Why do so few people count in the UK?

#1
Hi everyone,

This is my first post but I have been following the forum for several weeks. I see a massive number of players from around the world here but comparitively few from the UK considering its ease.

A relative of mine is training to be a dealer, in the part of his course about "cheating" someone bought up card counting and the dealers are taught, (and I quote) "Card counting is not a threat, we are not even sure it gives a player an advantage" they were then told its not something casino's are looking out for over here.

Also, my local casino's all play 6D 80% pen S17 DAS

In addition to that, I have worked out there are over 100 casino's within a 90 minute drive of me.

So back to the thread title...why do so few people count? There must be something I am missing as far as I can see we have some really great rules, lots of casino's and nobody even appears to be looking for us.


I have been practising a lot, I know BS like it is written on the back of my eye lids, I can count a deck in 19 seconds, 2D in 45sec and I have about a dozen indices memorized. I am currently working on putting them all together before I set foot in a casino using CVBJ.

Thanks guys :)
 

UK-21

Well-Known Member
#2
Over 100 casinos within 90 minutes drive? It must be North London somewhere then, giving you access to further north on the M1? But do bear in mind that some casinos will use a CSM on their table games. And also bear in mind that nearly all of the houses of chance outside of London are owned by a handful of organisations - so if they ever do decide to terminate your membership for whatever reason, you'll be toast at a lot of places.

Do let us know how you get on with your first visit.

Good luck.
 

ihate17

Well-Known Member
#3
Why do so few people count in the U.S.?

The percentage of card counters in the U.S. is also extremely miniscule. Where in the U.K., so many games are dealt from CSM's it is understandable but in the U.S., where the CSM is only found on the lowest stake tables, it is amazing how few cardcounters there are.
It just follows that people are basically lazy and even most who take the time to learn BS and counting never follow up to the point where they become winning counters.
Casino paranoia about cardcounters is totally ridiculous with the exception of real high rollers and well financed teams. The rest of the tiny counter universe is totally insignificant.

ihate17
 
#4
Thanks for the input guys.

Newb99, actually relatively midlands, within 90mins of London and Sheffield south and north and within 90mins of the welsh border and the norfolk cost west and east. Pretty much in the middle of all the major cities in england.

I don't know of many casino's in my two nearest cities, 15mins and 30mins away that use CSM (yet).

I will be starting out on a very small bankroll, I am a very cautious person, most likely I will start with a bankroll that will just be playing on the lowest stakes tables, after several months if I am confident I have it mastered I will consider increasing.

I have started a new hobby, if I become an expert at it who knows maybe one day it will become a part time job or a career but lets just start with fun :)
 

London Colin

Well-Known Member
#5
10JQKA said:
So back to the thread title...why do so few people count? There must be something I am missing as far as I can see we have some really great rules
The rules are not that great. They recently improved slightly, with the switch from D9 to DOA, but the lack of insurance and surrender are still the big problem.

In Blackbelt in Blackjack, the Snyder Profit Index is presented as a rough way to evaluate games, by giving a +ve or -ve score to various attributes of the game, and totalling them up. The final scores are rated as follows -

Above 50: a winner
0 -50: table-hop only
Below 0: a time waster

And table hopping isn't really practical in the UK because there tend to be only a couple of tables available in a typical casino.

With 80% penetration, and playing heads-up against the dealer, you need a bet spread of 1-12 to reach an overall profit index of just 48.

With 2-4 players at the table, it falls to 36.

Insurance(20) and late surrender(6) would add a whopping 26 to the above totals!
 

Mr. T

Well-Known Member
#6
Why do so few people count in the UK?

Because casinos everywhere else in the world outside the US use the CSM.

In the US the shoe game is offered mostly only in LAS and AC and not in the numerous Indian casinos.

It is the legend in the US that BJ is beatable with card counting as it was first glamourised by Thorpe in AC in the 60's. I presume that card counting is still not a problem in the US as the casinos there still use the shoe game in some places. It is just a matter of economics that the CSM is so much more productive in terms of the number of rounds per hour compared to the shoe game.
 

London Colin

Well-Known Member
#8
Mr. T said:
Why do so few people count in the UK?

Because casinos everywhere else in the world outside the US use the CSM.
I have visited a grand total of eleven casinos in the UK. Of those, only one used CSMs, and even that one had a couple of shoe games available, in addition to the CSMs.
 

Blue Efficacy

Well-Known Member
#10
Canceler said:
Well, yeah, me too. I've played in four different Native American casinos, and I've never seen a CSM in my life.
As long as you play in your home state you never will. Minnesota's gambling compacts state that all BJ must be dealt from shoes. So CSMs will never be present. The local Indians are in no hurry to renegotiate those compacts.

Little known fact about MN, hand dealt games are actually allowed, but require 1 pit critter per hand dealt table.
 

UK-21

Well-Known Member
#13
10JQKA said:
Thanks for the input guys.

Newb99, actually relatively midlands, within 90mins of London and Sheffield south and north and within 90mins of the welsh border and the norfolk cost west and east. Pretty much in the middle of all the major cities in england.
You're not far from me then . . .
 

