Real Pros II
- Thread starter Craps Master
- Start date
Well there were these gems of wisdom:
Camp out for hours at a time with an enormous spread at the good shoe games on the Strip.
Play negative counts.
If I were trying to get a novice counter out of counting as quickly as possible, all the while with them providing cover for me in the casino, this is the advice I would give them. See, a certain craps player here knows that many novices are somewhat undercapitalized for any technique, and grossly undercapitalized for this kind of technique.
Serious counters of shoe blackjack all Wong out of negative counts, and most of them backcount when practical. If you want to make a bet with negative expectation, go play slots, you'll get better comps. But I suppose a craps player doesn't think a 1% house edge is that big of a deal.
A 1:30 spread is realistic and very likely to be a winner, however there is a big difference between spreading $10-$300 and $25-$750. Once you are putting more than a few black chips on the table you will be monitored and you will be considered a threat and tossed once they realize you are playing with an advantage. If you camp out for hours at a time it is unlikely you will last for more than a session at $25-$750. When you Wong in/out, you can play with a smaller spread or something that isn't as recognizable as a spread, and it's also much harder for them to get a fix on your play. When a suspected counter sits down at a table, unless they happen to have been counting it themselves before you got there, surveillance has no idea what the count is and they won't unless they run the tape back. When you get up at the end of the shoe and go do something else, you will become someone else's problem and be forgotten by the person previously assigned to watch you.
Use of a wheelchair is potentially illegal*. zf
*See Cabot & Hannum Law Report (re: zengrifter #358-360) -
http://www.gaminglawmasters.com/mslj/01-CABOT.htm (Archive copy)
*See Cabot & Hannum Law Report (re: zengrifter #358-360) -
http://www.gaminglawmasters.com/mslj/01-CABOT.htm (Archive copy)
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QFIT said:
Depends on what you mean by "unit."
But yes you could surely bet $10-$900. Only someone playing $10-$900 may look even more suspicious than $100-$9,000. (When's the last time you saw someone bet $10-$900?) You would have to play at a $10 table. (Unfortunately these tables often have less beneficial rules. And the table will often have more players slowing you down.) You would bet $10 70-75% of hands. Optimally, you would jump to $200 16% of hands. Your play would scream card counter even with a great act.
But yes you could surely bet $10-$900. Only someone playing $10-$900 may look even more suspicious than $100-$9,000. (When's the last time you saw someone bet $10-$900?) You would have to play at a $10 table. (Unfortunately these tables often have less beneficial rules. And the table will often have more players slowing you down.) You would bet $10 70-75% of hands. Optimally, you would jump to $200 16% of hands. Your play would scream card counter even with a great act.
That's why CrapsMaster is suggesting only using 1-90 spread when there is no chance of getting any heat, since as you mentioned, normally a 1-90 spread will get you plenty of attention in a hurry.
here zf on card-steering:
http://www.advantageplayer.com/blackjack/forums/bj-main/webbbs.cgi?read=5655 (Archive copy)
or google card-steering and see what you get.
http://www.advantageplayer.com/blackjack/forums/bj-main/webbbs.cgi?read=5655 (Archive copy)
or google card-steering and see what you get.
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If you have any more secrets that you don't want to post on this topic, please PM me. Me and supercoolmancool have been practicing this because we have a TON of oppurtunities to see the bottom card of the new shoe. There are a ton of blackjack games around here (all 4-deck) and almost all of them expose the bottom card.
Difficult, but not impossible. Some tables have BJ-peeking systems that are awkward and make it easy for the dealer to expose the hole card when peeking under a 10 or ace. You're not going to make a living this way, but it will certainly add to your advantage. It's good to know holecard strategy for these opportunities.
Here (see paras 4-8) -
EXCERPT FROM -
ADVANTAGE PLAY AND COMMERCIAL CASINOS
http://www.gaminglawmasters.com/mslj/01-CABOT.htm (Archive copy)
Anthony Cabot*
Robert Hannum**
Category Four Advantage Play:
Acquiring Knowledge Not Available to Other Players that Provides an Advantage in Determining or Predicting What Was Intended to Be a Random Event
Contractual Enforcement
All contracts include an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.[356] This covenant should be involved whenever an advantage player decides that he or she will deliberately attempt to acquire knowledge not typically or readily available to other players that provides an advantage in determining or predicting what was intended to be a random event. After all, the basic foundation of the contract itself is that the winner and loser will be determined by a random event. In this case, the player is attempting to learn, in advance, in part or whole, the random event. The covenant requires that neither party to a contract do anything that will injure the right of the other party to receive the benefits of their agreement.
