Been poking around on a lot of blackjack forums, and the general consensus is you can make $50 an hour with very little heat playing blackjack. (counting cards)

You can make ALOT more, but have to deal with getting kicked out.

Now $50 an hour playing live poker is a very respectable number, you have to be quite skilled, and play tougher games.

So what I don't understand is, why aren't more people playing blackjack?

I know absolutely nothing about blackjack / counting but I would speculate that the $50 / hour isn't doable for most people and/or you get heat a lot faster than you think.

There are definitely a lot of advantages to counting cards over playing poker. Heck, you can also do both, and play a couple quick shoes while you are waiting to get on that juicy 2/5 table. Get two birds stoned at once.



The advantage to blackjack over poker is that $50 / hour is doable for virtually anyone. Beating blackjack is not complicated, and it is not difficult. It does not require a high IQ or significant mental abilities. It just takes about 100 hours of practice. And unlike poker, there is an objective measurement of whether or not you are a winning blackjack player, a skills test.

Another advantage to blackjack is the game does not get any more difficult as you move up in limits.

You do require a substantial bankroll to make a decent hourly at blackjack (as you do at poker). For people with really small bankrolls, but gambling skills, online poker is probably the best way to go, because you can get in so much more volume that even playing microstakes you can still get an okay hourly.

Exactly how much bankroll you need to make $50 / hr depends on game conditions. Rules, penetration, and rounds per hour (which is determined by a number of factors, such as how many ppl are at the table, are there side bets, fast or slow dealer). You could make $50 / hr at the best blackjack game in the world with maybe a $10,000 bankroll, but in less ideal and more common conditions you would probably need $20,000 to $50,000. Of course you don't need to take my word for it, you can use CVCX and calculate your hourly based on local conditions.

And that's why there aren't armies of people trying to earn $50/hr playing BJ. Most people can't handle the financial or emotional aspect of the huge swings. It's not uncommon for a full time counter to be in the red over several months. It's easy to see how if you only play a handful of hours a week you can easily have yearlong downswings.

Beating the game isn't that difficult. Being allowed to play meaningful hours at meaningful stakes is the difficult part.

How do I put in volume at 50/hr with no heat?

How many trips can I make spreading 15-300 in a shoe game with 5/6 pen before I get the tap?

How many max bets should I get in playing unrated in a mediocre DD game spreading 25-200 before I get up and go? How do I repeat this without floor ever getting suspicious? What if I play rated? Will I last longer than a few dozen hours?

Can you show some reliable sources from the blackjack forums?

Yep.
No need to risk casinos' heat by trying to get a $50 per hour misery.

There are better meaningful ways to get serious casino's money appearing as pure idiots

How much does it cost you to travel from one casino to the next and find housing?

Vegas would probably be one of the only realistic option for being a full time counter.

Divide "a few hundred" by 50, that's the number of hours you will spend in a casino before moving on. Now take the total number of hours you want to be doing this in a year, and divide that by the first number to see how many casinos you'd need around you.

Straight counting is just not the way to go. Casinos know too much about it and the edge is too small. I would advise anyone who is serious about making money in a casino to research more advanced techniques, and also have the ability to devise one's own techniques and be constantly looking for vulnerabilities in casino games and promotions. Not all of the best opportunities are well-known or even published at all. More advanced techniques will improve both your EV and your longevity.