UK-21

Well-Known Member
#14
London Colin said:
The rules are not that great. They recently improved slightly, with the switch from D9 to DOA, but the lack of insurance and surrender are still the big problem.
Hmm. . . . depends on what you mean by "big". The lack of LS does have an impact on the EV of a game as 16v10 etc shows up so often. The less advantageous insurance rule isn't as big an issue as a lot of people on the other side of the pond like to think it is, as you only take insurance 8% of the time and can still insure a natural. Not being able to insure against a dealer ace when you don't have a natural has a small net effect although I've never attempted to calculate it - two sims would need to be run and the results compared.

Refer to: http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=15085&page=2

Snyder's profit index can't be used to assess the difference in the insurance rule as the weighting is all or nothing -you either have insurance or you don't. The effect of insuring naturals and non-naturals isn't split.

Bearing in mind so many low stakes games in the US are now H17, and single deck is either 6:5 or heavily policed, the UK game isn't now as bad as perhaps it use to be when compared to the games available in the States.
 

London Colin

Well-Known Member
#15
newb99 said:
Hmm. . . . depends on what you mean by "big".
Well, I tried to quantify it by showing the impact on the Snyder Profit Index, though obviously the SCORE from a sim would be more meaningful.

newb99 said:
The lack of LS does have an impact on the EV of a game as 16v10 etc shows up so often. The less advantageous insurance rule isn't as big an issue as a lot of people on the other side of the pond like to think it is, as you only take insurance 8% of the time and can still insure a natural. Not being able to insure against a dealer ace when you don't have a natural has a small net effect although I've never attempted to calculate it - two sims would need to be run and the results compared.

Refer to: http://www.blackjackinfo.com/bb/showthread.php?t=15085&page=2

Snyder's profit index can't be used to assess the difference in the insurance rule as the weighting is all or nothing -you either have insurance or you don't. The effect of insuring naturals and non-naturals isn't split.
I've always assumed the difference will be too negligible to worry about. As a subset of all the occasions when the dealer has an ace, insurance opportunities occur when the probability of a 10 has become > 1/3, so the probability that you yourself have a blackjack may have also gone up above the usual 1/21 (not forgetting that the dealer has one of the available aces which has the opposite influence on your BJ probability); at any rate it is still going to be pretty low. Supposing it averages out at 1/19, doesn't that mean you are playing a game with 1/19th of the benefit of full insurance (and hence Snyder's index number would be approximately -19, rather than -20)?

newb99 said:
Bearing in mind so many low stakes games in the US are now H17, and single deck is either 6:5 or heavily policed, the UK game isn't now as bad as perhaps it use to be when compared to the games available in the States.
Perhaps so. I certainly think it's the historical situation of poor rules here, good rules there that partly answers the original question of why so few counters here. (Coupled with the fact that the casino business in general is on a very small scale here.)
 

UK-21

Well-Known Member
#16
There's a little more to it than that as there will be a lot more times when you could insure against a dealer ace when you don't have a natural than there will be when you do. But the loss in EV really isn't worth arguing about. You could calculate an adjustment to the index weighting based on the frequencies of different hands against a dealer ace showing up as compared to a 10,AvA showing up - Schlesinger's BJA has a chart with these in.

Interesting that some of the US contributors here have stated they wouldn't dream of playing BJ in UK due to the poor insurance rule, but will sit down and play a H17 game??? Another one of those myths me thinks.
 
#17
newb99 said:
Interesting that some of the US contributors here have stated they wouldn't dream of playing BJ in UK due to the poor insurance rule, but will sit down and play a H17 game??? Another one of those myths me thinks.
I also wondered this, one rule shouldn't really even be considered. There are casino's here with ES10, DAS, RSA which I believe is a lower house edge than most 6D H17 games in the states? (I believe it, I don't know it :grin:)
 

Percy

Well-Known Member
#18
10JQKA said:
I also wondered this, one rule shouldn't really even be considered. There are casino's here with ES10, DAS, RSA which I believe is a lower house edge than most 6D H17 games in the states? (I believe it, I don't know it :grin:)
ES10 in UK? Are you sure?

I believe the UK games are very good. I have never played in America however.
 

UK-21

Well-Known Member
#19
Mistake I think. No surrender of any type with the games here in the UK, unless the proscribed ruleset (as published by the UK Gambling Commission) has changed very recently. But if you can find/persuade a rookie dealer to offer it, it makes the UK ruleset fab - with ENHC meaning no peek it would be the equivalent of ES, so against an ace it would reduce the HE by 0.39%* and against a ten by a further 0.24%*, totalling 0.63%. As this is higher than the OTT HE of around 0.5%, it would make BJ a net loser for the house.

*source - http://www.wizardofodds.com/blackjack
 
#20
Sorry that was a typing/brain error, I don't know of any ES10 here but I had been reading that book on the QFIT site and had ES10 imbedded in my brain lol.

My point althoguh I believe is still valid, 6D S17 DAS RSA has a lower house edge even with ENHC than some of the games from the states I read about on here. 0.47% is the house edge (wizzardofodds calculator).

This brings up another interesting thought, what is the max house edge you would play at? I have seen usually people are advised against playing against 0.8% games. I think anything below about 0.6% is playable, that is a very novice opinion though :joker:
 
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