete old articles to save face, doing so defeats the whole purpose of a project like this.
It's like cheating at golf: No one wins.
I talked myself into this departure from long-established target betting rules because my models do not factor in hand values, and for years I have wondered about the potential effect of more aggressive push/tie tactics.
I made the assumption that if a cautious push response benefits the bottom line (and believe me, it does), then a more assertive approach would likely do better still.
Bad idea!
With 1T21, I have also departed from standard TB rules by abandoning a losing series whenever the loss-to-win tally hit -20, a modification that has never been tested against the complete data set.
The holy grail of any betting strategy is to find a firm footing on the tightrope between maximizing wins and minimizing exposure.
The math demonstrates over and over again that if you cap losses, you will almost certainly trim profits so drastically that negative expectation for the game will prevail.
And that's not good!
I can, and have, applied the -20 "Uncle!" concept to my growing real-time blackjack data set, and can tell you that while the overall win value was cut in half, so was total action, meaning that the effect on the final AV was negligible.
Meanwhile, exposure was reduced by more than 90%.
Trouble is, the total blackjack data set consists of fewer than 90,000 rounds.
That's a lifetime of play for most punters, but not a large enough sample to prove anything other than potential.
When I can, I'll add the Uncle rule to my much larger baccarat sample.
But for now, my top priority is getting 1T21 back on the yellow-brick road to a million bucks!
In the first brief session after the second abandoned series, I scored almost $7,000 in a half hour's play.
Encouraging but, as always, proof of nothing...
Update at 1:10pm Wednesday:
It took me just over 11 minutes to add another $5,000 to the fantasy BR, and scaling back the rules to match tactics that have been in place forever dramatically reduced exposure.
The freebie 1T21 app no longer permits hits to split aces, but a two-card 21 is still indicated on screen as Blackjack and I have not yet been quick enough with pencil and paper to see if the bet pays 3:2 instead of even money.
The house edge at MobilityWare's single-deck game has held fairly steady at around 3.0% and that indicates additional problems with the application. After more than 15,000 rounds, we should be seeing something much closer to 1.0% since I have always been a stickler for basic strategy play.
Pushes remain at 8%, which is low (9% would match expectation) and time is wasted by the fact that the largest chip in play is $100. Given a table limit of $5,000, big fat $500 and $1,000 chips are called for!
The 1T21 game does not permit re-splits, but the effect of that is negligible.
The penetration level of just 75% is probably a more significant factor, but would not account for a house edge that is three times standard expectation for a single-deck game with Las Vegas rules applied.
One day, I might go wild and upgrade to the paid (gasp!) version of the app.
Meanwhile, I am quite enjoying the ads, which don't slow down the rate of play enough to be a nuisance and are far less intrusive when WiFi is out of range!
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.
_
Sunday, August 23, 2009
My right thumb taps past $625,000 at 1T21, and I get a refresher course in the wisdom of people who are too young to gamble!
_
I'm not planning to put up any more screen shots of my efforts against the iPod blackjack freebie until I either hit $750,000 or go bust.
Pretty much everyone who doesn't know much about gambling assumes I'm on a crazy winning streak and will crash and burn any minute.
The assumption that no one can win, however smart they think they are, was bolstered with last week's revelation that the MIT team of card counters who famously beat Las Vegas out of $800,000 and was lionized in the Kevin Spacey movie "21" did not get to keep their winnings.
Every cent and then some was lost when the tables inevitably turned on the irreverent upstarts.
The Spacey movie, and the book upon which it was based, failed to mention that.
Personally, I don't know what to believe. I abandoned card counting years ago and have considered it over-rated ever since.
It can do very well in the short term, but must ultimately be undone by the fact that a deck that is "rich" in high-value cards is as helpful to the house as it is to the player.
I am hoping I can wean myself away from 1T21 when my BR hits $1,000,000, which should happen before the end of the month.
In the meantime, I have been enjoying the challenge of explaining my betting strategy to two inquisitive teenagers who both rate regular A's in their math classes and do not hesitate to ask questions when they do not understand a concept or detect even the faintest whiff of BS.
The boys have seen me fine-tuning target betting for years but have only recently started taking a real interest.
I am not about to run the risk of corrupting minors, so this summer I reinforced the most important message of all, which is that gambling is for suckers, but that done right, betting can reward a smart player's time and trouble very well.
The lads quickly cottoned on to the idea that it is in the best interests of the gambling industry to warn that casino house games cannot be beaten in the long run, while spending millions to convince losers that today's their day to be a winner for once.
Promoting gambling as a wise investment requires doublespeak that rivals the worst that the tobacco companies could muster back in the days when cigarette ads were unrestricted and butane-lit coffin nails were widely seen as cool accessories.
Reiterating "Target Betting 101" for Chris and his brother Tim was a reminder that the worst thing you can do to kids is to talk to them as if they are...kids.
Chris suspected that blind luck was the secret of my success until he downloaded MobilityWare's ad-sponsored blackjack app to his iPod and lost his opening bankroll in short order.
(I have no connection with MW, I should perhaps add at this point, beyond nagging them to fix the split-aces glitch that made it possible to draw two naturals in a single hand!)
I'm repeating myself, but for those of you new to this blog, here's what I told the lads:
He had an idea for target betting that I will not divulge here, but it reminded me that when wins consistently outnumber losses or when the return on a bet is less than even money, a betting strategy can actually be a liability.
Over the years, I have tested my strategy against such sports-book staples as horse racing and college/pro games, and every time, I have retreated to the blackjack tables.
For a while, I had a great time applying the principles of target betting to wagers on horses paying 6-5 or better, but was often tripped up by the fact that odds will sometimes shorten substantially after a bet has been placed.
Paired and longer winning streaks are also much harder to achieve betting the nags than at any casino table game.
As for pro and college games, my downfall was lack of expertise in the field and an inability to grasp why anyone would bet $100 to win, say, $110 without an absolute cast-iron guarantee that their pick was going to come out on top (and for some reason, bookies never go for that idea!).
According to many of my critics, I'm a simpleton.
As such, I am happiest sticking with what I know.
What I know is that if you can win more when you win than you lose when you lose, then losing more often than you win won't hurt you.
Have I said that before?
No graphics, but here's where I stood with 1T21 earlier today...
6317 wins, 6704 losses, 1135 pushes, HA 2.73% to 2.97% including pushes.
Win to date $645,420 against negative expectation that indicates a LOSS of +/- $382,500 (precise overall action not known).
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.
_
I'm not planning to put up any more screen shots of my efforts against the iPod blackjack freebie until I either hit $750,000 or go bust.
Pretty much everyone who doesn't know much about gambling assumes I'm on a crazy winning streak and will crash and burn any minute.
The assumption that no one can win, however smart they think they are, was bolstered with last week's revelation that the MIT team of card counters who famously beat Las Vegas out of $800,000 and was lionized in the Kevin Spacey movie "21" did not get to keep their winnings.
Every cent and then some was lost when the tables inevitably turned on the irreverent upstarts.
The Spacey movie, and the book upon which it was based, failed to mention that.
Personally, I don't know what to believe. I abandoned card counting years ago and have considered it over-rated ever since.
It can do very well in the short term, but must ultimately be undone by the fact that a deck that is "rich" in high-value cards is as helpful to the house as it is to the player.
I am hoping I can wean myself away from 1T21 when my BR hits $1,000,000, which should happen before the end of the month.
In the meantime, I have been enjoying the challenge of explaining my betting strategy to two inquisitive teenagers who both rate regular A's in their math classes and do not hesitate to ask questions when they do not understand a concept or detect even the faintest whiff of BS.
The boys have seen me fine-tuning target betting for years but have only recently started taking a real interest.
I am not about to run the risk of corrupting minors, so this summer I reinforced the most important message of all, which is that gambling is for suckers, but that done right, betting can reward a smart player's time and trouble very well.
The lads quickly cottoned on to the idea that it is in the best interests of the gambling industry to warn that casino house games cannot be beaten in the long run, while spending millions to convince losers that today's their day to be a winner for once.
Promoting gambling as a wise investment requires doublespeak that rivals the worst that the tobacco companies could muster back in the days when cigarette ads were unrestricted and butane-lit coffin nails were widely seen as cool accessories.
Reiterating "Target Betting 101" for Chris and his brother Tim was a reminder that the worst thing you can do to kids is to talk to them as if they are...kids.
Chris suspected that blind luck was the secret of my success until he downloaded MobilityWare's ad-sponsored blackjack app to his iPod and lost his opening bankroll in short order.
(I have no connection with MW, I should perhaps add at this point, beyond nagging them to fix the split-aces glitch that made it possible to draw two naturals in a single hand!)
I'm repeating myself, but for those of you new to this blog, here's what I told the lads:
Whatever the negative expectation for a game might be, it applies equally to every hand or round.
That means that if you bet the same amount every time, or if you vary bet values randomly, you must eventually lose a percentage of your overall action (the value of all bets, wins and losses, combined) that pretty much matches the known house edge for the game.
So if your action or churn against a game with a 2.0% negative expectation is $1 million, you will probably (but not certainly) lose around two percent of a million bucks ($20,000)...or your entire BR if it is less than twenty grand.
Experts in the field of gambling like to talk about the "laws" of mathematics that are relevant to it, chiefly the law of independence of trials and the law of large numbers.
Independence of trials covers the first item in our list (the notion that negative expectation applies equally to every bet, and that the outcome of any bet is unaffected by outcomes that preceded it).
The law of large numbers essentially says that the more bets there are, the more likely it is that their collective result will match negative expectation.
Most gamblers have been brainwashed to think in "small picture" terms, treating each bet in isolation except for occasional bet-the-farm moments when they try to recover all their prior losses in a single mad wager. (A BTF wager is in essence random because it cannot be repeated if it loses, and we have already established that random or fixed-sum bets cannot prevail in the long run).
A "big picture" approach to betting that connects rounds or wagers into series in which the value of each is determined by what preceded it poses a serious threat to the validity or relevance of negative expectation.
A Martingale, for example, makes the value of a bet double that of a losing wager that preceded it (NB=PBx2), permitting a player to profit from a series in which he lost the great majority of his wagers.
No betting strategy can overcome the absolute certainties that in a table game with a house advantage (and there is no other kind!), even the cleverest or luckiest player will lose more bets than he wins, and that the outcome of any bet cannot be known ahead of time.
It therefore follows that the ONLY way to win consistently is to bet in such a way that the average value of a lesser number of winning bets exceeds the average value of a greater number of losing bets by a percentage that is substantially higher than the percentage value of negative expectation.
For example, if the average value of 1,000 bets is $10 and 2% more bets are lost than won, then the sum of losing bets (510 x $10) vs. the sum of winning bets (490 x $10) will result in a loss (-$200) that is 2% of the total action of $10,000. However, if the value of the average winning bet (AWB = $11) were to exceed the value of the average losing bet (ALB) by 10% (ALB = $10), the final outcome would be $5,390 WON minus $5,100 LOST = +$290/$10,490 = +2.76% in spite of expectation of -2.0%.
A Martingale or double-up strategy depends on the observable truth that while the odds of the player winning any given bet in a -2.0% game are (at 49-51) less than 50-50, the odds of the house winning two consecutive bets are (at 74-26) in effect more favorable to the player, enabling linked or targeted bets to repeatedly overcome negative expectation.
The primary problems with a Martingale are, first, that bets will often increase in value very rapidly indeed, and, second, that the 2x pattern of betting is almost immediately obvious to the house, potentially singling out the player for obstructive or defensive measures. (Table limits are not a problem, assuming a viable BR, because a blocked wager can be moved to another layout or a different casino whenever necessary, until the house limit is reached).
Target betting usually freezes the bet after a mid-series loss, requiring a very large increase in the NB value only in response to a mid-recovery win and thus making it much less easy to spot and obstruct than a Martingale, but generally no less effective.
Chris's assumption that a casino could easily block target betting is, I am happy to report, unfounded. Independence of trials means that if a bet is ever potentially problematic because it would mean "breaking cover" (or because the house has refused it!), suspending a series will not adversely affect the very high probability of an ultimate win. (Likewise, if one player is barred from a casino before he can win his turnaround or EOS bet, he can hand the bet off to another player without a negative impact on "The Math").
One important caveat: Target betting may not deliver consistent profits if the payout on any win is less than 100%, as in baccarat, where winning bets on Banker are subject to a 5% "commission." The baccarat solution: only bet on Player. Otherwise, stay clear of pai-gow poker, and don't risk big money on roulette, field bets at craps or 3-card poker, all of which can be profitable for a while but have a house edge that is three to ten times greater than that for single-deck blackjack. The rule: When in doubt, play the safest bet in the house (blackjack with a 3 to 2 payout on naturals).
This week I heard from a regular reader (and frequent critic!) in China who plays the Macau casinos and also bets big on foreign exchange and other ventures that are completely beyond my ken.So if your action or churn against a game with a 2.0% negative expectation is $1 million, you will probably (but not certainly) lose around two percent of a million bucks ($20,000)...or your entire BR if it is less than twenty grand.
Experts in the field of gambling like to talk about the "laws" of mathematics that are relevant to it, chiefly the law of independence of trials and the law of large numbers.
Independence of trials covers the first item in our list (the notion that negative expectation applies equally to every bet, and that the outcome of any bet is unaffected by outcomes that preceded it).
The law of large numbers essentially says that the more bets there are, the more likely it is that their collective result will match negative expectation.
Most gamblers have been brainwashed to think in "small picture" terms, treating each bet in isolation except for occasional bet-the-farm moments when they try to recover all their prior losses in a single mad wager. (A BTF wager is in essence random because it cannot be repeated if it loses, and we have already established that random or fixed-sum bets cannot prevail in the long run).
