Beating side bets - Would you be interested in a service for finding out how to beat them with card counting?

[RustyShackleford]

Hi all! I got into the world of AP about 6 months ago. I started out on a 6 deck game in town, and one of its side bets caught my eye as something that might be beatable. After doing a lot of research that yielded no results on how it might be done, I decided to look into it myself.

In short, I wrote up some code to see if I could find a positive EV strategy. To my surprise, the EV from counting the side bet far exceeded the game itself, even when flat betting your hands and without using indices. I had good results when putting it into practice, so I reached out to someone more knowledgeable than I to see if it was legit rather than a string of luck. As it turned out, it was not a fluke.

So, as someone without the extra funds to commit to counting, I'm toying with the idea of offering a service to other AP's in which I analyze side bets to determine their beatability and a system for doing so. If there's enough interest, I'm happy to backup this up with more information on the side bet or by having a reputable person vouch for me.

Please respond to the poll included in the post. If you answered "it depends", please clarify in a comment. Also feel free to ask any questions you have!

 

[Stevel96a1]

i voted yes although these forums seem dead and retired, it was way more active between 2005-2011 back then we had more recruits and crops of blackjack players each season now its a ghost town, just a bunch of lucky larries and kewl jays that hang around =/

for shame..

 

[paymypush]

Advanced Advantage Play by Eliot Jacobson Ph.D has it covered pretty well. It's pricey. Michael Shackleford, aka the Wizard of Odds, has side bet information on his sites. Any relation?

 

[LC Larry]

now its a ghost town, just a bunch of lucky larries and kewl jays that hang around =/

for shame..

Probably because most of us are of making our livings instead of complaining. We also don't have these sites attached to our hips.

 

[KewlJ]

It is rather ludicrous to compare this forum in it current day state to it's heyday back in 2005-2011. During that time BJinfo was one of the two premier blackjack forums, along with BJ21. When BJinfo shut down in 2011, that half of the blackjack community migrated to Norm's site, where Norm made promises to run his site in a manner that he has not kept his word, instead using it to settle personal vendettas.

This site laid dormant for 5 years and when it reappeared under different ownership, the online casino group that now owns BJ21 and WoV, it did so with very little fanfare. It just reappeared. While traffic doesn't compare to the first go around, it does provide an alternative option to Norm's site, including some crossover discussion.

Not to pat myself on the back, but I think my presence here has brought a few members that respect me and my journey and are deprived of my participation by Norm's holding of grudges. But along with drawing a few members that appreciate me, being a polarizing figure, my participation also draws some members who's only agenda is to attack and discredit me as evident in recent days.

I think we have a good collection of members here, excluding the trolls. Most are crossover members at BJTF. At the top of that list would be Don S.

Sure I wish there was a little more traffic and legitimate blackjack discussion, but it is what it is. Playing into that is that there are far fewer blackjack specific AP's than 10-15 years ago, both at part-time and especially at the professional level. Those that do AP professionally or seriously, have branched out away from JUST blackjack with so many other AP opportunities having come available, including machine AP opportunities, side bet opportunities and a wider variety of non-BJ table games that all have AP possibilities. There just are very few of us pure blackjack guys left.

 

[Stevel96a1]

Probably because most of us are of making our livings instead of complaining. We also don't have these sites attached to our hips.

really? aren't you contradicting yourself each time you reply?

 

[Stevel96a1]

It is rather ludicrous to compare this forum in it current day state to it's heyday back in 2005-2011. During that time BJinfo was one of the two premier blackjack forums, along with BJ21. When BJinfo shut down in 2011, that half of the blackjack community migrated to Norm's site, where Norm made promises to run his site in a manner that he has not kept his word, instead using it to settle personal vendettas.

This site laid dormant for 5 years and when it reappeared under different ownership, the online casino group that now owns BJ21 and WoV, it did so with very little fanfare. It just reappeared. While traffic doesn't compare to the first go around, it does provide an alternative option to Norm's site, including some crossover discussion.

Not to pat myself on the back, but I think my presence here has brought a few members that respect me and my journey and are deprived of my participation by Norm's holding of grudges. But along with drawing a few members that appreciate me, being a polarizing figure, my participation also draws some members who's only agenda is to attack and discredit me as evident in recent days.

