Explanations Of The Main Types Of Advantage Playing:
Disclaimer: Though there are many misconceptions about certain types of advantage playing, nothing listed in this article is illegal in the United States of America. If you have any concerns about legality where you preside, please check your local laws. Though these plays may not be illegal, they may be frowned upon by casino staff, and many casinos have a right to ban any player for any reason.
- Card Counting:
The most commonly known form of advantage playing is card counting in blackjack. Unlike what the television personality Derren Brown would have you believe, card counters do not track every single card that comes out – they assign a point value to a whole group of cards and add or subtract from a number kept in their heads. There are many different counts such as the Silver Fox, Red Seven, and K-O, but the most basic count is the Hi-Lo. In the Hi-Lo count, the player will add 1 when a 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 appears, add 0 when a 7, 8, or 9 appears, and subtract 1 when a 10, Jack, Queen, King, or Ace appears. In any random game of blackjack, the casino has a slight mathematical advantage over the player, which can change from casino to casino depending on varying house rules, but when plugged into a blackjack calculator, the player has a slight mathematical advantage over the casino when smaller cards are taken out of the deck. This is the key to counting – the player will flat-bet a smaller amount when the game begins, and when the running count becomes high, say +11, the player will flat-bet a larger amount because now the player has a mathematical advantage against the casino. If the running count becomes low or negative, the player will revert back to smaller bets.
For the most effective gains, card counting must be coupled with proper strategy. This has also been solved by blackjack calculators and is available on blackjack basic strategy charts. Again, proper strategy differs depending on varying house rules, and blackjack basic strategy charts are available for all types of different rules. Of course there are other factors that professional card counters account for, such as the true count (a determination of your advantage based on dividing the running count by the amount of decks remaining in the shoe to estimate the count per deck remaining) and the Kelly criterion (a method of determining the correct amount to bet based on the true count or the player’s advantage), but these are the basics of card counting.
- Hole-carding:
Hole-carding is another form of advantage playing that is typically used for blackjack, but it may be used for other games as well. A blackjack dealer will have one face-up card and one face-down card, and the face-down card is called the hole card. Regular blackjack basic strategy charts account for the dealer’s face-up card, but a hole-carding strategy can be used if a player knows the dealer’s hole card. This can be achieved with a variety of methods, but one overt way to see a hole card is by sitting at a table with an inexperienced or sloppy dealer. This may be hard to find, but some dealers will accidentally flash their hole cards throughout the game, and team members can scout the floors looking for these dealers.
- Edge Sorting:
Another form of advantage playing was made known by a baccarat player named Kelly Sun when she applied the concept of edge sorting into her game. Many playing card companies have symmetrical patterns on the backs of their cards, but edge sorting can be applied when the casino uses cards that do not have symmetrical patterns, thereby making it easier to distinguish different cards from one another when looking carefully. With Kelly Sun’s eyes and Phil Ivey’s bankroll, the two won millions. With the casinos’ approval, the players instructed the dealers to flip high and low cards in opposite directions and deal the cards face down before their bets were placed. Once the two hands of baccarat were dealt, they would then make their betting decision based on how the cards were flipped, as they could see the different combinations of high cards with high cards, low cards with low cards, and high cards with low cards.
- Dice Controlling:
Dice controlling in craps is another form of advantage playing that has misconceptions about it. A dice controller does not state a certain number and then attempt to roll that number. What they do is set the dice a certain way and throw the dice a certain way to either roll more 7’s or less 7’s than the standard deviation depending on how they bet. Craps has a physical element to the game, and as it is physical, the outcome is determined by physics. Dominic Loriggio and his Golden Touch Craps team have won plenty of money by using physics to their advantage when playing craps. The most basic concept of dice controlling is to set the dice a specific way before throwing so that the dice are more likely to have a favorable outcome when they land. There are 10 basic dice sets depending on what outcome the player wants. When betting Pass on the come out roll, you want 7’s to appear, so you set the dice to already equal 7 all the way around so that a 7 is more likely to appear if the dice stay “on axis.” When betting Pass after the come out roll, now you don’t want 7’s, so you set the dice to not equal 7 all the way around so that a 7 is less likely to appear. When betting Don’t Pass, the opposite is true, so you set the dice to not equal 7 on the come out roll and to equal 7 after the come out roll. The next concept is to throw the dice a certain way to have them stay “on axis” in the air, basically throwing them very lightly with an overhand grip so that the dice stay in the same set position when they are thrown. Having them stay in the set position is also achieved by squeezing them together before the throw so that they are more likely to stick to each other via traction. The next concept is your position at the table. A craps table is 10-16 feet long, and there is a much greater distance to throw if you are standing all the way at the end of the table. This is why choosing your position is important, and the best position at a craps table is directly next to the stickman because this position is the least distant from the back wall. Both dice must touch the back wall, which is layered with spikes, but the bottom part of the wall is smooth. Aiming the dice at the bottom will keep them in the set position better than aiming where the spikes are located.