A "big picture" approach to betting that connects rounds or wagers into series in which the value of each is determined by what preceded it poses a serious threat to the validity or relevance of negative expectation.
A Martingale, for example, makes the value of a bet double that of a losing wager that preceded it (NB=PBx2), permitting a player to profit from a series in which he lost the great majority of his wagers.
No betting strategy can overcome the absolute certainties that in a table game with a house advantage (and there is no other kind!), even the cleverest or luckiest player will lose more bets than he wins, and that the outcome of any bet cannot be known ahead of time.
It therefore follows that the ONLY way to win consistently is to bet in such a way that the average value of a lesser number of winning bets exceeds the average value of a greater number of losing bets by a percentage that is substantially higher than the percentage value of negative expectation.
For example, if the average value of 1,000 bets is $10 and 2% more bets are lost than won, then the sum of losing bets (510 x $10) vs. the sum of winning bets (490 x $10) will result in a loss (-$200) that is 2% of the total action of $10,000. However, if the value of the average winning bet (AWB = $11) were to exceed the value of the average losing bet (ALB) by 10% (ALB = $10), the final outcome would be $5,390 WON minus $5,100 LOST = +$290/$10,490 = +2.76% in spite of expectation of -2.0%.
A Martingale or double-up strategy depends on the observable truth that while the odds of the player winning any given bet in a -2.0% game are (at 49-51) less than 50-50, the odds of the house winning two consecutive bets are (at 74-26) in effect more favorable to the player, enabling linked or targeted bets to repeatedly overcome negative expectation.
The primary problems with a Martingale are, first, that bets will often increase in value very rapidly indeed, and, second, that the 2x pattern of betting is almost immediately obvious to the house, potentially singling out the player for obstructive or defensive measures. (Table limits are not a problem, assuming a viable BR, because a blocked wager can be moved to another layout or a different casino whenever necessary, until the house limit is reached).
Target betting usually freezes the bet after a mid-series loss, requiring a very large increase in the NB value only in response to a mid-recovery win and thus making it much less easy to spot and obstruct than a Martingale, but generally no less effective.
Chris's assumption that a casino could easily block target betting is, I am happy to report, unfounded. Independence of trials means that if a bet is ever potentially problematic because it would mean "breaking cover" (or because the house has refused it!), suspending a series will not adversely affect the very high probability of an ultimate win. (Likewise, if one player is barred from a casino before he can win his turnaround or EOS bet, he can hand the bet off to another player without a negative impact on "The Math").
One important caveat: Target betting may not deliver consistent profits if the payout on any win is less than 100%, as in baccarat, where winning bets on Banker are subject to a 5% "commission." The baccarat solution: only bet on Player. Otherwise, stay clear of pai-gow poker, and don't risk big money on roulette, field bets at craps or 3-card poker, all of which can be profitable for a while but have a house edge that is three to ten times greater than that for single-deck blackjack. The rule: When in doubt, play the safest bet in the house (blackjack with a 3 to 2 payout on naturals).
He had an idea for target betting that I will not divulge here, but it reminded me that when wins consistently outnumber losses or when the return on a bet is less than even money, a betting strategy can actually be a liability.
Over the years, I have tested my strategy against such sports-book staples as horse racing and college/pro games, and every time, I have retreated to the blackjack tables.
For a while, I had a great time applying the principles of target betting to wagers on horses paying 6-5 or better, but was often tripped up by the fact that odds will sometimes shorten substantially after a bet has been placed.
Paired and longer winning streaks are also much harder to achieve betting the nags than at any casino table game.
As for pro and college games, my downfall was lack of expertise in the field and an inability to grasp why anyone would bet $100 to win, say, $110 without an absolute cast-iron guarantee that their pick was going to come out on top (and for some reason, bookies never go for that idea!).
According to many of my critics, I'm a simpleton.
As such, I am happiest sticking with what I know.
What I know is that if you can win more when you win than you lose when you lose, then losing more often than you win won't hurt you.
Have I said that before?
No graphics, but here's where I stood with 1T21 earlier today...
6317 wins, 6704 losses, 1135 pushes, HA 2.73% to 2.97% including pushes.
Win to date $645,420 against negative expectation that indicates a LOSS of +/- $382,500 (precise overall action not known).
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.
_
Monday, August 17, 2009
A milestone for one-thumb 21: A "win" of half a million bucks in 11,400 rounds...but the experts say it don't mean a thing.
_
The only thing I can say for certain after more than 11,000 rounds against the iPod blackjack app is that my right thumb is stronger than it has ever been!
I would feel guilty about spending that much time (around 24 hours of play is my best guess) on an endeavor that offered zero financial reward, but the great thing about the iPod's portability is that I can play a few rounds whenever and wherever I feel like it.
I didn't keep a log of all those rounds, since a notebook and pencil would have been bigger and more cumbersome than the iPod itself, but the stats provided by the app tell most of the story.
Target betting routinely delivers an overall win equal to 10.0% of total action, but I created a couple of Excel files to augment the analysis of what has happened against 1-thumb 21 so far...
Absent a precise log, I cannot know for sure what the overall action added up to, but we can at least deduce that the average win per round was more than $40, and that if the win was 5.0% of the "churn" the average bet value was more than $850.
Way too much money, you might say, but bets of $1,000 or more usually occur only once in every 20 rounds, and the $5,000 "house limit" imposed by the blackjack app would have reduced that frequency.
Spread, as we all know by now, is the critical factor in achieving consistent wins against casino table games, and 1 in 1,000 ($5 to $5,000 per 1T21) is the tightest spread I would recommend.
Given that most gamblers limit themselves to 1 in 5, it's no surprise that most gamblers are losers!
It is misleading to exclude pushes from an assessment of the actual value of the house edge in a given sample of outcomes, but so many people do it that I have provided two numbers for the AV in the summary above.
Note that the expected overall result, assuming the overall action shown here, was a very substantial loss.
Skeptics always assume that any result that defies negative expectation as they interpret it must be fraudulent, and all I can say in response is that I have better things to do with my time than cheat.
On the other hand, it would be naive to imagine that the result you see here is "proof" that target betting can win with a bankroll far smaller than the $1 million provided for in all of my research.
It is absolutely possible to win $500,000 with less than $100,000 exposed, just as it is possible to hit a hole in one or grab the PGA title when Tiger Woods chokes.
It is not, however, probable, and all of my efforts over the past 30-plus years have been directed at developing a betting method that will probably win rather than a strategy that will possibly get lucky once in a while!
When I am using all of my fingers and thumbs to play blackjack for real money in a real casino, I do not carry a million bucks in my back pocket or expect to risk even 1% of that seven-figure sum.
But I also know that without an appropriate BR, my chances of winning are dramatically reduced.
Analysis of the 1T21 results shows a brief hiccup when I accepted a loss of around $40,000 rather than pressing on with $5,000 bets not because I lost confidence in my ability to recover the LTD but because I felt like breaking the mold for once.
It was a mistake, but I do not regret it. For one thing, nobody's perfect, and every target player should be ready for an occasional error!
And I have to confess that without an optimal BR, I wing it more often than I would like when I am playing in the casinos in my Nevada neighborhood.
I never expect to get away with it.
But far more often than not, I do.
I would NOT expect the loose, casual approach I sometimes adopt in my own back yard to prevail against a sample as large as the 11,437 rounds summarized here.
As innumerate as I may appear to be to some critics of target betting (many of them members of what I affectionately refer to as the YCW Brigade), I am not that much of an optimist.
Cut your bet spread below 1 to 1,000 and you will sometimes win, but mostly not.
Play with a BR that is less than 40x your maximum bet, and you will sometimes win, but mostly not.
If you are absolutely bound and determined to lose, as most gamblers are, then you should bet randomly or wager the same amount on every round.
The casinos will love you for it, because that is precisely how they expect you to play, and their business is all about expectation.
I received yet another e-mail this week claiming that the gambling industry welcomes winners, and I wonder if it came from a casino insider!
Sure, winners are essential to the gambling process, because losers need a carrot to dull the pain of repeated whacks with the losing stick.
Ho hum, I suppose I have to repeat the qualification: Occasional winners are good for the bottom line because they delude losers into thinking that they can be winners too; Consistent winners are the enemy, to be discouraged by whatever means might be available at the time, the assumption being that in order to beat negative odds, they must be cheating.
"Comps" are an overhead, and like any other cost of business, they must pay for themselves or be discontinued.
The moment a player becomes "too hard to beat" he or she will see comps vanish like a desert mirage.
The results so far achieved against 1T21 are not definitive, obviously, but with "the house" enjoying an edge of between 2.96% and 3.21% (without or with pushes factored in) the outcome "should have been" overwhelmingly negative.
It wasn't, as you can see.
And with target betting properly applied, it probably never will be.
Tuesday, August 18:
OK, so even I am surprised by the relentless rate at which target betting is scoring funny-munny wins against 1T21, and it has crossed my mind that there may be a flaw in the way the app adds and subtracts bets.
Then again, the game stats confirm a very clear house edge that is at least three times standard negative expectation for single-deck blackjack.
And the results are not that different from those obtained throughout the countless hours that I played against Ken Smith's Blackjack Strategy Trainer and kicked serious butt.
I am not impressed by the argument that the strategy is unworkable in "real play" - even when it is voiced by a skeptical teenager I have known and loved since the day he was born!
There is no doubt that a casino confronted by a consistent winner will take defensive measures to protect its bottom line.
But history shows that tightening the rules to thwart a tiny minority of players is a cure that kills the game.
In theory, a Martingale player who doubles his bet after every loss will be eventually brought down by an extended negative trend that requires him to bet more than the table limit permits.
In reality, such players camouflage their tactics by limiting the number of re-doubled bets in any one location, and staying on the move until the inevitable turnaround win occurs.
Target betting is far less obvious, thanks to the rule that freezes the bet in response to any mid-series loss.
And when the strategy calls for a huge jump in the bet value that would either conflict with the table limit or alert pit personnel, backing off and resuming play elsewhere will not affect the math that makes target betting a consistent winner.
As I have said before, the "enemy" (I am actually unfailingly friendly to casino employees and treat them with respect, but my interests conflict diametrically with theirs!) can be further confused by handing off ballooning bets from one player to another.
The strategy can be hindered by a casino's defensive measures.
But it cannot be beaten by them.
Being barred from play in one store is a road bump, not a road block, because there is always another casino and another game not far away.
The gambling industry pretends it welcomes winners, and there are some players nutty enough to believe that.
In truth, casinos are suspicious of consistent winners because they know better than anyone (me included) how frail their edge really is.
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.
_
The only thing I can say for certain after more than 11,000 rounds against the iPod blackjack app is that my right thumb is stronger than it has ever been!
I would feel guilty about spending that much time (around 24 hours of play is my best guess) on an endeavor that offered zero financial reward, but the great thing about the iPod's portability is that I can play a few rounds whenever and wherever I feel like it.
I didn't keep a log of all those rounds, since a notebook and pencil would have been bigger and more cumbersome than the iPod itself, but the stats provided by the app tell most of the story.
Target betting routinely delivers an overall win equal to 10.0% of total action, but I created a couple of Excel files to augment the analysis of what has happened against 1-thumb 21 so far...
Absent a precise log, I cannot know for sure what the overall action added up to, but we can at least deduce that the average win per round was more than $40, and that if the win was 5.0% of the "churn" the average bet value was more than $850.
Way too much money, you might say, but bets of $1,000 or more usually occur only once in every 20 rounds, and the $5,000 "house limit" imposed by the blackjack app would have reduced that frequency.
Spread, as we all know by now, is the critical factor in achieving consistent wins against casino table games, and 1 in 1,000 ($5 to $5,000 per 1T21) is the tightest spread I would recommend.
Given that most gamblers limit themselves to 1 in 5, it's no surprise that most gamblers are losers!
It is misleading to exclude pushes from an assessment of the actual value of the house edge in a given sample of outcomes, but so many people do it that I have provided two numbers for the AV in the summary above.
Note that the expected overall result, assuming the overall action shown here, was a very substantial loss.
Skeptics always assume that any result that defies negative expectation as they interpret it must be fraudulent, and all I can say in response is that I have better things to do with my time than cheat.
On the other hand, it would be naive to imagine that the result you see here is "proof" that target betting can win with a bankroll far smaller than the $1 million provided for in all of my research.
It is absolutely possible to win $500,000 with less than $100,000 exposed, just as it is possible to hit a hole in one or grab the PGA title when Tiger Woods chokes.
It is not, however, probable, and all of my efforts over the past 30-plus years have been directed at developing a betting method that will probably win rather than a strategy that will possibly get lucky once in a while!
When I am using all of my fingers and thumbs to play blackjack for real money in a real casino, I do not carry a million bucks in my back pocket or expect to risk even 1% of that seven-figure sum.
But I also know that without an appropriate BR, my chances of winning are dramatically reduced.
Analysis of the 1T21 results shows a brief hiccup when I accepted a loss of around $40,000 rather than pressing on with $5,000 bets not because I lost confidence in my ability to recover the LTD but because I felt like breaking the mold for once.
It was a mistake, but I do not regret it. For one thing, nobody's perfect, and every target player should be ready for an occasional error!
And I have to confess that without an optimal BR, I wing it more often than I would like when I am playing in the casinos in my Nevada neighborhood.
I never expect to get away with it.
But far more often than not, I do.
I would NOT expect the loose, casual approach I sometimes adopt in my own back yard to prevail against a sample as large as the 11,437 rounds summarized here.
As innumerate as I may appear to be to some critics of target betting (many of them members of what I affectionately refer to as the YCW Brigade), I am not that much of an optimist.
Cut your bet spread below 1 to 1,000 and you will sometimes win, but mostly not.
Play with a BR that is less than 40x your maximum bet, and you will sometimes win, but mostly not.