I think we have a good collection of members here, excluding the trolls. Most are crossover members at BJTF. At the top of that list would be Don S.

Sure I wish there was a little more traffic and legitimate blackjack discussion, but it is what it is. Playing into that is that there are far fewer blackjack specific AP's than 10-15 years ago, both at part-time and especially at the professional level. Those that do AP professionally or seriously, have branched out away from JUST blackjack with so many other AP opportunities having come available, including machine AP opportunities, side bet opportunities and a wider variety of non-BJ table games that all have AP possibilities. There just are very few of us pure blackjack guys left.

yea i miss those days too! where Joel99 would post his results at a shaddy casino in Arizona or how Jimmtech would explain how he manage to beat blackjack and later found he was in for a rude awakening or how Aslan reported his blackjack trip reports from atlantic city always finding himself 50/50 ahead or behind when he pushed out 150 x2 under AC rules. yea im not finding or reading posts about some no name practicing in his basement and turns out he had FOUR losing trips which he said was 40% of his bankroll and everyone explained to him are you TC 3+ Max Bet?
are you practicing every day?!? blah blah blah circle goes on those were the good ol days on this site reading 10 post how trip one sour and then reading 1 post from flash or creeping panther or matt how they destroyed the casinos for 100s of thousands of dollars

yep i truly do miss "reading" those posts and when i say reading i dont know if what i read was real or was fiction made up fantasy writing
(i choose to believe what i wish and its usualy backed up by hand manual simulations from various softwares various manufacture

 

[LC Larry]

really? aren't you contradicting yourself each time you reply?

No, I'm not. The amount of work I put in, I can take time off any time I want. I'm relaxing at home today. But you can keep trolling away of you'd like.

 

[KewlJ]

Steve, what exactly do you think a blackjack forum is if not for members to share their experiences?

You seem to want to dismiss any experiences, especially longer term results from successful players because they don't match your own short term experiences and losses. Instead you focus on a handful of players mostly far from the past that had pretty negative experiences. Near as I can tell these experiences and results of these players were very short term, small sample size results and experiences. They lost. Nothing unusual about losing when measuring by a small sample size. Most of these players that you mention were only around a very short time, so they lost in their small sample size, short existence. What do you think EVERYBODY wins? And we don't even know if these inexperienced players that you keep referencing were properly bankrolled or even playing a +EV game. Most newer players aren't in both cases.

AS for Aslan, you are mischaracterizing him. He was a recreational low limit player. He liked to post his trip reports to both AC and Vegas. Some were winning reports, some losing reports....just the way it is supposed to work. I know because I communicated with him privately for a little while just as I relocated to Vegas. I have no knowledge that he was a longterm loser.

Let me tell you something: card counting isn't brain surgery. It is just simple math and a simple AP technique. You know "salamander" stuff. And it hasn't changed one bit. Sure a player today has to tweek some things from the way players played 30 years ago. Ramp up a little faster, not one minimum wager at a time as Professional Blackjack suggested. And maybe 'escape' at least some of the negative counts, especially those of us that focus on shoe games. But other than that the math still works exactly the same. Bet more on the few advantageous rounds. IT is that simple. and it results in a very small advantage. And that very small advantage is accompanied by huge variance, always has been. That means there will be losses during a small sample size or short term results. You seem to want to focus on players that experienced these completely natural short-term losses and for whatever reason were ill-equipped or ill-prepared to handle them. I guess because that mirrors your experience.

Most players and members that are around for a while end up showing a profit and usually a profit right along expectation, just as the math says.

The single hardest part of card counting IS learning to deal with the losses and short-term negative swings. I personally benefitted a great deal by reading accounts of other players that survived and came out the other side. It helped prepare me and when I encountered my first few really negative swings, I too survived (properly bankrolled) and eventually came out the other side.

You seem to focus on a few players that didn't survive this kind of short-term fluxation. But in almost every case they were inexperienced players and we really have no idea whether they were prepared financially (properly bankrolled) or mentally prepared (orjust freaked out upon normal negative variance). We don't even know if they were playing a winning game.

I once had a guy PM me because he was losing after having played a fairly significant amount of time. So we got into his bankroll and it looked like he was properly bankrolled, and we got into his spread and he was ramping up a little too slowly and using a spread that wasn't really big enough, but still should have turned a small profit after significant hours. And then he told me that most times he is afraid to bet his max or top bet. This mean the WASN"T spreading what he said, nor had the expectation he thought. He wasn't even playing a winning game.

