So you have made money playing poker, huh? So you think you are a successful gambler, huh? Baby, you ain't seen nothing yet. The poker room is just a little small little blip on the immense list where a casino in Vegas makes its money from. Even at huge poker places like Commerce, the banked games like no-bust blackjack and 3-card poker are huge money makers. So I thought I'd use this 600 post to write about something I actually know a bit about, most of my poker knowledge is eclipsed by so many micro veterans anyway, so my poker advice might not be that great. Besides, it might entice some of you to veer away from the grind of playing poker all the time, be it online or in a B&M casino.
First, a little backstory: How did I get started playing poker?
Even though, I have played poker since 2004, it hasn't been my hobby until recently. My fascination with casinos came on a statistics lecture back in 1999 or 2000, when talk suddenly turned to the MIT blackjack team. We started showing with statistics, how the BJ team was able to lower their ROR with their team play and sharing of bankroll. Of course, we got to hear the entire story on how the MIT team got to be. It was strange, I don't know if the book "Bringing down the house" had already been published or not, but here I was in a german University hearing details about team play in a physics statistics lecture. I wish, I had talked a bit longer to my professor back then, but all I had was this wide-eyed view: blackjack is beatable!
I went over to the US in 2002. Californian indian casinos were just starting to spread and to get rid of that hand charge in blackjack, so the oppotunities were starting to pop up. Blackjack play in Reno was amazing with all the pitch games and low stakes. For a poor student like me, it was blackjack heaven. In the end of 2003, I started with a measly 5000$ roll and decided to try out this blackjack thing. I devoured "Professional Blackjack" and "Theory of Blackjack" (similar math level than "Mathematics of Poker").
The life of a blackjack card counter is quite similar to a poker player. You are quite lonely in your pursuit against casinos. Even if you are playing in a team, you can be quite lonely and you can become all encompassed by terms like units/hour, EV, RoR, etc.
But one of the things blackjack card counting fuels the most is hatred, which is quite sad. Often, even after a big score, I would come home to my husband (back then we weren't married) and just hate on the casinos, the ploppies (term we use for non-counting BJ patrons) and everything related to gambling. You become a very cynical person. Of course, the backoffs ("no more blackjack for you, but you are welcome to play our slots") started to pile up slowly, but surely. This only fueled my hatred to the casinos. One time a security guy was himself quite insecure when backing me off, I don't know, perhaps he thought, what's this girl doing counting cards? I just laughed in his face... Counting cards had become a love/hate relationship. And over what? 30$/hour! I mean, I loved the comps, I loved traveling to casinos to gamble and win, but at the end of the day, it's quite a hassle.
I got married in 2005. Our pre-marriage trip to Vegas was just amazing. My husband had his best friend with him, I had mine. I played BJ and won a ton, I even tried out a bit of 3/6 hold'em (lost), but had fun. It was one of the best trips of my life and probably the high-point in my "BJ career". Very quickly, after our honeymoon, I found out I was pregnant... I still travelled to Reno a few times, but it was just too smoke filled. Plus the backoffs suddenly were starting to increase. Perhaps that was because I suddenly had an urgency, an "I don't care attitude", I was probably not gonna play in the casinos after the baby was born anyway. At one point, I was running out of places and shifts to play in Reno, but that's ok. I think today, they have forgotten about me, it's over 2 years since I have done regular trips there. I was dreading the ending of my BJ career, but on the other hand, I was relieved. No more cat & mouse... Sigh!
So, one time after work I stopped by my local cardroom and played some 3/6. No smoking, very friendly atmosphere (this room had 5 tables back then), free dinner (hey, pregnant lady FTW!). I started playing poker... I'm not a very good poker player, but I learned and learned. I made very friendly poker aquaintances, which is quite sad, because deep down from my blackjack days, I still had a hate for my fellow players. I will never show it and it's gotten better, but yeah, casinos have probably damaged me for life that way. meh!
Jan 2006 my baby was born. Needless to say, I had other priorities in life. I started to enjoy some other geeky activities in my life (what?! by now you probably have realized I'm a total nerd). I still played some poker every now and then, but I have probably only played like 50 hours of blackjack since my daughter was born.
And the revelation came quite quickly in October 2007. I was barred out of 3 casinos after 20-40 minutes playing in each. I probably was doing something wrong, but blackjack has changed. That had NEVER happened to me before. I am really paranoid, which is why even though I don't play BJ anymore, I don't know if I wanna put a face to my name that I ever did or answer questions about.
So, in August/September 2007 after losing a big chunk of money online I started posting here on 2+2. I guess BJ is over. This was confirmed on my Vegas trip just a month later... Am I ready to be really good at poker? I don't know, but right now it seems to be working at the low levels and I really like this hobby. Let's see how this journey progresses. I probably will never play cards professionally, I love my job too much to do that, but for those few hours/week where I am actually playing poker I am totally submerged in it...