If you are absolutely bound and determined to lose, as most gamblers are, then you should bet randomly or wager the same amount on every round.
The casinos will love you for it, because that is precisely how they expect you to play, and their business is all about expectation.
I received yet another e-mail this week claiming that the gambling industry welcomes winners, and I wonder if it came from a casino insider!
Sure, winners are essential to the gambling process, because losers need a carrot to dull the pain of repeated whacks with the losing stick.
Ho hum, I suppose I have to repeat the qualification: Occasional winners are good for the bottom line because they delude losers into thinking that they can be winners too; Consistent winners are the enemy, to be discouraged by whatever means might be available at the time, the assumption being that in order to beat negative odds, they must be cheating.
"Comps" are an overhead, and like any other cost of business, they must pay for themselves or be discontinued.
The moment a player becomes "too hard to beat" he or she will see comps vanish like a desert mirage.
The results so far achieved against 1T21 are not definitive, obviously, but with "the house" enjoying an edge of between 2.96% and 3.21% (without or with pushes factored in) the outcome "should have been" overwhelmingly negative.
It wasn't, as you can see.
And with target betting properly applied, it probably never will be.
Tuesday, August 18:
OK, so even I am surprised by the relentless rate at which target betting is scoring funny-munny wins against 1T21, and it has crossed my mind that there may be a flaw in the way the app adds and subtracts bets.
Then again, the game stats confirm a very clear house edge that is at least three times standard negative expectation for single-deck blackjack.
And the results are not that different from those obtained throughout the countless hours that I played against Ken Smith's Blackjack Strategy Trainer and kicked serious butt.
I am not impressed by the argument that the strategy is unworkable in "real play" - even when it is voiced by a skeptical teenager I have known and loved since the day he was born!
There is no doubt that a casino confronted by a consistent winner will take defensive measures to protect its bottom line.
But history shows that tightening the rules to thwart a tiny minority of players is a cure that kills the game.
In theory, a Martingale player who doubles his bet after every loss will be eventually brought down by an extended negative trend that requires him to bet more than the table limit permits.
In reality, such players camouflage their tactics by limiting the number of re-doubled bets in any one location, and staying on the move until the inevitable turnaround win occurs.
Target betting is far less obvious, thanks to the rule that freezes the bet in response to any mid-series loss.
And when the strategy calls for a huge jump in the bet value that would either conflict with the table limit or alert pit personnel, backing off and resuming play elsewhere will not affect the math that makes target betting a consistent winner.
As I have said before, the "enemy" (I am actually unfailingly friendly to casino employees and treat them with respect, but my interests conflict diametrically with theirs!) can be further confused by handing off ballooning bets from one player to another.
The strategy can be hindered by a casino's defensive measures.
But it cannot be beaten by them.
Being barred from play in one store is a road bump, not a road block, because there is always another casino and another game not far away.
The gambling industry pretends it welcomes winners, and there are some players nutty enough to believe that.
In truth, casinos are suspicious of consistent winners because they know better than anyone (me included) how frail their edge really is.
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.
_
Monday, August 10, 2009
There's no conflict between discipline and flexibility if you always have a plan, and stick to it like black on the Ace of Clubs!
_
Being accused of self-contradiction is an inevitable hazard for anyone trying to help others to win at table games, because sometimes you cannot control how readers will interpret your advice.
For example, if I say a million-dollar bankroll is pretty much bullet-proof, but that it is "possible" to win with less money behind you, someone out there will accuse me of double-talk.
And the same thing can happen when I say that strict observance of target betting's rules is essential, but that they can be modified to fit a player's goals and resources.
The lesson I am trying, but apparently sometimes failing, to get across is that any modification to the strategy's optimum rules may reduce its chances of winning, but the favorable odds are so high that a few nips and tucks need not prove fatal.
What matters is that if you choose to tailor the rules to fit your special circumstances, you will stick with your "custom" version come what may, and not constantly back-pedal and lose confidence.
Scared money never wins, remember.
But to use another venerable cliche, sometimes you have to cut your coat according to the available cloth.
The on-going target betting "win" against one-thumb blackjack on an iPod touch is a case in point.
I am now well over $340,000 "ahead" with an opening BR of $5,000 and a string of (paid!) markers adding up to $30,000 or less.
But as always the rules of math dictate that no one should interpret that apparent success as proof that target betting works.
I generally recommend a spread of 1 to 5,000 given a $5 minimum and a $25,000 house limit, but the MobilityWare blackjack app for the iPod touch and the iPhone will not allow a maximum bet above $5,000.
Being deprived of the recommended spread does not mean certain failure, as these numbers show.
It simply means the danger zone when wiggle room evaporates, and the BR is at the mercy of the win-loss pattern will be encountered more often, generating more frequent "brown-trouser moments."
An academic mathematician will tell you that a WLP that puts the house ahead, say, 20 bets in 100 (indicating a 20% HA) does not mean there will be more player wins than losses in the foreseeable future.
Theoretically true.
In reality, not so much...
Every so often on my way to a "win" that amounts to an average of more than $40 for every hand played, I have had to suffer a succession of losses that put a temporary dent of $50,000 or more in the bankroll.
My critics scoff at my contention that I would rather risk "house money" than my own, but it is a fact that serious threats are so rare that there is really nothing surprising about the win you see above.
Theorists argue that a potentially calamitous swing in the house's favor need never be offset, offering "proof" that might go something like this:
Let's say the house gets 20 bets ahead in the first 100 rounds, indicating an edge of 20.0%, and then for the next 900 bets, the HA reverts to an overall HA of 2.0%, with 459 house wins vs. 441 player wins. In big picture terms, the HA for the entire 1,000 bets is 519/481 or 3.8%, which is a statistically acceptable departure from negative expectation, especially since in the next 1,000 bets, the HA will probably be less than NE, bringing the HA for 2,000 rounds closer to 2.0%.
All this twaddle makes for great probability theory, maybe, but it is almost impossible to come up with a genuine sample of outcomes with a WLP anything like what's described here.
In reality, wild swings that are far from the norm are at least partially offset relatively rapidly.
And since target betting does not usually require more than two or three successive player wins to recover prior losses in a recovery series, a partial offset is just dandy, thank you very much.
The truth is that as long as a player is able to win more money when he wins than he loses when he loses, then losing more often than he wins will not hurt his bottom line. Quite the opposite, in fact.
It is also true that prolonged negative trends that push bet values higher and higher are better for the player's bottom line than an endless pattern of rapid recoveries.
That is because in blackjack, naturals and successful doubles or splits will obviously pay higher "bonuses" when the original bet value is greater than it would have been in a series that had quickly turned around.
It's also the reason why target players should steer clear of blackjack layouts paying 6:5 for a natural rather than the 3:2 that still applies in most multi-deck games.
That sneaky bit of revisionary sleight-of-hand amounts to a 20% pay cut and cannot be justified on any level.
It is amazing to me that the regulatory authorities that claim to be watching out for the interests of players routinely allow casinos to boost an already significant house edge by making existing rules tougher, or introducing "new features" that are highway robbery in a thin disguise.
But then I remember that state boards like the one that "regulates" games in Nevada exist to protect the state's interests and no one else's.
And higher casino profits from games that are harder to beat mean more revenue for the State of Nevada.
Unless, of course, a change in the rules drives players away from the game...
Tuesday, August 11:
My eldest grandson, Chris (16 this summer) has his own iPod touch with the blackjack app downloaded, and he is struggling to hang on to his initial virtual buy-in.
He took one look at my current BR, and said, "Yeah, but there's no way real-life casinos would let you play that way!"
He's right, and the rapid rate at which my non-cashable iPod stash ($370,000 as I type this) is expanding makes the target betting process look way too easy.
In fact, there would be frequent interruptions in the money-making process, either to switch to a higher-rent layout or to find a casino where bigger bets will not raise a ruckus.
And it is entirely possible that a target bettor with a string of big-money wins to his name would not be permitted to play at all.
In Nevada, for example, you don't need to be a cheat to be banned. Winning "too much" is treated as a crime, too.
The solution to that problem is for multiple players to be simultaneously backed with the same bankroll, and for each of them to work within a limited betting range that varies according to his or her hierarchical "rank" in the team.
But for obvious reasons, that is not a topic for detailed discussion here!
I put Chris straight, and he understands the challenges much better now.
Maybe in a few years, when he has mastered target betting and broken the losing habit, I'll recruit him...
Wednesday, August 12:
A skeptic will always look at a winning situation and predict with absolute confidence that "you're sure to lose in the end" - presumably unaware that negative expectation is only a serious threat to players who bet fixed amounts or randomly.
We all know that the house is sure to win more bets than we do in the long run.
And since we can have only a marginal effect on each individual outcome at blackjack and none whatsoever at any other table game, the only way we can exercise any control on the final result is by setting bet values cleverly.
Target betting will routinely deliver an average winning bet value that exceeds the average losing bet value by 20% or better, which even the most complex arithmetic tells us is sure to blow a 2% HA to bits.
Blackjack played by the basic strategy book has a house edge of 1.0% or less, which makes the "one-thumb 21" HA of more than 3.0% after almost 10,000 single-deck rounds a probable sign of a defect in the app.
But who cares when target betting is so far ahead?
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.
_
Being accused of self-contradiction is an inevitable hazard for anyone trying to help others to win at table games, because sometimes you cannot control how readers will interpret your advice.
For example, if I say a million-dollar bankroll is pretty much bullet-proof, but that it is "possible" to win with less money behind you, someone out there will accuse me of double-talk.
And the same thing can happen when I say that strict observance of target betting's rules is essential, but that they can be modified to fit a player's goals and resources.
The lesson I am trying, but apparently sometimes failing, to get across is that any modification to the strategy's optimum rules may reduce its chances of winning, but the favorable odds are so high that a few nips and tucks need not prove fatal.
What matters is that if you choose to tailor the rules to fit your special circumstances, you will stick with your "custom" version come what may, and not constantly back-pedal and lose confidence.
Scared money never wins, remember.
But to use another venerable cliche, sometimes you have to cut your coat according to the available cloth.
The on-going target betting "win" against one-thumb blackjack on an iPod touch is a case in point.
I am now well over $340,000 "ahead" with an opening BR of $5,000 and a string of (paid!) markers adding up to $30,000 or less.
But as always the rules of math dictate that no one should interpret that apparent success as proof that target betting works.
I generally recommend a spread of 1 to 5,000 given a $5 minimum and a $25,000 house limit, but the MobilityWare blackjack app for the iPod touch and the iPhone will not allow a maximum bet above $5,000.
Being deprived of the recommended spread does not mean certain failure, as these numbers show.
It simply means the danger zone when wiggle room evaporates, and the BR is at the mercy of the win-loss pattern will be encountered more often, generating more frequent "brown-trouser moments."
An academic mathematician will tell you that a WLP that puts the house ahead, say, 20 bets in 100 (indicating a 20% HA) does not mean there will be more player wins than losses in the foreseeable future.
Theoretically true.
In reality, not so much...
Every so often on my way to a "win" that amounts to an average of more than $40 for every hand played, I have had to suffer a succession of losses that put a temporary dent of $50,000 or more in the bankroll.
My critics scoff at my contention that I would rather risk "house money" than my own, but it is a fact that serious threats are so rare that there is really nothing surprising about the win you see above.
Theorists argue that a potentially calamitous swing in the house's favor need never be offset, offering "proof" that might go something like this:
Let's say the house gets 20 bets ahead in the first 100 rounds, indicating an edge of 20.0%, and then for the next 900 bets, the HA reverts to an overall HA of 2.0%, with 459 house wins vs. 441 player wins. In big picture terms, the HA for the entire 1,000 bets is 519/481 or 3.8%, which is a statistically acceptable departure from negative expectation, especially since in the next 1,000 bets, the HA will probably be less than NE, bringing the HA for 2,000 rounds closer to 2.0%.
All this twaddle makes for great probability theory, maybe, but it is almost impossible to come up with a genuine sample of outcomes with a WLP anything like what's described here.
In reality, wild swings that are far from the norm are at least partially offset relatively rapidly.
And since target betting does not usually require more than two or three successive player wins to recover prior losses in a recovery series, a partial offset is just dandy, thank you very much.
The truth is that as long as a player is able to win more money when he wins than he loses when he loses, then losing more often than he wins will not hurt his bottom line. Quite the opposite, in fact.
It is also true that prolonged negative trends that push bet values higher and higher are better for the player's bottom line than an endless pattern of rapid recoveries.
That is because in blackjack, naturals and successful doubles or splits will obviously pay higher "bonuses" when the original bet value is greater than it would have been in a series that had quickly turned around.
It's also the reason why target players should steer clear of blackjack layouts paying 6:5 for a natural rather than the 3:2 that still applies in most multi-deck games.
That sneaky bit of revisionary sleight-of-hand amounts to a 20% pay cut and cannot be justified on any level.
It is amazing to me that the regulatory authorities that claim to be watching out for the interests of players routinely allow casinos to boost an already significant house edge by making existing rules tougher, or introducing "new features" that are highway robbery in a thin disguise.
But then I remember that state boards like the one that "regulates" games in Nevada exist to protect the state's interests and no one else's.
And higher casino profits from games that are harder to beat mean more revenue for the State of Nevada.
Unless, of course, a change in the rules drives players away from the game...
Tuesday, August 11:
My eldest grandson, Chris (16 this summer) has his own iPod touch with the blackjack app downloaded, and he is struggling to hang on to his initial virtual buy-in.
He took one look at my current BR, and said, "Yeah, but there's no way real-life casinos would let you play that way!"
He's right, and the rapid rate at which my non-cashable iPod stash ($370,000 as I type this) is expanding makes the target betting process look way too easy.