The probability of winning or losing at a certain casino game is predefined and that information is readily obtainable to anyone who wants to know.[357] On one hand, cheating would obviously violate the covenant. For example, it does not take a skilled mathematician to determine that the odds of rolling a seven in craps is 1 out of 6. Therefore, it follows that if either party to the gaming contract tried to change these odds through advantage play, e.g., the patron used loaded dice or engaged in “dice sliding,” that party would be injuring the right of the other party to receive the benefits of their agreement. Likewise, acquiring knowledge not typically or readily available to other players that provides an advantage in determining or predicting what was intended to be a random event has the same practical and mathematical effect. Both involve the patron using deliberate methods to alter the outcome of the contract by either altering the random event or learning information upon which the result is based to gain an advantage over the casino. Thus, by attempting to change the odds or learn of the results of a random event occurring or not occurring, advantage play would violate the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.
Legality
As scienter or fraudulent intent is an element of cheating,[358] should the law criminalize activity where the player simply acts upon information exposed where he or she did not enter the casino with intent to fraudulently obtain and act on this information? The latter is the case where a typical player sitting at the table learns of the value of the dealer's hole card because the dealer makes an error in exposing the card.
Hole-carding professionals and teams are much different than where a player, without fraudulent intent, learns the dealer's hole card because of “a dealer's unintended revelation of his cards.”[359] Here, cheaters play the game with the intent of learning the dealer's hole card by undertaking some act to either learn the hole card where the dealer is properly protecting it or by using the hold card techniques that accentuate poor dealing. Note, for example, this quote from an interview with a hole carder:
Another cute ruse, I used a few times in the `80s, is posing as a wheelchair-ridden muscular-dystrophy victim during the week of the Jerry Lewis telethon. I'd roll up to the table, eyes level with the felt. Using spasmodic movements and twisted posture I announce in a strained voice that I was the 1964 Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy “poster boy.” Of course the primary reason for the act was to have my eyes level with the felt to be able to see the dealer's hole card flashing with each round.[360]
Therefore, attempting to acquire knowledge not typically or readily available to other players that provides an advantage in determining or predicting what was intended to be a random event should be illegal and unenforceable if the player uses any artificial or deliberate means to gain the advantage such as mirrors or spotters.
An argument can be made that a typical player that learns of the dealer's hole card because of a dealer's error is no less of a thief than a person who cashes a $100 check and knowingly keeps the extra $900 when the bank clerk mistakes it for $1000. In theory, the player that uses such information forms a fraudulent intent when he or she uses the information to gain the advantage created by the mistake. Moreover, using a person's mistake to that person or his or her employer's disadvantage is unethical.
--------------
*Anthony Cabot is a partner in the law firm of Lewis and Roca, with offices in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson and Albuquerque. His practice emphasis is on gaming law. He is the president and was a founding member of the International Masters of Gaming Law Association, a worldwide organization of prominent gaming attorneys devoted to the on-going education of and communications within the gaming industry. Mr. Cabot is the co-Editor-in-Chief of the Gaming Law Review. He is the founding editor of The Internet Gambling Report Vll (2004), covering the evolving conflict between technology and the law. Mr. Cabot authored Federal Gambling Law and Casino Gaming: Public Policy, Economics and Regulation, a 527-page book covering all aspects of casino gaming. He coauthored Practical Casino Math and is co-editor and contributing author of International Casino Law. Mr. Cabot is listed in Best Lawyers in America.
** Robert Hannum is Professor of Statistics at the University of Denver, where he teaches probability and statistics, with particular interests in the mathematics of gambling, the business of commercial gaming, and data mining. His publications include the books Practical Casino Math and Introductory Statistics: A Self-Study Manual, as well as numerous articles in statistical, gaming, and law journals, including Annals of Probability, Annals of Statistics, John Marshall Law Review, Sociological Methods and Research, International Gambling Studies, Quantity and Quality in Economic Research, Finding the Edge: Mathematical Analysis of Casino Games, and Global Gaming Business.
http://www.gaminglawmasters.com/mslj/01-CABOT.htm (Archive copy)
EXCERPT FROM -
ADVANTAGE PLAY AND COMMERCIAL CASINOS
http://www.gaminglawmasters.com/mslj/01-CABOT.htm (Archive copy)
Anthony Cabot*
Robert Hannum**
Category Four Advantage Play:
Acquiring Knowledge Not Available to Other Players that Provides an Advantage in Determining or Predicting What Was Intended to Be a Random Event
Contractual Enforcement
All contracts include an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.[356] This covenant should be involved whenever an advantage player decides that he or she will deliberately attempt to acquire knowledge not typically or readily available to other players that provides an advantage in determining or predicting what was intended to be a random event. After all, the basic foundation of the contract itself is that the winner and loser will be determined by a random event. In this case, the player is attempting to learn, in advance, in part or whole, the random event. The covenant requires that neither party to a contract do anything that will injure the right of the other party to receive the benefits of their agreement.