- Wheel Clocking:
Another game with a physical element to it is roulette. It is hard to gain an edge on roulette, but if you have a good eye like Christian Kaisan, you may be able to become a kesselgucker, a “wheel observer” in German. Christian Kaisan applied his kesselgucken method to consistently make winning bets at roulette. This can be achieved because the betting round is not over once the croupier spins the ball. When the ball appears to slow down, the croupier will then state “no more bets,” meaning that players will have time to observe the ball in motion before placing their bets. This is not easy to master, but Christian was able to determine where the ball was likely to drop and then placed bets on a section of adjacent numbers on the wheel before the croupier called no more bets.
- Biased Wheels:
Kesselgucken or wheel clocking is not the only way to get an edge on roulette. Roulette wheels can become biased when they get tilted over time or when the ball hits certain spots over and over again, thus wearing them down and making some spots more likely to hit or less likely to hit. Gonzalo Garcia Pelayo was able to win a substantial amount of money with his team of employed family members when he realized that the roulette tables at his local casino had biased wheels after seeing the same numbers appear over and over again. He collected data from his sessions and did computer simulations to see if his theory was correct, and when he was confident that he found an edge, he employed his family members and told them to sit at different roulette tables and only bet on the biased numbers from his data. After figuring out what was happening, the casino staff switched the positions of the roulette tables so that the Pelayos would bet on the wrong numbers, but after Gonzalo realized they had switched the tables, he was able to figure out which table was which and correctly bet on the biased numbers again. Gonzalo and his family traveled from country to country and made just about $1,000,000 by identifying biased roulette wheels.
- Video Poker:
Another way to get an edge on the casino is to play video poker with perfect strategy combined with a full-paying pay table and a high slot club percentage. There are many variations of video poker all with different pay tables, but the casino ultimately chooses which pay table to use, so even machines of the same variation can have different pay tables. Pay table percentages are readily available online, so you will be able to check if a machine is full-pay or not. The most basic video poker game is Jacks or Better, and with a full-paying pay table and perfect strategy, the theoretical payback is 99.54% when playing full coins. Playing less than full coins has a lower theoretical payback because there is a 2,750 extra coin bonus for getting a royal flush when playing full coins. 99.54% payback is excellent when considering that some slot machines have a theoretical payback of 85% or 90%, but 99.54% is still not playing with an advantage unless you have a .47% or higher slot club percentage. To play with an advantage, you will need to play the highest payout on whichever video poker variation you are playing, play with perfect strategy, and factor in the slot club percentage. Bob Dancer has been a professional video poker player for decades and has written a book on how he won $1,000,000 in 6 months by utilizing these concepts. He routinely plays at the South Point casino in Las Vegas where he plays variations with very high payback percentages, where has a .3% slot club percentage, and where he has even held free video poker lessons.
There are also situations where the game by itself is enough to play with an advantage without even factoring in the slot club percentage. Some video poker machines have progressive jackpots just like slot machines, and factoring in the jackpot, the machine may already have a theoretical payback of over 100%. Some games have over 100% theoretical paybacks built into the software without even accounting for jackpots. Full pay Deuces Wild has a theoretical payback of 100.76% with perfect play. Perfect play is the key term here. Perfect play is called perfect play because it has been solved by computers, and there are some plays that may not be intuitive but that are mathematically correct – such as throwing away a guaranteed winning hand for the chance of getting a better hand. Casinos can offer a game that is over 100% because of human error, but if you can master perfect strategy, you can capitalize on the high payback percentage.
- Must-Hit-By Progressive Jackpots and Positive State Slots:
Besides receiving free play, there are two other ways to play slots with an advantage. One way is to play must-hit-by progressive jackpots that are very close to their must-hit-by targets. The game River Dragons is a slot machine with 2 must-hit-by progessive jackpots, meaning that the jackpots must be awarded when they reach certain amounts. River Dragons has one major jackpot that can be awarded before $5000 but that must be awarded when it reaches $5000 and one minor jackpot that can be awarded before $500 but that must be awarded when it reaches $500. Each bet adds a small amount towards the progressive jackpots, and every maximum bet of $8.80 adds 2 cents towards the major jackpot, meaning that it is a guaranteed positive play if the jackpot is currently at $4988.64 or higher without factoring in the slot club percentage or any organic wins. You may be thinking of course it’s a guaranteed positive play at $4988.64 or higher. It’s almost at $5000! The calculation of $4988.64 is extremely important when playing with an advantage. $4900 is close to $5000, but since every maximum bet only adds 2 cents to the jackpot, you would have to play through $44,000 just to guarantee that $5000 jackpot.