In fact, there would be frequent interruptions in the money-making process, either to switch to a higher-rent layout or to find a casino where bigger bets will not raise a ruckus.
And it is entirely possible that a target bettor with a string of big-money wins to his name would not be permitted to play at all.
In Nevada, for example, you don't need to be a cheat to be banned. Winning "too much" is treated as a crime, too.
The solution to that problem is for multiple players to be simultaneously backed with the same bankroll, and for each of them to work within a limited betting range that varies according to his or her hierarchical "rank" in the team.
But for obvious reasons, that is not a topic for detailed discussion here!
I put Chris straight, and he understands the challenges much better now.
Maybe in a few years, when he has mastered target betting and broken the losing habit, I'll recruit him...
Wednesday, August 12:
A skeptic will always look at a winning situation and predict with absolute confidence that "you're sure to lose in the end" - presumably unaware that negative expectation is only a serious threat to players who bet fixed amounts or randomly.
We all know that the house is sure to win more bets than we do in the long run.
And since we can have only a marginal effect on each individual outcome at blackjack and none whatsoever at any other table game, the only way we can exercise any control on the final result is by setting bet values cleverly.
Target betting will routinely deliver an average winning bet value that exceeds the average losing bet value by 20% or better, which even the most complex arithmetic tells us is sure to blow a 2% HA to bits.
Blackjack played by the basic strategy book has a house edge of 1.0% or less, which makes the "one-thumb 21" HA of more than 3.0% after almost 10,000 single-deck rounds a probable sign of a defect in the app.
But who cares when target betting is so far ahead?
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.
_
Saturday, August 1, 2009
The good news: A fix is coming for 1-thumb 21's split aces glitch. The bad news: I'm stuck with another bad habit I can't break!
_
Yesterday I heard from Scott at MobilityWare that the next upgrade of the iPod blackjack app will fix the split naturals problem and bring the game more in line with casino reality.
Great!
Per the caption above, what's not so wonderful is that I have now played more than 5,000 rounds and should have been logging them, primarily to see if a Martingale would have matched the "winnings" achieved with target betting.
Already, the bankroll above is around $50,000 behind the times (this morning, while waiting for my 6:30am coffee to brew, I blasted past the $200,000 barrier).
Guess I'm just lucky...
Regular readers will know that I have never advocated the Martingale as a means to overcome the house edge at casino table games, but it makes a handy benchmark, and while almost unplayable in the real world, is widely misunderstood.
For example, most of its opponents cite the relative frequency of prolonged losing streaks that can take the required bet from $10 to an amount far in excess of the table limit at a low-stakes game.
In fact, the only limit that matters is the house limit, and even then, the assumption that the moment the "green ceiling" is reached it's game over is naive.
Martingale players usually don't bet more than three losers at any one layout, and will simply repeat a wager on those rare occasions when they are prevented from going higher.
Sunday, August 2:
The total 1T21 jackpot is now up to $210,585 with the AV edging up again to -2.87% and the indicated loss (AV x est. action) at close to -$121,000.
As always, no proof implied, just one more illustration of what target betting can do against persistent negative expectation.
The knee-jerk academic mathematician's response to these numbers would go something like this:
You got lucky.
Negative expectation cannot be overcome in the long run.
A sample of 5,477 bets is not representative and results achieved against such a small sample are anecdotal and irrelevant.
In due time (sooner rather than later) a prolonged negative trend will occur that will wipe out your imagined "profit" and replace it with a loss that is in compliance with negative expectation.
The most likely explanation for your apparent success is that you cheated.
Either way, you are an idiot.
Luck is certainly helpful when the goal is to make money at casino games of chance with an inherent house bias.
However, it can never be relied upon.
A sample of less than a trillion outcomes will never be accepted as "representative" and if a sample that large were to show a positive result for the player (a very old person, exhausted after playing non-stop for several million years!) it would be dismissed as anecdotal and irrelevant.
Target betting succeeds because of the cumulative effect of consistent profits from small series of rounds in which more wagers were lost than won.
The primary consequence of all those small victories is that overall, the player wins more when he wins than he loses when he loses.
A prolonged negative trend that brings ruin is certainly possible, but grows increasingly improbable as the bankroll strengthens.
At this point, for example, given a maximum bet of $5,000, the "house" would have to get at least 42 bets ahead of the player to grab back $210,000 in funny money. It could happen. But it probably won't.
Watch this space!
I'm looking forward to seeing the improved version of 1-thumb BJ when the update to the app pops up on my iPod.
I have a couple of other minor quibbles with the game and have suggested the addition of a deck value counter. But all in all, the arrival of an honest game simulation that can be played anywhere from a toilet seat to a mountaintop has to be a leap forward for humankind.
Thanks, MobilityWare, with whom I have no connection beyond a sense of some gratitude!
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.
_
Yesterday I heard from Scott at MobilityWare that the next upgrade of the iPod blackjack app will fix the split naturals problem and bring the game more in line with casino reality.
Great!
Per the caption above, what's not so wonderful is that I have now played more than 5,000 rounds and should have been logging them, primarily to see if a Martingale would have matched the "winnings" achieved with target betting.
Already, the bankroll above is around $50,000 behind the times (this morning, while waiting for my 6:30am coffee to brew, I blasted past the $200,000 barrier).
Guess I'm just lucky...
Regular readers will know that I have never advocated the Martingale as a means to overcome the house edge at casino table games, but it makes a handy benchmark, and while almost unplayable in the real world, is widely misunderstood.
For example, most of its opponents cite the relative frequency of prolonged losing streaks that can take the required bet from $10 to an amount far in excess of the table limit at a low-stakes game.
In fact, the only limit that matters is the house limit, and even then, the assumption that the moment the "green ceiling" is reached it's game over is naive.
Martingale players usually don't bet more than three losers at any one layout, and will simply repeat a wager on those rare occasions when they are prevented from going higher.
Sunday, August 2:
The total 1T21 jackpot is now up to $210,585 with the AV edging up again to -2.87% and the indicated loss (AV x est. action) at close to -$121,000.
As always, no proof implied, just one more illustration of what target betting can do against persistent negative expectation.
The knee-jerk academic mathematician's response to these numbers would go something like this:
You got lucky.
Negative expectation cannot be overcome in the long run.
A sample of 5,477 bets is not representative and results achieved against such a small sample are anecdotal and irrelevant.
In due time (sooner rather than later) a prolonged negative trend will occur that will wipe out your imagined "profit" and replace it with a loss that is in compliance with negative expectation.
The most likely explanation for your apparent success is that you cheated.
Either way, you are an idiot.
Luck is certainly helpful when the goal is to make money at casino games of chance with an inherent house bias.
However, it can never be relied upon.
A sample of less than a trillion outcomes will never be accepted as "representative" and if a sample that large were to show a positive result for the player (a very old person, exhausted after playing non-stop for several million years!) it would be dismissed as anecdotal and irrelevant.
Target betting succeeds because of the cumulative effect of consistent profits from small series of rounds in which more wagers were lost than won.
The primary consequence of all those small victories is that overall, the player wins more when he wins than he loses when he loses.
A prolonged negative trend that brings ruin is certainly possible, but grows increasingly improbable as the bankroll strengthens.
At this point, for example, given a maximum bet of $5,000, the "house" would have to get at least 42 bets ahead of the player to grab back $210,000 in funny money. It could happen. But it probably won't.
Watch this space!
I'm looking forward to seeing the improved version of 1-thumb BJ when the update to the app pops up on my iPod.
I have a couple of other minor quibbles with the game and have suggested the addition of a deck value counter. But all in all, the arrival of an honest game simulation that can be played anywhere from a toilet seat to a mountaintop has to be a leap forward for humankind.
Thanks, MobilityWare, with whom I have no connection beyond a sense of some gratitude!
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.
_
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Thanks to my iPod touch, I am on my way to developing the fastest thumb in the west. Which may not be anything to boast about...
_
One last little thing this time out!
A skeptical reader (the one who said I'm too obsessed with simulations to play real table games!) now accuses me of mounting a campaign to put casinos everywhere out of business.
Quelle crappe, as they say in Montreal. Or is it quelle merde?
I admit to being no admirer of casino operators, especially the saintly 60 Minutes subject who put a stop to all the good "RFB" deals that made Las Vegas affordable fun, and replaced them with outright rip-offs that set Sin City beyond the reach of most people's wallets.
I also despise craven "lawmakers" who would rather pretend that legalized gambling benefits the national economy (and morals) than fearlessly do their jobs and fund state and federal services by legitimate means.
But I know that barely one gambler in a thousand has any serious interest in learning how to win consistently, and most members of that microscopic minority doubt that it can be done.
Even Saint Youknowwho boasts that gambling's only long-term winners are the people who own casinos.
My best hope is to be a mosquito who extracts a little blood here and there while buzzing under the "gaming" industry's radar and avoiding its gilded (and guilt-free) swatter.
Gambling without a viable strategy is, in my opinion, akin to setting your money on fire and flushing the ashes down the toilet.
Gambling without casinos would be a frustratingly unprofitable proposition (although as long as there are suckers, there will always be games for them to bet on).
I will tire of one-thumb 21 soon enough...and then I'll be back to the casinos in my neighborhood.
Let's be clear: I love casinos.
I just don't think they should be allowed to get their greedy hands on our hard-earned money without a fight that the math says they will probably lose.
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.
_
One last little thing this time out!
A skeptical reader (the one who said I'm too obsessed with simulations to play real table games!) now accuses me of mounting a campaign to put casinos everywhere out of business.
Quelle crappe, as they say in Montreal. Or is it quelle merde?
I admit to being no admirer of casino operators, especially the saintly 60 Minutes subject who put a stop to all the good "RFB" deals that made Las Vegas affordable fun, and replaced them with outright rip-offs that set Sin City beyond the reach of most people's wallets.
I also despise craven "lawmakers" who would rather pretend that legalized gambling benefits the national economy (and morals) than fearlessly do their jobs and fund state and federal services by legitimate means.
But I know that barely one gambler in a thousand has any serious interest in learning how to win consistently, and most members of that microscopic minority doubt that it can be done.
Even Saint Youknowwho boasts that gambling's only long-term winners are the people who own casinos.
My best hope is to be a mosquito who extracts a little blood here and there while buzzing under the "gaming" industry's radar and avoiding its gilded (and guilt-free) swatter.
Gambling without a viable strategy is, in my opinion, akin to setting your money on fire and flushing the ashes down the toilet.
Gambling without casinos would be a frustratingly unprofitable proposition (although as long as there are suckers, there will always be games for them to bet on).
I will tire of one-thumb 21 soon enough...and then I'll be back to the casinos in my neighborhood.
Let's be clear: I love casinos.
I just don't think they should be allowed to get their greedy hands on our hard-earned money without a fight that the math says they will probably lose.
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.
_
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
The more you try to play it safe, the more likely you are to fail. The casinos know that, and it's a lesson players need to learn!
_
This just in from the Lilliputian world of one-thumb blackjack...
I ran a couple of random checks between shuffles and discovered no repeats in the single-deck game.
That, I guess, explains why the iPod app is recommended as a handy practice tool for card-counters.
In my experience, counting cards can be helpful as long as Ed Thorp's rules are largely ignored.
Prof. Thorp recommends tying the bet value to the deck value, so that a +8 count would call for a bet 8x the minimum.
I gave counting an extensive trial back in the early '80s and found it more trouble than it was worth.
It's a "rock and a hard place" method that, in my experience, creates more problems than it solves.
It is important to avoid detection as a counter by pit personnel, because in Nevada, at least, you can be barred from a casino for winning "too much."
You can also be barred in Nevada for breathing too much air under a casino's roof, or for any other reason that takes a game operator's fancy, since gambling in the Silver State is regulated to protect the state's interests, not the players'.
At what was then the MGM Grand in Reno, I watched a gentleman of evident Oriental extraction (or extinction as my late Aunt Betty would have it) bet $5 against a neutral or negative deck, and $500 when the deck became fractionally "rich" in fat cards.
He played for maybe 15 minutes before he was led away, but soon after dismissing him as an idiot, I had second thoughts: he was probably at least $1,000 ahead before he was shown the exit, and if he had played "sensibly" it might have taken him an hour or two to make that much money.
And even in Reno, there are plenty of casinos ripe for the plucking.
Never, ever, underestimate players from the Far East: they are a smart bunch, although the gent I watched in action was certainly far from inscrutable.
My problem with counting is that when the deck is "rich" it helps the dealer about as much as it does the player, unless said player is willing to quickly reveal his tactics.
Let's say you have drawn 16 with your first two cards, the deck value is +5, and the dealer has a 7 up.
You know that a hit is likely to bust you, and also that the dealer's hole card is probably a 10, costing you your bet.
If you stand after placing a bet 5x your minimum, you will be yelling "I'm a card counter!!!" in the dealer's ear. If you take a hit, you will lose your bet.
Tough call...
I once spent an enjoyable evening in downtown Las Vegas with a card counter named George Williams, who believed (as I do) that greed is as dangerous for a gambler as ignorance or inebriation.
George bet a modest $25 when the deck was neutral or positive (we only played at single-deck tables) and $5 otherwise, and he did very well without attracting attention.
He told me that he was working with Ed Thorp on a counting method for baccarat. I have heard nothing about that since, maybe because the project was a huge success and everyone involved was sworn to secrecy.
Wooooooshhhhh...There goes another flying pig!
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.
_
This just in from the Lilliputian world of one-thumb blackjack...
I ran a couple of random checks between shuffles and discovered no repeats in the single-deck game.
That, I guess, explains why the iPod app is recommended as a handy practice tool for card-counters.
In my experience, counting cards can be helpful as long as Ed Thorp's rules are largely ignored.