So you are focusing on a few players, inexperienced players that were on the forums a short time and experiences losses when we don't even know if they were playing a winning game. I suppose this matches your experience so you want to challenge the math (it doesn't work) when it actually does, and you want to challenge players that are playing a winning game and....winning.

 

[Stevel96a1]

you could be right the past players i mentioned could be playing a bad game but even suppose god i love that word "suppose" they were playing under AC rules which is 3:2 BJ H17 no Surrender and 8 decks split ace once is still a beatable winning game , granted 5-7$ an hour for 10 grand at risk may not be the best but you should still yield a profit, i never heard of any casino that doesnt offer that that is standard i dont consider 6:5 a blackjack game at all not in the least, you are correct i am bitter and mad and sour how i lost 350 and im ranting as if it were 35k$ i also recall a math teacher who played double deck and 6 deck on here posted on here, he lost 25k and decided to put the other 25k$ in a IRA account he comment the lady beside him won 12 grand in her session did everything wrong, i am VERY suprised im not reading any other posts by other players how they lost maybe they wised up maybe they dont feel like sharing their negative results.

i am focused on all players especially on the east coast since all the books and authors and web sites claim the same thing but its all in theory
and it all ends when the pit boss taps you on your shoulder and calls it

i guess i could have came off more respectable but no this is the internet and losing money in a winning game is not fun.

 

[KewlJ]

I can't speak to Atlantic City in present tense because I have made 2 short visits in the last 10 years, but I think I am safe in assuming that conditions and games haven't improved since I left and that would mean Atlantic City 8 deck games (is Borgata still 6 deck?) is among the worst games in the country, excluding 6:5. Hard to win. But not impossible.

First of all why would someone based on the east coast be playing there now? There are much better opportunities including Pennsylvania right next door, which is 6 decks and has surrender. I am not going to get into how huge a difference 6 deck is over 8 decks. It took me a long time to understand that. If you look at the initial house advantage it is only .03%, but in actuality it is far greater. Look at the far smaller true count frequencies for 75% dealt 8 deck vs 75% dealt 6 deck and you will quickly understand the difference.

So that said, forget about Pa and other better places. I'll talk about AC during my time there. First there were no table games in Pa at the time. There was no table games anywhere on east coast when I started in 2004. Delaware came along during my 5+ years. No Maryland. No New York.
So my 5+ years AC was 8 decks no surrender, dealt to 75% pen. (Borgata was 6 decks, but has only 1 $5 table). So the first almost 3 years were an absolute struggle. I averaged 10k a year and one year made just under 9k. This was my total income. I paid my half of rent out of this money. But I didn't have the BR to play anything more than $5 tables and a small spread, so I was only going to make a few dollars an hour, if I was lucky enough to not tap out my small bankroll, which never occurred.

I actually think these very mediocre conditions helped in that regard. I have mentioned this a few times and expected some push back but so far haven't received it. My thinking is that negative variance occurs when you hit a period that the majority of your larger bets lose for a short time. Well with this very mediocre penetration on a 8 deck game, you are placing fewer max bets, so you are less likely to have a period that you lose a whole bunch in a row. Of course you are also less likely to have a period where you win a whole bunch in a row. Sort of keeping your variance lower but at the expense of keeping your win rate lower. Let's see if I get an argument from anyone this time for this theory.

Anyway, it took till late in the 3rd year before I finally hit a period of extraordinarily good positive variance and grew my bankroll enough to start betting a little more. And it quickly snowballed from there. Years 4 and 5 were my game changing years. I won enough to start growing my bankroll and bet more and more. I sort of thought this was going to happen in year 1. A case of not really being prepared for what I was doing.

Anyway as I finally started to win a little money and moved up in stakes, eventually to playing green, my time in AC came to an abrupt end. I had been tolerated playing the small rotation of casinos spreading red for a number of years, but I wasn't going to be tolerated by the same pit people spreading green. Borgata is the casino that put an end to it. They started half shoeing me and using the $5-$50 min.max cards that applied only to me. Without Borgata, I knew I wouldn't be able to get enough play in AC and besides counter measures at the other casinos were likely to follow.