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Ok, enough about me. Here comes the part of the post you should pay attention to. What casino games are beatable? Strangely enough, almost all of them(!) regardless of what the haters say.
Blackjack
The holy grail in beatable casino games. After Thorp got his face in
time magazine for proving blackjack was beatable, the masses flocked the casinos. It is an interesting tidbit that way, way more people lose in blackjack, because they think that they heard it was beatable that actual people who count. The casinos learned this in the 60s and blackjack is one of the big reasons the big fountains and stuff you see in Las Vegas are there. Up until the 90s, that was blackjack money, baby, fueled largely in part by the belief that it can be beat.
With the new impending release of
21, a movie about the MIT card counting team, I wonder what impact this will have towards wanna-be counters.
In any case, if you have ANY desire to become a proficient card counter, read Professional Blackjack by Stanford Wong. You might consider joining his website
BJ21.com, for updated information on the game. There is no secret to counting. You don't need to be Rain Man to count (nice cliche there). I have actually found around my BJ buddies that accountants (LOL) are the best counters and best BJ nits.
Here is the recipe for HiLo:
1) Everytime you see a card of value 2-6 appear, you add +1 to the running count.
2) Everytime you see a face card, Ace or a ten appear, you add -1 to the running count.
3) 7,8,9 are neutral and don't change your running count.
4) Divide your running count by the number of decks remaining to get your true count.
5) Everytime you have a larger true count bet more. The correlation between the TC and the bet should be exponential (as long as you don't reach table maximum and can pull it off).
That's it!
Whoa, whoa, whoa... it's not that easy... I spent 4-5 months in front of a computer practicing, practicing, practicing. Do it with the TV on! With distractions. This is no joke, there are a million distractions in a casino. You need to be able to count down a deck in at least 30 seconds (17 is my best). Here is step 1, where most people fail. There is a good training software called
Casino Verite, if you want to try it. This is like Poker Tracker for Online Poker, absolutely necessary.
But wait, blackjack doesn't stop there. There are millions thousands of intricacies like shuffle tracking, ace-steering, team play intricacies, hole carding, etc. that make this game very fascinating. Above all is the #1 turn-on, you are putting on an act... beating a casino. Sexy!
Sports Betting
I dabbled in Sports Betting a bit, but I don't have the patience and dedication to do it. However, beyond getting good at using statistical tools and computer simulations, you need to realize one thing to become a successful sports bettor (and other future outcomes betting). THERE IS NO RIGHT SIDE, JUST A RIGHT PRICE.
Sports betting is like an options market. Sure, knowing a bit about the sport you are betting on is a plus, but sports betting is about information and not about being a fan. Actually, the fans are the worst sports bettors of all. You need to get the absolutely best price so a lot of your bets. There are several live tickers on sports running on the best sports bettors computers. Delayed lines like the ones on
Covers (good site, BTW) are just not going to cut it. It is like the stock market and information is KING.
Ok, so how to get the information edge? First, Stanford Wong's
book/website (yeah, the same BJ guy) dwelves deep into the result distributions and takes on a bit mathematical approach to the game. This is a good place to START. There are enough betting teams, who are leagues beyond this, so basically if you can set your own line close enough after a year, start looking for places where the opening line (which is where there is the most fluctuation) is off the most. Also betting on little known sports, where you have more information will give you an edge. Everybody and their mother is betting the NFL, the market is oversaturated with information. If you play a C-game in PLO, you will probably today make more money than playin your A-game playing NLHE, everybody knows how to play the game! Same in sports betting.
Be careful with sports betting. To make money here you have to push small edges with a lot of money! In little known sports like the WNBA action is often capped at 500$/game (great, you make maybe like 10$/game). If you win consistently you will be booted, your betting limits will be restricted! Just like in blackjack, casinos talk to each other. If you lose one book, you might lose a whole bunch.
Video Poker
Sigh! I hate Video Poker. I don't know how anybody can stand doing repetitive things in front of the screen for hours and hours. It's just like multitabling nano-stakes, one huge big grind. I would go crazy doing this.
Ok, now that I got that off my back. There are machines (less and less after effing
Bob Dancer had to announce everything to the world) that pay off more than 100% after if you couple that with comps (see next points), Video Poker is most definetly beatable.
There are several
books,
software,
seminars,
strategy cards and
forums, which will give you the information of where to find the best games, the best strategy for the optimal return on that game and so on and so on. Remember, I warned you, it's very boring, which is why I can't give you more details.
Coupon runs, Comps
I laugh at some of my poker friends. They get so worked up chasing bonuses on the internet, but when they get to the casino, they forget the biggest bonus of all: COMPS!