Prof. Thorp recommends tying the bet value to the deck value, so that a +8 count would call for a bet 8x the minimum.
I gave counting an extensive trial back in the early '80s and found it more trouble than it was worth.
It's a "rock and a hard place" method that, in my experience, creates more problems than it solves.
It is important to avoid detection as a counter by pit personnel, because in Nevada, at least, you can be barred from a casino for winning "too much."
You can also be barred in Nevada for breathing too much air under a casino's roof, or for any other reason that takes a game operator's fancy, since gambling in the Silver State is regulated to protect the state's interests, not the players'.
At what was then the MGM Grand in Reno, I watched a gentleman of evident Oriental extraction (or extinction as my late Aunt Betty would have it) bet $5 against a neutral or negative deck, and $500 when the deck became fractionally "rich" in fat cards.
He played for maybe 15 minutes before he was led away, but soon after dismissing him as an idiot, I had second thoughts: he was probably at least $1,000 ahead before he was shown the exit, and if he had played "sensibly" it might have taken him an hour or two to make that much money.
And even in Reno, there are plenty of casinos ripe for the plucking.
Never, ever, underestimate players from the Far East: they are a smart bunch, although the gent I watched in action was certainly far from inscrutable.
My problem with counting is that when the deck is "rich" it helps the dealer about as much as it does the player, unless said player is willing to quickly reveal his tactics.
Let's say you have drawn 16 with your first two cards, the deck value is +5, and the dealer has a 7 up.
You know that a hit is likely to bust you, and also that the dealer's hole card is probably a 10, costing you your bet.
If you stand after placing a bet 5x your minimum, you will be yelling "I'm a card counter!!!" in the dealer's ear. If you take a hit, you will lose your bet.
Tough call...
I once spent an enjoyable evening in downtown Las Vegas with a card counter named George Williams, who believed (as I do) that greed is as dangerous for a gambler as ignorance or inebriation.
George bet a modest $25 when the deck was neutral or positive (we only played at single-deck tables) and $5 otherwise, and he did very well without attracting attention.
He told me that he was working with Ed Thorp on a counting method for baccarat. I have heard nothing about that since, maybe because the project was a huge success and everyone involved was sworn to secrecy.
Wooooooshhhhh...There goes another flying pig!
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.
_
Sunday, July 26, 2009
"I think you have simulator fever, you can think of nothing else. You continue to contradict yourself, when all I'm asking for..."
_
The only feedback worth having is the kind that challenges my ideas about consistently beating games of chance, and this one identifies the biggest dilemma I face with this project.
How can I reconcile my deep distrust of runaway sims with the need to know the effects of different tactics against more outcomes than I could hope to encounter in a lifetime?
Along with that comes what might be described as a "sub-dilemma": Should I offer a strategy that works most of the time, or one that works all of the time?
Against a game with a 1.0% NE (blackjack comes to mind!), a simple Martingale has favorable odds of around 4,000 to 1, assuming a $50,000 bankroll and the (unlikely) absence of any interference by casino personnel.
Target betting comes through hundreds of thousands of actual and simulated rounds with a win rate of 99.9919%, which equates to favorable odds that are better than 12,000 to 1.
The author of the above comment wants me to provide him with a betting method that will reduce his exposure while guaranteeing steady profits, and is angry with me for supplying mathematical models that show it can't be done.
I guess he wants to be able to blame me when he loses, when the more likely culprit in his failure will be his own refusal to follow any set of rules when a temporary negative trend threatens his bankroll.
Target betting is, in a way, like an elephant gun taken on a duck hunt.
You won't needed it 99.9% of the time because it does not require much fire-power to bring down a duck.
But you had better have that big gun locked and loaded, so that if a rare flying elephant swoops down and tries to make off with all that you own, you can blast it out of the sky and recover what's yours.
I was about to say that the unfortunate truth is that target betting does best when the pressure is on, but the truth is not unfortunate at all: the money you rake in each time you achieve turnaround, which happens on average in six rounds or fewer, adds up pretty fast.
But the big bucks really pile up when your LTD+ bet has several zeroes in it, and you pull a natural or a winning double-down.
In other words, the bigger the threat, the more important it is that you stick with the program and come out on the sunny side of a rough spot with more money than you started with.
To resurrect a favorite analogy, the author of the comment above is like the guy who knows that he has to drill to 5,000ft to strike oil but would rather keep drilling 500ft wells because they are cheaper.
Never mind that a dry well will never pay for itself.
Every change that is made to the target betting rules in the name of safety or economy will almost certainly prove to be more dangerous, rather than less so.
Years ago I listened patiently while a student of target betting suggested that session limits or loss limits should be incorporated into the strategy to control exposure.
I explained that because bet spread is the key to my method's success, the narrower the gap between min and max, the more likely it is that losses will exceed wins and that negative expectation will therefore prevail.
If you were to decide, for example, that NB can never be more than PBx2 in response to a mid-recovery win (limiting the next bet value to a parlay), then most of the time, that will not be a problem.
But when a prolonged threat pushes up the LTD, you need to recover prior losses in as few consecutive wins as possible, keeping in mind that three-win streaks are statistically half as frequent as paired wins, that pairs occur half as often as isolated wins, and so on.
Trust me, halving your chances of recovery will not help you to be a long-term winner!
High as the recommended bankroll requirement for target betting may seem, it becomes a diminishing concern as time goes by.
That is because if the rules are followed with disciplined confidence, the bankroll will keep growing rapidly until the original exposure is paid down and the strategy becomes self-supporting.
Over the years I have generated models which show target betting racking up huge profits without ever risking more than 10% of its BR.
But because I have applied a $5 to $25,000 spread and a $1 million bust limit, I prefer to honor and accept the very long odds that at some point the strategy will crash and burn, and warn everyone that a $1,000,000 BR might be needed.
My long-running victory over Ken Smith's BST simulation, and now the iPod blackjack game (right now I am $82,150 ahead against an AV of -4.67%), shows that in real time play, a monster bankroll may never be necessary.
But I am not willing to defy what statistical analysis tells me and advise anyone to tackle casino house games without enough money in hand to soundly thrash them.
The core principles brought to light by target betting can help any player who has a BR that is at least 40x his maximum bet value, especially the proof that fixed sum or random betting will always fail in the end.
Spreading as wide as you can afford does not increase risk. It has precisely the opposite effect.
But most people, like my friend quoted above, assume that the more you bet, the more you will lose.
Those models or simulations that he scorns say that a spread of less than 1 to 1,000 (the range permitted by the iPod app) is sure to lose eventually, and that 1 to 2,500 is a far safer bet.
BST has a 1 to 200 limit, meaning that once in a while, a large session loss can only be turned around when the relevant outcomes are keyed into a model and a more realistic spread is applied.
The blog archives cover this topic in far greater detail, with summaries from simulations (oh, no!) attached.
I'm sorry, but it is simply not possible to win without risk. Even a casino owner cannot hope to do that.
Target betting enables a player to do what "the house" does, which is to build up a BR that far exceeds the original investment, so that when a crash and burn eventually comes along, it will be fully covered by prior winnings and will represent overhead rather than ruin.
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.
_
The only feedback worth having is the kind that challenges my ideas about consistently beating games of chance, and this one identifies the biggest dilemma I face with this project.
How can I reconcile my deep distrust of runaway sims with the need to know the effects of different tactics against more outcomes than I could hope to encounter in a lifetime?
Along with that comes what might be described as a "sub-dilemma": Should I offer a strategy that works most of the time, or one that works all of the time?
Against a game with a 1.0% NE (blackjack comes to mind!), a simple Martingale has favorable odds of around 4,000 to 1, assuming a $50,000 bankroll and the (unlikely) absence of any interference by casino personnel.
Target betting comes through hundreds of thousands of actual and simulated rounds with a win rate of 99.9919%, which equates to favorable odds that are better than 12,000 to 1.
The author of the above comment wants me to provide him with a betting method that will reduce his exposure while guaranteeing steady profits, and is angry with me for supplying mathematical models that show it can't be done.
I guess he wants to be able to blame me when he loses, when the more likely culprit in his failure will be his own refusal to follow any set of rules when a temporary negative trend threatens his bankroll.
Target betting is, in a way, like an elephant gun taken on a duck hunt.
You won't needed it 99.9% of the time because it does not require much fire-power to bring down a duck.
But you had better have that big gun locked and loaded, so that if a rare flying elephant swoops down and tries to make off with all that you own, you can blast it out of the sky and recover what's yours.
I was about to say that the unfortunate truth is that target betting does best when the pressure is on, but the truth is not unfortunate at all: the money you rake in each time you achieve turnaround, which happens on average in six rounds or fewer, adds up pretty fast.
But the big bucks really pile up when your LTD+ bet has several zeroes in it, and you pull a natural or a winning double-down.
In other words, the bigger the threat, the more important it is that you stick with the program and come out on the sunny side of a rough spot with more money than you started with.
To resurrect a favorite analogy, the author of the comment above is like the guy who knows that he has to drill to 5,000ft to strike oil but would rather keep drilling 500ft wells because they are cheaper.
Never mind that a dry well will never pay for itself.
Every change that is made to the target betting rules in the name of safety or economy will almost certainly prove to be more dangerous, rather than less so.
Years ago I listened patiently while a student of target betting suggested that session limits or loss limits should be incorporated into the strategy to control exposure.
I explained that because bet spread is the key to my method's success, the narrower the gap between min and max, the more likely it is that losses will exceed wins and that negative expectation will therefore prevail.
If you were to decide, for example, that NB can never be more than PBx2 in response to a mid-recovery win (limiting the next bet value to a parlay), then most of the time, that will not be a problem.
But when a prolonged threat pushes up the LTD, you need to recover prior losses in as few consecutive wins as possible, keeping in mind that three-win streaks are statistically half as frequent as paired wins, that pairs occur half as often as isolated wins, and so on.
Trust me, halving your chances of recovery will not help you to be a long-term winner!
High as the recommended bankroll requirement for target betting may seem, it becomes a diminishing concern as time goes by.
That is because if the rules are followed with disciplined confidence, the bankroll will keep growing rapidly until the original exposure is paid down and the strategy becomes self-supporting.
Over the years I have generated models which show target betting racking up huge profits without ever risking more than 10% of its BR.
But because I have applied a $5 to $25,000 spread and a $1 million bust limit, I prefer to honor and accept the very long odds that at some point the strategy will crash and burn, and warn everyone that a $1,000,000 BR might be needed.
My long-running victory over Ken Smith's BST simulation, and now the iPod blackjack game (right now I am $82,150 ahead against an AV of -4.67%), shows that in real time play, a monster bankroll may never be necessary.
But I am not willing to defy what statistical analysis tells me and advise anyone to tackle casino house games without enough money in hand to soundly thrash them.
The core principles brought to light by target betting can help any player who has a BR that is at least 40x his maximum bet value, especially the proof that fixed sum or random betting will always fail in the end.
Spreading as wide as you can afford does not increase risk. It has precisely the opposite effect.
But most people, like my friend quoted above, assume that the more you bet, the more you will lose.
Those models or simulations that he scorns say that a spread of less than 1 to 1,000 (the range permitted by the iPod app) is sure to lose eventually, and that 1 to 2,500 is a far safer bet.
BST has a 1 to 200 limit, meaning that once in a while, a large session loss can only be turned around when the relevant outcomes are keyed into a model and a more realistic spread is applied.
The blog archives cover this topic in far greater detail, with summaries from simulations (oh, no!) attached.
I'm sorry, but it is simply not possible to win without risk. Even a casino owner cannot hope to do that.
Target betting enables a player to do what "the house" does, which is to build up a BR that far exceeds the original investment, so that when a crash and burn eventually comes along, it will be fully covered by prior winnings and will represent overhead rather than ruin.
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.
_
Monday, July 20, 2009
Taking dumb chances is never a good idea. But sometimes, calculated risks should be welcomed, not avoided.
_
There is probably a Google Analytics report out there somewhere that says blogging activity drops right off in the summertime.
I haven't posted a peep for almost a month, with endless sunny days beckoning me out of doors here in rural northern Nevada, but thankfully that has not stopped feedback from coming in.
I was happiest to hear from Daniel Rainsong, whose betting method was soundly trashed by the online shill who plies his trade as the Wizard of Odds.
The Wiz used one of those runaway sims favored by academic mathematicians everywhere to "disprove" Mr. Rainsong's ideas, pocketing a $4,000 bet in the process.
Apparently, Mr. Rainsong expected a fair shake and coughed up the cash like a gentleman, happy that the forfeit was covered at least 20 times over by his winnings from online and conventional (meaning regulated!) casinos.
All I can say about the Rainsong "procedure" (as he describes it) is that it has two things in common with target betting: it is a progression, and a clever one at that.
Readers who would like to know more about it can contact me via one of the links on this page, and I will pass on their requests.
I was also pleased to hear criticism of my suggestion that target betting can at times be profitable at long-odds games such as craps field, roulette and 3-card poker, the consensus being that anyone who blunders into one of those sucker traps deserves to get skinned.
True enough.
Constructive criticism is useful when it provides an opportunity to refute misunderstandings that only a masochist who has read every post to this blog could avoid!
In everything I have ever written on the subject, I have always qualified my embrace of games with a high house edge by saying that whenever bets start to look like serious money, it's time to beat a retreat to safer havens such as blackjack and baccarat.
I learned a long time ago that even in a game with a crippling HA such as the 5.26% that applies across the board in roulette, target betting can exploit the ping-pong effect that can be observed in the win-loss pattern almost as often as at blackjack.
But the greatest advantage of flexibility is that it helps throw casino bloodhounds off the scent.
When a pit prodnose sees someone winning at blackjack more than he "should" his first assumption is that card-counting is the problem, and when bets don't drop dramatically in response to a shuffle, dumb luck gets the blame, at least for a while.
