For non-card counters, do any betting "systems" provide any statistical edge?

B

bobsmith

New Member
First off.. I'm not a card-counter, at least not yet, but I play perfect (or near-perfect) basic strategy. I know about the house edge, and long-term house advantage, etc., and have tried a variety of so-called progressive betting strategies (1,2,3,5 or 1,1,2,3,6... whatever) But it occurs to me, that until and unless I can count, I'd probably do just as well to put out the same bet on each hand.. win or lose. In other words, sit down at a $25 table and bet $25 each and every hand. Is there any long-term advantage or disadvantage to this approach over using the so-called "progressive systems?"

Thanks in advance for your input.
 
bobsmith said:
First off.. I'm not a card-counter, at least not yet, but I play perfect (or near-perfect) basic strategy. I know about the house edge, and long-term house advantage, etc., and have tried a variety of so-called progressive betting strategies (1,2,3,5 or 1,1,2,3,6... whatever) But it occurs to me, that until and unless I can count, I'd probably do just as well to put out the same bet on each hand.. win or lose. In other words, sit down at a $25 table and bet $25 each and every hand. Is there any long-term advantage or disadvantage to this approach over using the so-called "progressive systems?"

Thanks in advance for your input.
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It is better to flat bet if you are not CC. Progressive systems are only good for the casino. Progressive systems will have a bigger flux compared to flat betting. Before I learned to CC I just flat bet along with perfect BS.
 
bobsmith said:
First off.. I'm not a card-counter, at least not yet, but I play perfect (or near-perfect) basic strategy. I know about the house edge, and long-term house advantage, etc., and have tried a variety of so-called progressive betting strategies (1,2,3,5 or 1,1,2,3,6... whatever) But it occurs to me, that until and unless I can count, I'd probably do just as well to put out the same bet on each hand.. win or lose. In other words, sit down at a $25 table and bet $25 each and every hand. Is there any long-term advantage or disadvantage to this approach over using the so-called "progressive systems?"

Thanks in advance for your input.
Click to expand...

your still a long term disadvantage with the flat betting.
i'd never sit at a $25 table and just play basic strategy. definately i'd go for the lowest minimum table the house has a $5 table hopefully.

best regards,
mr fr0g :D
 
Betting-only strategies will never change the house advantage or you expected long-term outcome.

At best, a progression system will redistribute the distributions of individual sessions. For instance, the Martingale tends to lead to more, smaller, wins, and the occasional, big loss.

However, any of these systems would probably have you betting MORE than just flat-betting an amount you're comfortable with. And if you're betting more, that means the expected outcome is that you'll lose more. It also means that short-term, you're results are going to show more variance.
 
EasyRhino said:
Betting-only strategies will never change the house advantage or you expected long-term outcome.

At best, a progression system will redistribute the distributions of individual sessions. For instance, the Martingale tends to lead to more, smaller, wins, and the occasional, big loss.

However, any of these systems would probably have you betting MORE than just flat-betting an amount you're comfortable with. And if you're betting more, that means the expected outcome is that you'll lose more. It also means that short-term, you're results are going to show more variance.
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Thanks, Rhino.. and the other posters as well. You have all pretty much confirmed my belief... that, minus counting, a player might as well stay with a constant bet, rather than both with some of these dubious systems.
 
bobsmith said:
Thanks, Rhino.. and the other posters as well. You have all pretty much confirmed my belief... that, minus counting, a player might as well stay with a constant bet, rather than both with some of these dubious systems.
Click to expand...

Without counting a player may as well stick to a constant bet. There is an optimal constant bet too, it is 0 dollars!
 
statistical edge

Everything depends on the length of time you play (the number of hands). The larger the number, the more likely it is that the results will approximate the distribution in the normal population. That is the "statistical edge." If you play 10,000 hands over some period of time, it is likely that the results of those hands will approximate statistical averages.

In plain English, if you are a full-time counter, or play with a team, and you are playing 300-500 hands a day, day in and day out, the results will approximate statistical definitions.

Anyone who expects to play a few hundred hands, or to play one weekend a month, or to play occasionally, with some type of statistical advantage fails to understand the basic theories of blackjack.

The specific logical fallacy involved is what Tversky and Kahneman called the Law of Small Numbers--the common (and totally incorrect) belief that a small series of events will perfectly represent the normal distribution of a much larger series of events.

If you want to make money playing blackjack, that isn't too hard. I strongly suggest that your first step should be rooting out the logical fallacies that keep most wannabe counters too poor to do anything meaningful at the tables. The most harmful fallacy for beginning counters is that small series events exactly replicate the population of all events. They do not.

The ONLY way you can gain a "statistical edge" in blackjack is to play a LOT. The more hands you play, the more the results will approximate the distribution of events in the population. If you are playing less than 2000 hands a week, the results can be up, down, or right in the middle; the "statistical edge" absolutely, positively does not apply to 50-100 hands played once a week.

If you believe that every series of blackjack hands represents a perfectly representative slice of "all blackjack hands," you need to do some serious homework before you toss your chips on the table. For starters, read "Decision Traps: The Ten Barriers To Brilliant Decision Making And How To Overcome Them," by Russo and Schoemaker. Not someday, or when you have time--BEFORE YOU PLAY ANOTHER HAND OF BLACKJACK.

I have done this for a long time, and I have done it successfully. I can tell you quite clearly that anyone who believes that a "statistical advantage" can be leveraged in a few hundred hands played on a sojourn to the nearby casino once a month fails to understand both statistics and fundamental blackjack theory. It is a myth, and a very costly one. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can start making money playing blackjack.
Good Luck
 
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