Since every $8.80 wagered adds 2 cents to the jackpot, playing $4998.40 through the machine will add $11.36 to the jackpot, guaranteeing $5000 with $4998.40 staked, so any current jackpot over $4988.64 is that much more valuable. If the jackpot is at $4990, you are guaranteed $600, and if the jackpot is at $4995, you are guaranteed $2800. Of course this calculation is not including the wins that will naturally happen when playing this machine for an extended period of time, and you could definitely play it at a lower starting jackpot. Some states have lower minimum paybacks, but the minimum theoretical payback percentage in many US casinos is 80%, so let’s assume that the base game is set to 80% payback. Although it’s probably closer to 90% or higher, we can account for variance by making calculations at a lower theoretical payback. When plugging in $8.80 per spin with a $5000 bankroll and an 80% payback into a slot calculator, we have an average of about 3000 spins per session with one in four sessions being about 2000 spins or fewer, one in four sessions being about 4000 spins or more, and one in twenty sessions being either abysmal or phenomenal. The calculation of $4988.64 was exact, but when calculating theoreticals, I would rather err on the side of caution because of variance and assume that my bankroll will last about 1000 spins. Wagering a total of $8800 will add $20 to the jackpot, so with this assumption you can start when the jackpot is at $4980, and any amount over this total will be that much more valuable.
Another way to play slots with an advantage is to play certain slot machines left in a positive state by other casino patrons. There are some slot games – such as Ocean Magic and Golden Egypt – that have wilds that stay for the next spin and can even stay for multiple spins. If you come across one of these games, you may have the chance to capitalize on free wilds left over from someone else’s session. Scouting the floors for these types of games is called vulturing, and despite the negative connotation of the name, this is a legitimate way of getting an edge over a slot machine. Video poker also has a specific game called Ultimate X that can be vultured as well. Whenever a winning hand on Ultimate X is dealt, the next hand will have a multiplier from 2x to 12x, so you may have the opportunity to capitalize on free multipliers if another patron has left the game in a positive state. Ultimate X can be played with up to 10 hands at a time, so you may be able to find a game with up to 10 free multipliers.
- Bonus Hunting:
A way to gain an advantage online is by bonus hunting. Every week, online casinos give out bonuses to entice people to play on their websites. Some of these bonuses have outrageous wagering requirements such as 300x the amount of the bonus, 200x, 150x, 80x, etc., but some online casinos have manageable wagering requirements. The Golden Nugget online casino gives out frequent bonuses with a wagering requirement of 40x for table games, meaning that if you were to receive a $100 bonus, you would have to wager $4000 in total to be able to withdraw any profits. You can wager your bonus on any number of games, but let’s give an example of playing baccarat. There are two hands to bet on when playing baccarat: player and banker. Betting on player has a 1.24% house edge, while betting on banker has a 1.06% house edge, meaning you are expected to lose 1.06% of your total money wagered over time when flat-betting. Translated into this example, you are expected to lose $1.06 for every $100 you wager. Because the wagering requirement is 40x, we can multiply $1.06 x 40 to get $42.40 subtracted from the bonus for a theoretical profit of $57.60 after the wagering requirement is completed and a 57.6% player advantage instead of a 1.06% house advantage. Of course variance is always possible. I’ve seen baccarat shoes with over 70% player outcomes, and I’ve had baccarat sessions with multiple shoes in a row being predominantly player outcomes, but betting on banker is still mathematically better than betting on player, and casino bonuses with low wagering requirements can help you capitalize on games with low house edges.
10. Sports Betting:
Sports betting is another form of gambling that has misconceptions about it. Many people think that a professional sports bettor will make one large bet on the game of the night because he can predict who is going to win. In actuality, many professional sports bettors – like “Captain” Jack Andrews – place many positive ev wagers by making algorithms and checking historical data to see if the individual wagers should have a higher or lower payout. If the Rams are at +150 but should have a payout of +135 due to the historical data, then the Rams are the positive ev wager since you will win more than you should. If the Giants are at -170 but should have a payout of -180, then the Giants are the positive ev wager since you will pay less than you should. Professional sports bettors make many smaller bets instead of one large bet and always bet on the positive ev wager no matter which side it is on. As long as the professional sports bettor makes only positive ev wagers, all of the averages will converge and the excess percentage points should produce a profit.
11. Loopholes:
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