Often that is, because they are just ignorant or afraid. Have been playing green chip blackjack for an hour? Call the pit boss over and tell him you're hungry! ASK! Tell him/her, what's it gonna take to get a free room, a free buffet, a show? Be curteous, but don't be afraid to ask. What's the worst that can happen? The pit boss says: no! Big deal.
A lot of the insides of the casino's comp business is laid out in
Comp City by Max Rubin. Now, the book is a bit outdated, but the main advice still applies: be shrewd, get them for every penny in comps. That's what the casinos were built on, keeping the patrons in. The basic architecture behind that are still there, although they are shadowed by the gazillion of ploppies visiting Vegas each year. Get to know the intricacies of the casino to get the most out of it. Do not let the casino tell you what you can and cannot do, YOU are the customer. I don't know how to express it better, but you gotta appear as if you are the gambler and big player and need to be treated like one, just like in the old days. You are not some tourist to see the shows, you are a gambler! Ah, another good comp book is
Frugal Gambler, who also has a Video Poker book, which explains the mindset begind what I was trying to say.
Get a player's card. There are so many incredible deals that come with it. Play a few -EV games (slots). The phletora of mailing offers that come after that are going to offset that well enough. My husband goes to Las Vegas a lot for conventions. Up until recently (when I stopped playing blackjack), he never paid more than 20$/night, free buffet included for a mid-level strip casino (IP, Stardust, Sahara, Circus Circus). It is RIDICULOUS what many people pay for hotels. Also, there are certain point offers, which are very nice (play 70 points at the Winn, get a free buffet, you can do that in 20 minutes playing Video Poker with minimal risk for what the buffet costs, for example). There are certain days with double/triple points and many of those points can be converted to cash and comps. I hardly payed for one meal at the indian casinos, even though they have stingy comps.
Get coupon books.
Las Vegas Advisor has a nice pocketbook of coupons every year, which can yield you a few 100$. But really, coupons are lying around in Vegas everywhere. When you sign up for a player's card everywhere, you get a few coupons (Stratosphere is the best) which will yield you like 5$ in EV. You can rinse, repeat a lot if you visit Vegas casually, since there are so many casinos around. There is no sense in scoffing at free money. I know Vegas by now and I don't care to party anymore. Little coupon runs, coupled with +EV gambling are a nice distraction sometimes.
There should be a little chapter here on Internet bonuses, but I think we are all familiar with those at 2+2. Plus the UIGEA has made it difficult for Americans to really profit here, so I'm not gonna dwelve into it.
3 card poker
It is beatable. Enough said! Wanna know how? Read
Beyond Counting. I won't go into details.
Craps
Ok, there is a lot of controversy surrounding this. What is the only thing that could get you the edge in craps? That's right, you are the one actually throwing the craps! However, as everybody knows, the dice have to hit the backwall which make the throw random and apparently uncontrolable.
Well, there are certain people, who claim it is. Heavy, for example offers
crap seminars and there is a big market offering equipment to practice. One thing I want to make ABSOLUTELY clear. Nobody is claming that the can just suddenly throw a 7 on command. Just that the seven:non-seven ratio will be lower than the 6:1 needed to overcome the house edge on the come bet after the point has been set.
I have never tried it myself, but I'm a believer. If a circus actor can do amazing feats after months of practicing, I believe if you really put an effort in it, you can do it. I have heard that baseball pitchers have an advantage in this bet and that they pick it up after 2 months or so. A normal person should be able to control dice after 6 months of practice or so. There is little heat for this game, because similar to blackjack, too many people think they have an edge, before you actually have an edge.
Other games
There are many other games in the casino that are beatable on which I won't dwelve here, because I don't know that much about them.
I heard the new carnival game Casino Texas Hold'em is beatable with a simple basic strategy, plus the large amount of dealer errors that are associated with that game (not the best dealers are assigned to carnival games).
There are certain trigger points on huge payouts at slots at which your bet becomes +EV. But, really? Would you play a slot, just because of the really small chance you might win 30 million$, which makes the bet +EV?
There is an optimal strategy in beating banked games (like the ones found in California). A lot of it is described in another Wong book:
Optimal Pai Gow Poker. However a lot of games are banked by a corporation and even then your variance is large and you need one hell of a bankroll to counter the sharks playing these games.
There are stories of teams being able to photograph the ball as it was spinning in roulette and with a little computer, which could fit on the cell phone photographing the ball, will tell you the approximate area the ball will land. It's really just physics. Since you can still make bets when the ball is rolling the team quickly tells the bettor the area and he immediatly makes the bets. This is only viable in Europe, where you have a one-zero wheel. In the US it's pretty hard with th 5.4% edge because of the double zero. There is also an edge you have with faulty, old roulette wheels, but I think in today's environment, there aren't that many biased roulette wheels anymore, so I'll just let that stand.
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Enjoy gambling!
Last edited by bellatrix; 03-07-2008 at 08:19 PM.
Reason: vB code fix. A typo