At that time AC was 13 casinos and really more than that as Bally's had three different casinos (park Place, Wild West and Claridge) operating under 1 casino license, so it counted as 1 casinos but really were 3 different pits. Borgata had 3 different pits as well at the time. So small as that rotation was then, there are probably half the casinos and pits and tables available now. I could only have accomplished what I accomplished (building my bankroll) during that specific time at the height of Atlantic City. My guess is AC today equates to Reno. A player can roll into town and play for a few days, maybe a couple times a year, but playing that as your homebase? Forget about it.

So if you are going to play 8 deck game or even 6, you must escape at least some of the negative counts, through aggressive wong outs, switching tables, bathroom breaks, or just ending sessions on negative counts. Playing the old traditional "play all" approach is just going to require a huge spread and be too obvious.

And you are going to have to ramp up fairly quickly. None of this raising $10 at a time. You gotta get to max bet by TC +3 or +4 at the latest. The higher TC's occur too infrequently at 75% pen games to wait any longer. And ramping up quickly requires a larger BR and it is going to mean bigger swings. A player must be both financially prepared (properly bankrolled) and mentally prepared to handle the short term losses.

I don't know what else to say about AC and I am sorry if my experiences are outdated by 10 years

 

[Stevel96a1]

no you took the time to type all that and i read it all and added to my arsenal of blackjack experience, reading how you did it is one thing, watching you do it is another, some people learn through observation others reading and others doing it themselves well im all around the 3,

and i totally agree there is a world of difference from 6 deck to 8 deck ofcourse the count goes quicker but lets face it on east coast your more likely find 6 deck shoe 25$ min bet atleast in sands pa , and in AC theres no surrender in ac and H17 oppose to Pa Mandate rules, so i pick 10$ min bet on bad game or 25$ min bet to ok game? the spread on the latter game will put me to sleep if i get unlucky on first 2nd third or 4th hour of hell.

so im stuck with my chances with 8 deck theory goes more bankroll more hands more positive counts more money in MY pocket
only 51% of shuffles positive counts help me the other 49% positive/negative/neutral shoes are there to take my money.

i remember reading the experts here reccommend not to gamble with 1,000 and 2,000 is still not enough and so on to write if i had a 1k$ br to my name id be better off using a betting system opppose to straight up card counting system, i manage to lose 600$ on my 4th trip to ac and i did backcount with the Kiss lll count no way did i fuck that up my eyes were glued to the table and i remember 1 plopply saying before he sat down to the dealer and said "oh hes not gonna play hes back counting the cards waiting for the good time to strike" my eyes widen and my voice went deep and said oh no im not! and laughed it off he lost 7 hands in a row flat betting before his win on 8th hand this was at ballys 2015 or 2016 and it was a husband/wife couple, i walked away count was bad moved to Taj mahal i saw 1 shoe game 8 deck i sat down count was good and this chinese guy sat down same time he won 1,000$ or so green chipping and did some odd side bet i won 25$ and was happy enough it was 3 hands 1lose 1 win and 1 win and i left cause count went bad(that was trip 3)

4th trip was hell did not matter what i did hit or stay i remember 15s and 16s of 600$ worth of blackjack hands while dealer always showed the power card, i lost 350$ first night and remaining half rest of the following morning my wife said no more donating 600$ to the blackjack tables ok? i said ok

looking back now if i had 2500$ on me that nigth id still end a loser just on a larger scale, 25 max bets 100$ top bet times 25 = 2500$ if i skipped back counting and played regular id lose maybe 60$ per shuffle find a good shuffle win a few max bets per shoe if things go ok, you have to remember if my max bet is 10$ how much money am i really going to walk away with? assuming im back counting and deck is positive
thats why i need to watch you play heads up with the dealer and watch that cash flow run back n forth like a ping pong ball and see who ends winner when you run all that money thru the table to win big you need to bet big i did not bet big i betted 10$ again cant walk away 2 grand winner that way
but i sure as hell lost 600$ in a couple sessions too dam easy

 

[Stevel96a1]