Pit staff are first taught, and then learn from observation and experience, that no one can win forever at house games, and when counting and a hot streak are both ruled out, cheating is for them the last remaining explanation.
Occasional winners are more than welcome in a casino...they are essential to the business, because they're the lure for losers.
Regular winners are as popular among pit personnel as flagrant cheats, which some of them probably turn out to be.
As the known value of negative expectation at different games increases, so does the likelihood that the undramatic undulation of the win-loss pattern will pitch a fit and lurch egregiously in the house's favor.
But even the 2-1 vertical numbers columns at roulette offer opportunity for a target player, within reason, the trick being to halve and round up the current LTD when the time comes to update the NB value.
My guess is that an unbreakable accord between Israel and its neighbors is a whole lot more likely than progressive betting being embraced by supporters of the conventional gambling wisdom, and that is just fine by me.
And we will also disagree in perpetuity about the relevance or fairness of a testing method that assumes that all gamblers are suicidal idiots.
I have been lectured over and over again about the inability of even the smartest player to avoid absolute subjugation by the house edge at games of chance.
The message is that even if you can stay out of fatal trouble for a million bets or more, the house will always beat you in the end.
All samples of bets, however large, are anecdotal and therefore irrelevant if they show a player winning against a clear long-term house advantage.
Conversely, any sample of any size that depicts a gambler getting his clock cleaned is proof that the house edge cannot be beaten.
I do not suggest that a player who takes a break before a potentially fatal negative trend can destroy him will never get into serious trouble.
What I do say is that prolonged negative trends are a relative rarity and that a cautious response to early warning signs will avoid a significant percentage of them.
Remember that target betting generally requires just two consecutive wins to achieve turnaround (or "get out of the hole") and in many situations, just a single win will do the trick.
It is possible to encounter a win-loss pattern that defies probability and excludes paired wins or any player wins at all for an extended period. But that is not a common occurrence.
If you play like a mindless robot and take whatever comes at you without applying any form of damage control, you will lose sooner or later, even if you faithfully apply the rules of target betting as I have laid them out.
Many gamblers believe that stepping away from a punishing game and resuming play at another time in another place is futile, and they are encouraged in that self-destructive belief by the Wizard of Odds and his casino industry sponsors.
A target player knows better.
Occasional tough times are inevitable and they cannot always be avoided.
But if you are going to put your good money at risk in a game in which the odds are against you, you at the very least need enough sense to come in out of the rain.
You are sure to lose more bets than you win, in the long run, so you have no choice but to bet in such a way that you win more when you win than you lose when you lose.
Perennial losers (a term that describes more than 99% of all punters) think that what I just described is an impossible dream.
It is not impossible. It is essential.
And even the most corrupt "mathematical" methods devised in the service of the gambling industry cannot prove otherwise.
One of the distractions I have been enjoying since my last post is an iPod touch, a present from our youngest son, and among the apps I downloaded was a blackjack game that can be played at speed with just one thumb.
There are many better uses for the ultimate iPod, I realize, but naturally this was one I could not resist.
The game starts you out with a $1,000 credit and automatically allows a "marker" for $500 every time you go broke.
Most important, the permitted spread is from $5 to $5,000, which is better than most virtual blackjack games.
As I type this, I am almost $40,000 ahead after a total of maybe five hours of play in three weeks.
The free app has a stats utility that tells me that I won 622 bets, lost 714 bets, and pushed 109 times, indicating an overall house edge of -92/1445 = (6.37%).
So...this is not a game honest enough to survive in a real casino (since when was single-deck blackjack tougher to beat than roulette or pai-gow poker?).
The app does not track action, but it is clear that I did not lose 6.37% of whatever the "churn" number might have been, in spite of negative expectation.
Target betting commonly delivers a win equal to 5.0% (or more) of the final handle, so my $40,000 in profits suggests an average bet of around $550 and an indicated LOSS of $50,000. Oops...but at least we know where I went right!
In response to an earlier post, a regular reader recently chided me for, he said, confusing actual value (AV) with the house advantage (HA) or negative expectation (NE), which he argues never varies.
Technically, he may be right, but if in a <1.0% game such as single-deck blackjack, the dealer wins more bets than expected, the house clearly enjoys a greater advantage than if (in the sample mentioned here) it had won 14 more bets than I did in 1445 rounds, rather than 92.
The same old friend bemoans the fact that target betting offers no (to use his term) bankroll protection and takes too many risks when the going gets tough and the "hole" is already too deep for comfort.
In fact, the reverse is true.
First of all, an adequate bankroll is the best protection a player can have assuming his disciplined adherence to a viable betting strategy.
Protecting the protection is the equivalent of refusing to use sophisticated weaponry in a firefight because the ammunition is too expensive.
The only alternative is certain death. But look at the money you save!
Obviously, no one wants to push their entire bankroll into the fray willy nilly, but significant threats are shown by the conventions of mathematics to be very rare indeed.
Cutting the method off at the knees right at the moment when its forceful approach is most needed is, to put it bluntly, suicide.
Target betting certainly seems at first blush to be riskier than most betting methods and far outside the comfort zone of the majority of gamblers.
But its ballsy concerted assault on the house edge rapidly generates a mounting stockpile of fresh ammunition that proves that attack is the best form of defense.
And because of that, the size of the bets required becomes a diminishing concern.
But we knew that already, didn't we?
Gambling has countless cliches that can be heard any night in any casino, covering speculation and accumulation in a wide variety of words and phrases that describe every player's dream of going home a winner.
The one that says it best, in my opinion, is Scared money never wins.
In other words, If you can't afford to win, you shouldn't bet.
As the caption confirms, the above results from the iPod blackjack app don't prove that target betting will always win. But they do illustrate what is possible, and given the consistent success of the betting method, probable. I have not checked the fairness and accuracy of the app, but the stats shown above suggest that it falls far short of Ken Smith's clever little Blackjack Strategy Trainer. Given its head, target betting will flip the house edge into a far greater player edge. But weakening it by imposing unrealistic bet limits, thereby requiring longer winning streaks to enable turnaround, is worse than counter-productive: it is suicide. I know from years of careful analysis of data from a wide variety of sources that a spread of less than 1,000 to 1 is not viable in the long term. The iPod app allows a $5,000 maximum bet, and that is its only practical advantage over BST. It is encouraging to see that in spite of a consistent AV far greater than expected, the house was unable to sustain streaks long enough to defeat target betting. What is important is that a disciplined betting strategy requires the house to be far "luckier" than negative expectation predicts, putting it on the defensive, in effect. That's a good thing!
The iPod touch is a brilliant piece of technology, and I am looking forward to seeing Apple's rumored expansion of the interface to tablet size. This little do-hickey cost about $300, and ballooning it from 2x4 to 10x12 or whatever will probably put the resulting tablet computer in the $1,000 neighborhood. Bring it on, Steve!
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.
_
There is probably a Google Analytics report out there somewhere that says blogging activity drops right off in the summertime.
I haven't posted a peep for almost a month, with endless sunny days beckoning me out of doors here in rural northern Nevada, but thankfully that has not stopped feedback from coming in.
I was happiest to hear from Daniel Rainsong, whose betting method was soundly trashed by the online shill who plies his trade as the Wizard of Odds.
The Wiz used one of those runaway sims favored by academic mathematicians everywhere to "disprove" Mr. Rainsong's ideas, pocketing a $4,000 bet in the process.
Apparently, Mr. Rainsong expected a fair shake and coughed up the cash like a gentleman, happy that the forfeit was covered at least 20 times over by his winnings from online and conventional (meaning regulated!) casinos.
All I can say about the Rainsong "procedure" (as he describes it) is that it has two things in common with target betting: it is a progression, and a clever one at that.
Readers who would like to know more about it can contact me via one of the links on this page, and I will pass on their requests.
I was also pleased to hear criticism of my suggestion that target betting can at times be profitable at long-odds games such as craps field, roulette and 3-card poker, the consensus being that anyone who blunders into one of those sucker traps deserves to get skinned.
True enough.
Constructive criticism is useful when it provides an opportunity to refute misunderstandings that only a masochist who has read every post to this blog could avoid!
In everything I have ever written on the subject, I have always qualified my embrace of games with a high house edge by saying that whenever bets start to look like serious money, it's time to beat a retreat to safer havens such as blackjack and baccarat.
I learned a long time ago that even in a game with a crippling HA such as the 5.26% that applies across the board in roulette, target betting can exploit the ping-pong effect that can be observed in the win-loss pattern almost as often as at blackjack.
But the greatest advantage of flexibility is that it helps throw casino bloodhounds off the scent.
When a pit prodnose sees someone winning at blackjack more than he "should" his first assumption is that card-counting is the problem, and when bets don't drop dramatically in response to a shuffle, dumb luck gets the blame, at least for a while.
Pit staff are first taught, and then learn from observation and experience, that no one can win forever at house games, and when counting and a hot streak are both ruled out, cheating is for them the last remaining explanation.
Occasional winners are more than welcome in a casino...they are essential to the business, because they're the lure for losers.
Regular winners are as popular among pit personnel as flagrant cheats, which some of them probably turn out to be.
As the known value of negative expectation at different games increases, so does the likelihood that the undramatic undulation of the win-loss pattern will pitch a fit and lurch egregiously in the house's favor.
But even the 2-1 vertical numbers columns at roulette offer opportunity for a target player, within reason, the trick being to halve and round up the current LTD when the time comes to update the NB value.
My guess is that an unbreakable accord between Israel and its neighbors is a whole lot more likely than progressive betting being embraced by supporters of the conventional gambling wisdom, and that is just fine by me.
And we will also disagree in perpetuity about the relevance or fairness of a testing method that assumes that all gamblers are suicidal idiots.
I have been lectured over and over again about the inability of even the smartest player to avoid absolute subjugation by the house edge at games of chance.
The message is that even if you can stay out of fatal trouble for a million bets or more, the house will always beat you in the end.
All samples of bets, however large, are anecdotal and therefore irrelevant if they show a player winning against a clear long-term house advantage.
Conversely, any sample of any size that depicts a gambler getting his clock cleaned is proof that the house edge cannot be beaten.
I do not suggest that a player who takes a break before a potentially fatal negative trend can destroy him will never get into serious trouble.
What I do say is that prolonged negative trends are a relative rarity and that a cautious response to early warning signs will avoid a significant percentage of them.
Remember that target betting generally requires just two consecutive wins to achieve turnaround (or "get out of the hole") and in many situations, just a single win will do the trick.
It is possible to encounter a win-loss pattern that defies probability and excludes paired wins or any player wins at all for an extended period. But that is not a common occurrence.
If you play like a mindless robot and take whatever comes at you without applying any form of damage control, you will lose sooner or later, even if you faithfully apply the rules of target betting as I have laid them out.
Many gamblers believe that stepping away from a punishing game and resuming play at another time in another place is futile, and they are encouraged in that self-destructive belief by the Wizard of Odds and his casino industry sponsors.
A target player knows better.
Occasional tough times are inevitable and they cannot always be avoided.
But if you are going to put your good money at risk in a game in which the odds are against you, you at the very least need enough sense to come in out of the rain.
You are sure to lose more bets than you win, in the long run, so you have no choice but to bet in such a way that you win more when you win than you lose when you lose.
Perennial losers (a term that describes more than 99% of all punters) think that what I just described is an impossible dream.
It is not impossible. It is essential.
And even the most corrupt "mathematical" methods devised in the service of the gambling industry cannot prove otherwise.
One of the distractions I have been enjoying since my last post is an iPod touch, a present from our youngest son, and among the apps I downloaded was a blackjack game that can be played at speed with just one thumb.
There are many better uses for the ultimate iPod, I realize, but naturally this was one I could not resist.
The game starts you out with a $1,000 credit and automatically allows a "marker" for $500 every time you go broke.
Most important, the permitted spread is from $5 to $5,000, which is better than most virtual blackjack games.
As I type this, I am almost $40,000 ahead after a total of maybe five hours of play in three weeks.
The free app has a stats utility that tells me that I won 622 bets, lost 714 bets, and pushed 109 times, indicating an overall house edge of -92/1445 = (6.37%).
So...this is not a game honest enough to survive in a real casino (since when was single-deck blackjack tougher to beat than roulette or pai-gow poker?).
The app does not track action, but it is clear that I did not lose 6.37% of whatever the "churn" number might have been, in spite of negative expectation.
Target betting commonly delivers a win equal to 5.0% (or more) of the final handle, so my $40,000 in profits suggests an average bet of around $550 and an indicated LOSS of $50,000. Oops...but at least we know where I went right!
In response to an earlier post, a regular reader recently chided me for, he said, confusing actual value (AV) with the house advantage (HA) or negative expectation (NE), which he argues never varies.
Technically, he may be right, but if in a <1.0% game such as single-deck blackjack, the dealer wins more bets than expected, the house clearly enjoys a greater advantage than if (in the sample mentioned here) it had won 14 more bets than I did in 1445 rounds, rather than 92.
The same old friend bemoans the fact that target betting offers no (to use his term) bankroll protection and takes too many risks when the going gets tough and the "hole" is already too deep for comfort.
In fact, the reverse is true.
First of all, an adequate bankroll is the best protection a player can have assuming his disciplined adherence to a viable betting strategy.
Protecting the protection is the equivalent of refusing to use sophisticated weaponry in a firefight because the ammunition is too expensive.
The only alternative is certain death. But look at the money you save!
Obviously, no one wants to push their entire bankroll into the fray willy nilly, but significant threats are shown by the conventions of mathematics to be very rare indeed.
Cutting the method off at the knees right at the moment when its forceful approach is most needed is, to put it bluntly, suicide.