The probability of winning or losing at a certain casino game is predefined and that information is readily obtainable to anyone who wants to know.[357] On one hand, cheating would obviously violate the covenant. For example, it does not take a skilled mathematician to determine that the odds of rolling a seven in craps is 1 out of 6. Therefore, it follows that if either party to the gaming contract tried to change these odds through advantage play, e.g., the patron used loaded dice or engaged in “dice sliding,” that party would be injuring the right of the other party to receive the benefits of their agreement. Likewise, acquiring knowledge not typically or readily available to other players that provides an advantage in determining or predicting what was intended to be a random event has the same practical and mathematical effect. Both involve the patron using deliberate methods to alter the outcome of the contract by either altering the random event or learning information upon which the result is based to gain an advantage over the casino. Thus, by attempting to change the odds or learn of the results of a random event occurring or not occurring, advantage play would violate the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.
Legality
As scienter or fraudulent intent is an element of cheating,[358] should the law criminalize activity where the player simply acts upon information exposed where he or she did not enter the casino with intent to fraudulently obtain and act on this information? The latter is the case where a typical player sitting at the table learns of the value of the dealer's hole card because the dealer makes an error in exposing the card.
Hole-carding professionals and teams are much different than where a player, without fraudulent intent, learns the dealer's hole card because of “a dealer's unintended revelation of his cards.”[359] Here, cheaters play the game with the intent of learning the dealer's hole card by undertaking some act to either learn the hole card where the dealer is properly protecting it or by using the hold card techniques that accentuate poor dealing. Note, for example, this quote from an interview with a hole carder:
Another cute ruse, I used a few times in the `80s, is posing as a wheelchair-ridden muscular-dystrophy victim during the week of the Jerry Lewis telethon. I'd roll up to the table, eyes level with the felt. Using spasmodic movements and twisted posture I announce in a strained voice that I was the 1964 Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy “poster boy.” Of course the primary reason for the act was to have my eyes level with the felt to be able to see the dealer's hole card flashing with each round.[360]
Therefore, attempting to acquire knowledge not typically or readily available to other players that provides an advantage in determining or predicting what was intended to be a random event should be illegal and unenforceable if the player uses any artificial or deliberate means to gain the advantage such as mirrors or spotters.
An argument can be made that a typical player that learns of the dealer's hole card because of a dealer's error is no less of a thief than a person who cashes a $100 check and knowingly keeps the extra $900 when the bank clerk mistakes it for $1000. In theory, the player that uses such information forms a fraudulent intent when he or she uses the information to gain the advantage created by the mistake. Moreover, using a person's mistake to that person or his or her employer's disadvantage is unethical.
--------------
*Anthony Cabot is a partner in the law firm of Lewis and Roca, with offices in Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson and Albuquerque. His practice emphasis is on gaming law. He is the president and was a founding member of the International Masters of Gaming Law Association, a worldwide organization of prominent gaming attorneys devoted to the on-going education of and communications within the gaming industry. Mr. Cabot is the co-Editor-in-Chief of the Gaming Law Review. He is the founding editor of The Internet Gambling Report Vll (2004), covering the evolving conflict between technology and the law. Mr. Cabot authored Federal Gambling Law and Casino Gaming: Public Policy, Economics and Regulation, a 527-page book covering all aspects of casino gaming. He coauthored Practical Casino Math and is co-editor and contributing author of International Casino Law. Mr. Cabot is listed in Best Lawyers in America.
** Robert Hannum is Professor of Statistics at the University of Denver, where he teaches probability and statistics, with particular interests in the mathematics of gambling, the business of commercial gaming, and data mining. His publications include the books Practical Casino Math and Introductory Statistics: A Self-Study Manual, as well as numerous articles in statistical, gaming, and law journals, including Annals of Probability, Annals of Statistics, John Marshall Law Review, Sociological Methods and Research, International Gambling Studies, Quantity and Quality in Economic Research, Finding the Edge: Mathematical Analysis of Casino Games, and Global Gaming Business.
http://www.gaminglawmasters.com/mslj/01-CABOT.htm (Archive copy)
That really depends on your risk tolerance and goals. The main two factors on which one to choose would be your risk tolerance, and how much EV do you need to make it worth your while. If you use the 10k bankroll you are only risking a relatively small amount, but your EV may not be enough to make you want to play. If you take the 100k bank you will get enough EV, but losing the 100k might be disastrous. So I don't know, it's up to each person to decide.
Why are you asking me about this?
Why are you asking me about this?