When i post Kewlj i talk through experience, not something made up, not some else results and not a kitchen table manual sim no i actually did try BJ21 and it did not work out for and i don't feel the need to lose another 600 lose 1200 lose 3800$ as so many have done so in the past and there results match my simulations casino verite showed a loss of 7 grand with a 1-10 spread max bet 100$ before i regained my money back and i never beat masque blackjack from 1993 that thing mimics real life shuffles losing 2500$ on that table is quite commom so yea i find it hard to believe you kicked off with 4grand and never looked back as many pro's today s age but not impossible but it gets tricky how you surpassed the pissboss heat
thats the last barrier that all blackjack players need to succeed on

oh i miss automaticmonkey too he claimed to have a bad run in AC blackjack and but regain all and made profit in mohegan sun or foxwoods LOL

 

[Midwest Player]

Advanced Advantage Play by Eliot Jacobson Ph.D has it covered pretty well. It's pricey. Michael Shackleford, aka the Wizard of Odds, has side bet information on his sites. Any relation?

Here is the scoop on many of the side bets.
Blackjack Side Bets

 

[RustyShackleford]

Advanced Advantage Play by Eliot Jacobson Ph.D has it covered pretty well. It's pricey. Michael Shackleford, aka the Wizard of Odds, has side bet information on his sites. Any relation?

Username isn't my real name. Didn't know the Wizard of Odds guy's name was so similar, strange coincidence!

I'm aware that there's information available on a lot of side bets already. In my case however, the one i was interested in had zero information available, even though it turned out to be VERY beatable. This service would be for cases like mine. You find a side bet that seems like it could be beaten, but can't find any information about it. I can do the analysis to give you an answer.

 

[Midwest Player]

........and then reading 1 post from flash or creeping panther or matt how they destroyed the casinos for 100s of thousands of dollars

I do doubt if these players made 100s of thousands of dollars. Maybe over their lifetime of play, but surely not on a yearly basis. If I remember correctly Flash posted he averaged $40,000 a year over on BJTF.

I have played blackjack with creeping panther (over the years he used several different handles). And the times I played blackjack with him he was just betting red chips like me.

 

[Stevel96a1]

well still 1/3 of that is a livable wage, you can always bump it up press harder and win more as long as the edge is there and it always is for some people

 

[xengrifter]

Let me tell you something: card counting isn't brain surgery. It is just simple math and a simple AP technique. You know "salamander" stuff. And it hasn't changed one bit.

I don't recall if you previously mentioned, do you do any sidebets?

 

[xengrifter]

Also feel free to ask any questions you have!

Are you proposing to offer a paid confidential info service?
For example, how much might you charge for a system to beat Lucky Ladies? ...
... or what sidebets were you thinking? I have become a fiend for the sucker bets!

 

[KewlJ]

I don't recall if you previously mentioned, do you do any sidebets?

You don't recall it because it is something I don't discuss much.

add on: I guess I will expand on this. Side bets are not part of my everyday play. Generally I don't like side bets as it just slows the game to a crawl and I am all about speed. A slow game just exposes a card counter.

But there have been times that a side bet opportunity came along and I or I and my brother have exploited the side bet for a period of time. Two that come to mind are the Colorado play from a couple summers ago. Pretty well known now. Lasted about 6 weeks, 3 weeks at a very high advantage when they were allowing higher side bet amounts than the game manufacturer intended, and another 3 weeks, a much less, but still nice advantage after it was blabbed about on WOV, by wiz himself no less. I only played for a week or so, maybe 10 days, but my brother camped out in Colorado for the whole 6 weeks until it was shut down.

Another one that I have talked about and can because it is gone was Wild Aces, which was at 3 casinos here in Vegas about 4-5 years ago. Wild Aces was basically the same as insurance, except it was based on the players card. Upon receiving a first card Ace the player could make the side bet, paying 2 to 1 that his second card would give him a blackjack. But here's the kicker....there was no half your original bet restriction. Making for a nice advantage. Although there was a $100 max on the side bet.

And here is the second kicker: one of the locations, allowed players to bet not only on their own first card Ace, but on other players first card Ace. That only lasted a couple weeks but it was crazy! Upon anyone getting a first card Aces at a high count, chips were piling up in the side bet circle. So much so, that it got confusing.

There was another more recent, very recent play that I just played for about a week, but I am not ready to discuss that yet as I am not sure it is permanently dead.

But all in all, I would Just as leave do my straight counting "salamander" thing (with my own twists).