Target betting certainly seems at first blush to be riskier than most betting methods and far outside the comfort zone of the majority of gamblers.
But its ballsy concerted assault on the house edge rapidly generates a mounting stockpile of fresh ammunition that proves that attack is the best form of defense.
And because of that, the size of the bets required becomes a diminishing concern.
But we knew that already, didn't we?
Gambling has countless cliches that can be heard any night in any casino, covering speculation and accumulation in a wide variety of words and phrases that describe every player's dream of going home a winner.
The one that says it best, in my opinion, is Scared money never wins.
In other words, If you can't afford to win, you shouldn't bet.
As the caption confirms, the above results from the iPod blackjack app don't prove that target betting will always win. But they do illustrate what is possible, and given the consistent success of the betting method, probable. I have not checked the fairness and accuracy of the app, but the stats shown above suggest that it falls far short of Ken Smith's clever little Blackjack Strategy Trainer. Given its head, target betting will flip the house edge into a far greater player edge. But weakening it by imposing unrealistic bet limits, thereby requiring longer winning streaks to enable turnaround, is worse than counter-productive: it is suicide. I know from years of careful analysis of data from a wide variety of sources that a spread of less than 1,000 to 1 is not viable in the long term. The iPod app allows a $5,000 maximum bet, and that is its only practical advantage over BST. It is encouraging to see that in spite of a consistent AV far greater than expected, the house was unable to sustain streaks long enough to defeat target betting. What is important is that a disciplined betting strategy requires the house to be far "luckier" than negative expectation predicts, putting it on the defensive, in effect. That's a good thing!
The iPod touch is a brilliant piece of technology, and I am looking forward to seeing Apple's rumored expansion of the interface to tablet size. This little do-hickey cost about $300, and ballooning it from 2x4 to 10x12 or whatever will probably put the resulting tablet computer in the $1,000 neighborhood. Bring it on, Steve!
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.
_
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
When it comes to reporting on Indian gaming deals in Florida, white man speaks (writes?) with forked tongue!
_
I have been watching developments on the gambling front in Florida with some interest lately, not because I plan to waste money on a trip down there but because the fuss and palaver provides clues about the way state legislators think.
After much self-righteous huffing and puffing, lawmakers basically caved to all the Seminole tribe's demands, swallowing whole the bait that 45,000 new jobs will be created and $4 billion will be added to state revenues by game expansions at the tribe's seven casinos.
Today's news item reflects the immediate impact of Florida's concessions to its Native Americans: a blatant attempt by the Indian casinos to gouge players at their blackjack tables.
The deal's publicity push promised $5 blackjack and baccarat, plus no-limit poker and sundry other gambling options, but when it came down to it, low-limit blackjack tables were nowhere to be found.
Worse than that, $25 players suddenly found their tables being switched up to a $100 minimum.
And unlike in Nevada, where low-limit players are allowed to keep playing at low stakes when the table minimum is hiked, anyone attempting to bet below the new limits was told to take a hike.
What amazes me is that none of the stories I have read makes any attempt to address the question of what table limits are all about.
Or why state pols invariably cave to casinos' demands, sucked in by promises of huge revenues that save them from the politically dangerous responsibility of funding services from legitimate sources untainted by moral murk.
Countless studies have shown that wherever it gets the nod (including in Nevada and New Jersey) legalized gambling costs more jobs than it creates and more money than it generates.
But somehow legislators never read those things, or are persuaded not to believe them.
Back to table limits: We can all guess that minimums are bumped up on weekends when demand increases because casinos are crowded, and we can grudgingly accept it as good business.
But the reality is that higher minimums reduce player's spreads, and that's where extra house profits lie.
A $5 player might spread all the way up to (gasp) $50, and even if he chooses his bet values more or less randomly, his 1-10 spread gives him a marginally better shot at staying ahead of the game than if he were to flat-bet at $5.
If the same player with the same limited budget is coerced into opening at $25, his spread will likely still cap out at or near $50, making him a more likely loser.
Of course higher minimums mean more moolah in the house's coffers, but tighter spreads make player losses that much more certain.
There's no good news about spreads in any of my models, that's for sure.
It is absolutely possible to win for a while with a spread as tight as 1-5 or 1-10, and if that were not so, no one would play table games and folks like the Florida Seminoles would lose their Native American shirts.
But the longer you play with a limited spread, the more likely it is that the prevailing house edge will gobble up your bankroll, especially if, like most gamblers, you are challenging the negative odds with inadequate funding.
Whatever your maximum, you will need many multiples of that amount in the bank to enable you to ride out rough spots and come out the other side ahead of the game.
And the narrower the spread, the larger the multiple, with a decreasing chance of success proportionate to the value of the "max." That's because the sooner you hit that green ceiling, the more you will be at the mercy of the house edge.
Overall, with a mere half-million or so mixed-game outcomes in my data set, a spread tighter than 1-2,500 will always lose in the end. It will do nicely for very long stretches, but will ultimately fail.
That assumes, of course, that you follow the dictates of computer simulations and take no defensive action whatsoever when a house spike hits and suddenly you can't win a bet to save your life.
A spread that wide is out of the reach of almost everyone, I realize.
But the harsh truth about gambling games is that they cannot be beaten without a disciplined plan with big bucks behind it.
Then again, a fat bankroll alone won't win in the end, so money is not everything.
Spread is the key, and evidently, those wily Florida Seminoles (whose casinos are actually being run by even wilier pros from Las Vegas and Atlantic City) know it.
Blackjack is far and away the best table game for target betting, because of its doubles, splits and naturals.
But variations on the traditional game, especially Royal Match, should always be avoided like the plague, along with layouts where the pay-out on a natural has been cut from 3-2 to 6-5.
Baccarat lags behind blackjack because wins never pay more than 1-1 (forget Ties and other distractions...they're a rip-off!), and the only sensible way to bet is to back Player only.
I know, I know, Banker wins more often than Player by an infinitesimal percentage. But the tiny edge it offers is blown to bits and then some by the 5% commission on Banker payouts.
The great advantage of baccarat is that it's a high rollers' game offering table limits that are generally far higher than for blackjack.
So when a recovery series drags on and bet values are weighed down with multiple zeroes, baccarat may be the best option for target betting.
Camouflage is a critical element in target betting, and full size baccarat layouts with all manner of high-value chips in play can provide it like no other game.
There are several target betting options that can be profitable when bet values in a new series are relatively low, but because the house edge is much higher (five times higher or more) you should figure to head back to blackjack or baccarat the moment the going gets tough.
Personally, I enjoy field bets at craps in spite of a house edge that ranges from around 2.6% to above 5.0%, depending on the payout for 6,6 (go for 3x tables whenever possible).
As in blackjack, a turnaround bet on the field can hit an x2 or x3 payout, greatly adding to the EOS profit.
I like 3-card poker for the same reason, although target betting has to be modified to accommodate the ante/raise procedure.
An important rule: never, ever bet on "Pair Plus"!
It is very rare indeed to see a player who doesn't put money in that innocent-looking drain-hole, and it is the reason most 3-card poker players are losers.
Bet only the ante, raise only on a Q,6 or better, and when figuring your LTD+ values, you should HALVE your current loss to date, rounding up in appropriate increments (-$275 calls for an ante bet of $150, for example).
The house edge for the game is around 4.0%, or at least 4x that for blackjack. But as long as bet values are at the low end of your sliding scale, the game's ante bonuses (up to 6x!) can make for profitable play for a while.
Again, never waste money on Pair-plus and ignore whatever sales pitches you may hear from dealers and even other players.
Pair-plus makes about as much sense as a Tie bet in baccarat, and in effect it requires you to constantly bet against yourself!
Roulette has its charms when seats at blackjack and baccarat layouts are hard to find, but the house edge of 5.26% makes it a short-term option at best.
Put your money on 1-1 options only (black/red, odd/even, first/last), although I confess that often I do well picking a 2-1 column (usually the first on the left), sticking with it every time, and applying the same LTD/2 rule as for 3-card poker.
Those are the only table games I will ever play in a casino.
My ranking: blackjack, baccarat, craps field, 3-card poker, roulette.
And when the going gets tough, blackjack is always #1, backed up by baccarat when table limits become a problem.
Table limits are, of course, much lower at craps, 3CP and roulette than at blackjack and baccarat, so that is another solid reason to limit your play against games with higher (or should that be lower?) negative expectation.
Follow the target betting rules consistently and you will win consistently too, which always becomes a problem after a while.
Losers get nothing from casino personnel other than forced sympathy and encouragement to lose some more.
Winners are welcome, as long as they eventually become losers - if they keep on winning, they are assumed to be cheats, and hell hath no fury like pit boss who suspects illegal shenanigans.
As a frequent winner, expect to be scrutinized and sometimes even gently harassed.
But don't expect the treatment to let up even after you have been proved honest and upright...winning is itself a sin in the house's book.
Your best allies are the dealers. Treat them well, and they will be less inclined to clue in their bosses on how you are managing to reverse the expected direction of the "chip flow."
Dealers who know you and can rely on you for steady tokes will usually tip you off when they are on a hot streak, a concept that academic mathematicians insist can have no bearing on overall odds but every player knows to be a very real part of gambling life.
You will win steadily and reliably, sometimes attracting the attention of other players even before the dealer takes notice (although dealers are mostly much quicker and smarter than they are given credit for!).
In spite of that, never run away with the idea that you are invincible. You have standard negative expectation whacked, for sure, but sometimes the house edge can go dangerously haywire before it settles back to the norm, and you need to be ready for that.
Pit staff will want to get to know you, but never be flattered by their attention.
Winners attract "comps" because the house wants them to stay where the money was won until it gets lost again, which is how the script plays out for most punters.
Never angle for comps. You don't need them, and their price is too high.
(Losers are sometimes "comped" too, but only the ones who keep returning for more punishment, demonstrating that they have money to burn and are looking for a light!).
You will be tracked during play once the spotlight is on you, but you do not have to make the house's job easier by giving them your name.
If you can, shrug off overtures from glad-handing pit personnel and say you are just passing through and no thanks, you don't want a Privileged Player's Premium card, or whatever.
Anonymity is a much better way to go, although it gets harder to achieve the longer you keep winning.
Play quietly and politely, keep your head down, and resist the temptation to tell wayward players how to improve their game, even if they ask for your advice (and they will).
Just remember that losers make the games possible. You need them as much as the house does.
In spite of negative expectation, you really do have the math on your side.
Although each bet theoretically faces the same negative odds, there are other numbers at work in a gambling game that work in your favor.
Among them is the demonstrable fact that for both sides in a game, more wins are isolated than are followed by a second win.
That's bad for you when you are bumping your NB value in response to a mid-recovery win. But, more often, you are betting (with the OL, 2L, 3L and MSL target betting rules) that the house will comply with expectation and lose on the heels of a win.
It is a fact that you will lose more potential turnaround bets than you win, thanks to the house edge.
It is also a fact that because you keep adjusting your NB values to match and exceed the loss to date right after a mid-series win, that small disadvantage will only very rarely be a problem.
You know you are going to lose more bets than you win.
It follows both logically and mathematically that in that case, you must ensure that over the long haul, you win more when you win than you lose when you lose.
Have I said that before?
Blackjack players will often tell you that the house advantage lies in the fact that you, the player, have to decide the fate of your hand before the dealer does. So if you draw a "stiff" (two cards that have to be hit) and then bust, the dealer wins even if he turns out to have had a worse starter hand than yours.
The "bust first" rule is a factor, certainly, and it bolsters the house edge significantly. But not nearly as substantively as the simple fact that the dealer has a lot more money to back him than you do.
The house can take a licking for an awfully long time, and will probably be rescued by its flimsy numerical edge long before it has to cry Uncle.
All a flat or random bettor can do is soldier on when times are tough, and pray for a miracle.
The target player needs neither prayers nor miracles.
As a target strategist, your best weapon lies in the fact that you set bet values, not the house.
The house will always, in the end, win more often than you. But you get to determine how much it wins when it wins and how much it loses when it loses.
That is true for every player, but it consistently makes the difference between winning and losing only when target betting is part of the picture.
Target betting shows you how and when to exploit control that most players don't know they have.
Random players hit their personal limits very quickly, and from then on will usually need to win more often than they lose because the odds are that that is the only way they can hope to win more money than they lose.
Your bets freeze in a downturn but will, when appropriate, keep rising to stay one step ahead of the LTD.
And that makes it really difficult for the house to beat you in the end.
In the good old days, pit bosses often used index cards on a chest-level desktop to track the activity of players who were either regulars requesting a rating, or of special interest for some other reason (an excess of "luck" for example).
One column of cards would track losers, and the column beside it would be for winners.
Usually, a card moved into the losers column would never move out of it, making it easy for the pit staffer to mentally tally one set of cards against the other and guess the current state of the house's bottom line.
What they would rather not do was move a card from lose to win, then lose, then win, which is what will happen again and again to a target player who stays in the same blackjack pit for too long.
Keyboard clicks have mostly taken over from squiggles on index cards, but either way, the moral of this tale is: Keep moving.
Most of the time, recoveries will come in six bets or fewer, and profits will accrue at a gentle pace that does not attract much attention.
Paired wins are less frequent than isolated wins, for sure, but on average they are rarely more than a handful of bets apart.
However, when a series drags on for ten or more rounds and the bets begin to look like real money, never be tempted to show the pit how clever you are by achieving EOS under the watchful eyes of the same crew that saw you place your piddling opening bet.
Betting from $5 to $500 in the same general vicinity is a bad idea.
I did that several times too often before I determined that profits and a low profile mattered more than demonstrating how deep a hole I could get out of.
Cash, not kudos...that's the rule!
If you really want empathy (especially when alternate layouts are temporarily hard to find) it is best to suspend play against a challenging series that would usually require a move, keep the LTD/NB numbers in your head, and drop back to a minimum bet.
You can accumulate several "deferred" series if you choose, saving them for another casino or another day, and your (temporary) losses will keep at least one pit crew happy for a while.
The folks in the next pit you visit will likely have a lot less to smile about.
The screenshot composite above is from the current BST blackjack session, which as I type this is a little over half done (I don't play as often or as long as I used to, on the grounds that my point was made long ago!). The numbers you see are not "proof" of anything, just an example of what can be achieved with target betting. Three of the four sessions had more losses than wins, and the other was a virtual break-even. In each case, the state of the bankroll after the last hand belies those numbers (and unlike many no-dough apps, BST does not permit players to alter their bankrolls!). I suppose it's possible that similar results might be seen if a simple Martingale were used against Ken Smith's elegant little app, but I have my doubts. I also suppose that cheating is an option. But it isn't for me. As I always say: What for? Target betting is easier and more reliable than cheating could ever be!
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.
_
I have been watching developments on the gambling front in Florida with some interest lately, not because I plan to waste money on a trip down there but because the fuss and palaver provides clues about the way state legislators think.
After much self-righteous huffing and puffing, lawmakers basically caved to all the Seminole tribe's demands, swallowing whole the bait that 45,000 new jobs will be created and $4 billion will be added to state revenues by game expansions at the tribe's seven casinos.
Today's news item reflects the immediate impact of Florida's concessions to its Native Americans: a blatant attempt by the Indian casinos to gouge players at their blackjack tables.
The deal's publicity push promised $5 blackjack and baccarat, plus no-limit poker and sundry other gambling options, but when it came down to it, low-limit blackjack tables were nowhere to be found.
Worse than that, $25 players suddenly found their tables being switched up to a $100 minimum.
And unlike in Nevada, where low-limit players are allowed to keep playing at low stakes when the table minimum is hiked, anyone attempting to bet below the new limits was told to take a hike.
What amazes me is that none of the stories I have read makes any attempt to address the question of what table limits are all about.
Or why state pols invariably cave to casinos' demands, sucked in by promises of huge revenues that save them from the politically dangerous responsibility of funding services from legitimate sources untainted by moral murk.
Countless studies have shown that wherever it gets the nod (including in Nevada and New Jersey) legalized gambling costs more jobs than it creates and more money than it generates.
But somehow legislators never read those things, or are persuaded not to believe them.
Back to table limits: We can all guess that minimums are bumped up on weekends when demand increases because casinos are crowded, and we can grudgingly accept it as good business.
But the reality is that higher minimums reduce player's spreads, and that's where extra house profits lie.
A $5 player might spread all the way up to (gasp) $50, and even if he chooses his bet values more or less randomly, his 1-10 spread gives him a marginally better shot at staying ahead of the game than if he were to flat-bet at $5.
If the same player with the same limited budget is coerced into opening at $25, his spread will likely still cap out at or near $50, making him a more likely loser.
Of course higher minimums mean more moolah in the house's coffers, but tighter spreads make player losses that much more certain.
There's no good news about spreads in any of my models, that's for sure.
It is absolutely possible to win for a while with a spread as tight as 1-5 or 1-10, and if that were not so, no one would play table games and folks like the Florida Seminoles would lose their Native American shirts.
But the longer you play with a limited spread, the more likely it is that the prevailing house edge will gobble up your bankroll, especially if, like most gamblers, you are challenging the negative odds with inadequate funding.
Whatever your maximum, you will need many multiples of that amount in the bank to enable you to ride out rough spots and come out the other side ahead of the game.
And the narrower the spread, the larger the multiple, with a decreasing chance of success proportionate to the value of the "max." That's because the sooner you hit that green ceiling, the more you will be at the mercy of the house edge.
Overall, with a mere half-million or so mixed-game outcomes in my data set, a spread tighter than 1-2,500 will always lose in the end. It will do nicely for very long stretches, but will ultimately fail.
That assumes, of course, that you follow the dictates of computer simulations and take no defensive action whatsoever when a house spike hits and suddenly you can't win a bet to save your life.
A spread that wide is out of the reach of almost everyone, I realize.
But the harsh truth about gambling games is that they cannot be beaten without a disciplined plan with big bucks behind it.
Then again, a fat bankroll alone won't win in the end, so money is not everything.
Spread is the key, and evidently, those wily Florida Seminoles (whose casinos are actually being run by even wilier pros from Las Vegas and Atlantic City) know it.
Blackjack is far and away the best table game for target betting, because of its doubles, splits and naturals.
But variations on the traditional game, especially Royal Match, should always be avoided like the plague, along with layouts where the pay-out on a natural has been cut from 3-2 to 6-5.
Baccarat lags behind blackjack because wins never pay more than 1-1 (forget Ties and other distractions...they're a rip-off!), and the only sensible way to bet is to back Player only.
I know, I know, Banker wins more often than Player by an infinitesimal percentage. But the tiny edge it offers is blown to bits and then some by the 5% commission on Banker payouts.
The great advantage of baccarat is that it's a high rollers' game offering table limits that are generally far higher than for blackjack.
So when a recovery series drags on and bet values are weighed down with multiple zeroes, baccarat may be the best option for target betting.
Camouflage is a critical element in target betting, and full size baccarat layouts with all manner of high-value chips in play can provide it like no other game.
There are several target betting options that can be profitable when bet values in a new series are relatively low, but because the house edge is much higher (five times higher or more) you should figure to head back to blackjack or baccarat the moment the going gets tough.
Personally, I enjoy field bets at craps in spite of a house edge that ranges from around 2.6% to above 5.0%, depending on the payout for 6,6 (go for 3x tables whenever possible).
As in blackjack, a turnaround bet on the field can hit an x2 or x3 payout, greatly adding to the EOS profit.
I like 3-card poker for the same reason, although target betting has to be modified to accommodate the ante/raise procedure.
An important rule: never, ever bet on "Pair Plus"!
It is very rare indeed to see a player who doesn't put money in that innocent-looking drain-hole, and it is the reason most 3-card poker players are losers.
Bet only the ante, raise only on a Q,6 or better, and when figuring your LTD+ values, you should HALVE your current loss to date, rounding up in appropriate increments (-$275 calls for an ante bet of $150, for example).
The house edge for the game is around 4.0%, or at least 4x that for blackjack. But as long as bet values are at the low end of your sliding scale, the game's ante bonuses (up to 6x!) can make for profitable play for a while.
Again, never waste money on Pair-plus and ignore whatever sales pitches you may hear from dealers and even other players.
Pair-plus makes about as much sense as a Tie bet in baccarat, and in effect it requires you to constantly bet against yourself!
Roulette has its charms when seats at blackjack and baccarat layouts are hard to find, but the house edge of 5.26% makes it a short-term option at best.
Put your money on 1-1 options only (black/red, odd/even, first/last), although I confess that often I do well picking a 2-1 column (usually the first on the left), sticking with it every time, and applying the same LTD/2 rule as for 3-card poker.
Those are the only table games I will ever play in a casino.
My ranking: blackjack, baccarat, craps field, 3-card poker, roulette.
And when the going gets tough, blackjack is always #1, backed up by baccarat when table limits become a problem.
Table limits are, of course, much lower at craps, 3CP and roulette than at blackjack and baccarat, so that is another solid reason to limit your play against games with higher (or should that be lower?) negative expectation.
Follow the target betting rules consistently and you will win consistently too, which always becomes a problem after a while.
Losers get nothing from casino personnel other than forced sympathy and encouragement to lose some more.
Winners are welcome, as long as they eventually become losers - if they keep on winning, they are assumed to be cheats, and hell hath no fury like pit boss who suspects illegal shenanigans.
As a frequent winner, expect to be scrutinized and sometimes even gently harassed.
But don't expect the treatment to let up even after you have been proved honest and upright...winning is itself a sin in the house's book.
Your best allies are the dealers. Treat them well, and they will be less inclined to clue in their bosses on how you are managing to reverse the expected direction of the "chip flow."
Dealers who know you and can rely on you for steady tokes will usually tip you off when they are on a hot streak, a concept that academic mathematicians insist can have no bearing on overall odds but every player knows to be a very real part of gambling life.
You will win steadily and reliably, sometimes attracting the attention of other players even before the dealer takes notice (although dealers are mostly much quicker and smarter than they are given credit for!).
In spite of that, never run away with the idea that you are invincible. You have standard negative expectation whacked, for sure, but sometimes the house edge can go dangerously haywire before it settles back to the norm, and you need to be ready for that.
Pit staff will want to get to know you, but never be flattered by their attention.
Winners attract "comps" because the house wants them to stay where the money was won until it gets lost again, which is how the script plays out for most punters.
Never angle for comps. You don't need them, and their price is too high.
(Losers are sometimes "comped" too, but only the ones who keep returning for more punishment, demonstrating that they have money to burn and are looking for a light!).
You will be tracked during play once the spotlight is on you, but you do not have to make the house's job easier by giving them your name.
If you can, shrug off overtures from glad-handing pit personnel and say you are just passing through and no thanks, you don't want a Privileged Player's Premium card, or whatever.
Anonymity is a much better way to go, although it gets harder to achieve the longer you keep winning.
Play quietly and politely, keep your head down, and resist the temptation to tell wayward players how to improve their game, even if they ask for your advice (and they will).
Just remember that losers make the games possible. You need them as much as the house does.
In spite of negative expectation, you really do have the math on your side.
Although each bet theoretically faces the same negative odds, there are other numbers at work in a gambling game that work in your favor.
Among them is the demonstrable fact that for both sides in a game, more wins are isolated than are followed by a second win.
That's bad for you when you are bumping your NB value in response to a mid-recovery win. But, more often, you are betting (with the OL, 2L, 3L and MSL target betting rules) that the house will comply with expectation and lose on the heels of a win.
It is a fact that you will lose more potential turnaround bets than you win, thanks to the house edge.
It is also a fact that because you keep adjusting your NB values to match and exceed the loss to date right after a mid-series win, that small disadvantage will only very rarely be a problem.
You know you are going to lose more bets than you win.
It follows both logically and mathematically that in that case, you must ensure that over the long haul, you win more when you win than you lose when you lose.
Have I said that before?
Blackjack players will often tell you that the house advantage lies in the fact that you, the player, have to decide the fate of your hand before the dealer does. So if you draw a "stiff" (two cards that have to be hit) and then bust, the dealer wins even if he turns out to have had a worse starter hand than yours.
The "bust first" rule is a factor, certainly, and it bolsters the house edge significantly. But not nearly as substantively as the simple fact that the dealer has a lot more money to back him than you do.
The house can take a licking for an awfully long time, and will probably be rescued by its flimsy numerical edge long before it has to cry Uncle.
All a flat or random bettor can do is soldier on when times are tough, and pray for a miracle.
The target player needs neither prayers nor miracles.
As a target strategist, your best weapon lies in the fact that you set bet values, not the house.
The house will always, in the end, win more often than you. But you get to determine how much it wins when it wins and how much it loses when it loses.
That is true for every player, but it consistently makes the difference between winning and losing only when target betting is part of the picture.
Target betting shows you how and when to exploit control that most players don't know they have.
Random players hit their personal limits very quickly, and from then on will usually need to win more often than they lose because the odds are that that is the only way they can hope to win more money than they lose.
Your bets freeze in a downturn but will, when appropriate, keep rising to stay one step ahead of the LTD.
And that makes it really difficult for the house to beat you in the end.
In the good old days, pit bosses often used index cards on a chest-level desktop to track the activity of players who were either regulars requesting a rating, or of special interest for some other reason (an excess of "luck" for example).
One column of cards would track losers, and the column beside it would be for winners.
Usually, a card moved into the losers column would never move out of it, making it easy for the pit staffer to mentally tally one set of cards against the other and guess the current state of the house's bottom line.
What they would rather not do was move a card from lose to win, then lose, then win, which is what will happen again and again to a target player who stays in the same blackjack pit for too long.
Keyboard clicks have mostly taken over from squiggles on index cards, but either way, the moral of this tale is: Keep moving.
Most of the time, recoveries will come in six bets or fewer, and profits will accrue at a gentle pace that does not attract much attention.
Paired wins are less frequent than isolated wins, for sure, but on average they are rarely more than a handful of bets apart.
However, when a series drags on for ten or more rounds and the bets begin to look like real money, never be tempted to show the pit how clever you are by achieving EOS under the watchful eyes of the same crew that saw you place your piddling opening bet.
Betting from $5 to $500 in the same general vicinity is a bad idea.
I did that several times too often before I determined that profits and a low profile mattered more than demonstrating how deep a hole I could get out of.
Cash, not kudos...that's the rule!
If you really want empathy (especially when alternate layouts are temporarily hard to find) it is best to suspend play against a challenging series that would usually require a move, keep the LTD/NB numbers in your head, and drop back to a minimum bet.
You can accumulate several "deferred" series if you choose, saving them for another casino or another day, and your (temporary) losses will keep at least one pit crew happy for a while.
The folks in the next pit you visit will likely have a lot less to smile about.
The screenshot composite above is from the current BST blackjack session, which as I type this is a little over half done (I don't play as often or as long as I used to, on the grounds that my point was made long ago!). The numbers you see are not "proof" of anything, just an example of what can be achieved with target betting. Three of the four sessions had more losses than wins, and the other was a virtual break-even. In each case, the state of the bankroll after the last hand belies those numbers (and unlike many no-dough apps, BST does not permit players to alter their bankrolls!). I suppose it's possible that similar results might be seen if a simple Martingale were used against Ken Smith's elegant little app, but I have my doubts. I also suppose that cheating is an option. But it isn't for me. As I always say: What for? Target betting is easier and more reliable than cheating could ever be!
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.
_
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)