The only context I’ve ever heard this strategy in is that it doesn’t work. What’s wrong with it?
Say I hop on down to the casino with $500 in my pocket. The first time I cross $100 and win I’m going to leave the table. I bet $1 on the first hand, lose. $2 on the next hand, lose, $4 on the next hand, lose. Say I keep losing until the 8th bet - $128 - and I win. I walk away from the table with an extra dollar and two free beers in my gut.
What’s the catch? Is it that casinos don’t allow this strategy or only that you risk losing that last bet, thus losing everything?
Mixture of both. Table limits, plus a lot of risk for little reward. Keep in mind that any time you win with your system, you only win $1. That’s it. No matter whether it’s your fiftieth bet or your five thousanth bet, or your first.
Do a search in GQ for the “Martingale” system of betting. We’ve done this one to death.
There is no catch. The odds are always in the House’s favor so they’ll make money no matter what. You’re playing against the House, while the House is playing against hundreds or thousands of people. Ever wonder how the electric bills get paid?
If you win huge, the casino loves it. Or so they’ll make you think. Forget the $500 you have in your pocket, or even the $100 you’re willing to lose. If you were to start with a single dollar and ran it up to $5000, you’d have your picture taken, a few free meals and a night or two free in one of the finest suites. Of course, you’d also be portrayed to the rest of the guests as an example of the riches to be had.
Oh, and those free nights and comp’d meals? Those are to make you think it’s all free so you have some spare money to gamble with. Maybe you can hit the house again? Rarely, though it happens. But chances are, you’re giving it all back eventually.
OTOH, $14 for 2 beers?!? :smack: That should tell you you’re at the wrong casino!
You’ll only win $1 if you only win the last bet. With blackjack odds so close you’re likely to win more than 1 out of 8 hands. Remember that you double the bet whether you win or lose.
What do you mean?
Anyway, I think this could be a winning strategy, but it’s all moot speculaton because I totally forgot about . . .
:smack:
You can tell I’m not a seasoned gambler. I’ve only been to Vegas once and I played the $3 table all night. Using no particular strategy, I came out $27 and many, many free beers ahead :).
The betting limit is what does you in with this plan. The only way you’re guaranteed to make your profit is if you are able to always double your bet - and you aren’t.
To show how it would work, let’s assume there’s a $100 betting limit.
You bet $1 and lose. You’re down $1.
You bet $2 and lose. You’re down $3.
You bet $4 and lose. You’re down $7.
You bet $8 and lose. You’re down $15.
You bet $16 and lose. You’re down $31.
You bet $32 and lose. You’re down $63.
You bet $64 and lose. You’re down $127.
Let’s say you won your eighth bet. If you had been able to bet $128, you’d have made a profit of $1. But you were only able to bet $100, so even after winning you were still out $27. With the betting limit one hundred times greater than your initial bet, it only took a string of seven losses to hit the limit.
Even if you assume the casino sets no limit, you’re going to hit a practical limit anyway on your ability to continue betting. A string of twenty losses will see your bet doubled past $1,000,000; 27 losses will bring it over $100,000,000.
Even without the table limits, it still doesn’t work. There is no combination of negative expectation bets which will make a positive expectation bet. And unless you’re counting cards, playing poker against rookies, or a few other odd exceptions, there are no positive expectation bets in Vegas.
I’m glad you had a good time.
Note that your $27 (plus your free beers) were all paid for by losing gamblers.
There is, of course, no successful strategy you could use - apart (as Chronos says) from card counting. But the casinos know this and prevent it by using multiple decks and frequent reshuffling. They may indeed ‘accidentally’ distract you with a glamorous waitress offering you a free drink.
It really is straightforward why casinos always win.
On roulette, for example, there is that pesky zero to give the House a comfortable edge. Why I hear in some countries they have two zeroes. :eek:
Money in the bank! (so to speak).
Do consider that casinos also win big overall. 1% of a $1,000,000 is nice. Especially if you can keep it up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
They spend their winnings on staff, furnishings, entertainment, paying taxes and dividends. And their sole source of income is gamblers - preferably with a system!
I don’t want to criticise places like Vegas. I happily pay money to eat in restaurants and watch films.
Why shouldn’t I spend some money in comfortable surroundings, generating some adrenalin?
As long as you only play for money you can afford to lose.
The Martingale system is the exact opposite of an ordinary lottery (except that the ods are always skewed in favour of the people running the lottery or casino). In the Martingale system, you risk all of your money in order to win a small prize; in a lottery, you risk a small amount of money in order to win a large prize.
Moral: If you want to win those small prizes, you are better off running a lottery and selling lottery tickets to the suckers.
I just wanted to add what I think is an interesting aside, which is (in my uninformed opinion) a big part of the reason casino’s don’t like this betting strategy …
Your ordinary pattern of winners and losers in a casino is that you have a small number of people who win a lot, and a large number of people who lose a little. There are a few obsessives who lose a lot, but most people go into casinos with a smart budget & quit when the get a good bit behind. Those people are happy-they had a good time gambling & feel like they got a good value for their entertainment dollar. The few people who came out well ahead are happy-they beat Vegas! And the casinos get to promote them-look at the big winners we’ve had! Come gamble at our place-maybe you could be one! And everybody’s happy.
Now, look what happens when lots of people are using this betting strategy. Instead of a few big winners and a lot of small losers, you get a lot of small winners and a few big losers. Fairly similar results overall-the bulk of your customers played a while, had a good time, and walked away. But you have a few unlucky souls who went down big, just based on the system. And you don’t have any big winners to parade around-it’s virtually impossible to have a big payday betting this way. Yucky day for the casino, marketing-wise, even though their profits are about the same as a percentage of the bets …
Whoa! You’re going to hit the table limit, never mind the limit of your bank account, very fast thay way.
Usually, the Martingale system involves going back to $1 (or whatever your initial bet was) after each win.
Basically, the idea would be to guess the maximum number of consecutive losses you want to be able to survive, and calculate back from that in order to determine your initial bet and the amount of money you need to start with. For example, if you expect that you’ll never lose more than 8 games in a row, you could take $512 to the table and start betting with $1, or take $512000 and start betting with $1000. Either way, if you guessed wrong and lose nine times in a row, you’re out.
Otherwise, since you apparently have an unlimited amount to invest, and are playing against a casino with no table limit, why start small? If you are willing and able to bet $32768 on the sixteenth game whether or not you won the fifteenth, why not start with that amount on the first game of the day?
After all, there’s not much point in playing to win a few tens of dollars over the course of a day, if you need millions of dollars in starting capital first.
I’m not 100% sure about the Martingale system (which would be more likely to work in Bacarrat than Blackjack), but I think the OP’s system would be to go back to $1.00 bet after a win.
I did this in a casino on a cruise ship once, just trying to kill time betting $5, then $10, then $20. I won $400 in about 30 minutes. I got extremely lucky and never lost more than 3 or 4 hands in a row. Each win put me up $5.00.
Having played a LOT of blackjack in my life, it’s NOT unusual to lose 40 hands in a row. It’s a lot more unusual, but not impossible, to WIN 40 hands in a row. Also, if you’re hitting and standing inconsistently, you’re much more likely to lose hands. Playing basic strategy (correct hit/stand/double/split based on the best mathematical probability for winning any given hand based on the dealers up-card) reduces the house’s edge to almost nothing, but still keeps the game in the house’s favor.
I also want to add that someone said that the game is never in the player’s favor. This isn’t true. Occasionally, casinos will run a promotion where the game shifts a percent or two into the player’s favor. The most common is to pay 2:1 on blackjacks instead of 1.5:1 (a $5 bet wins $10 on a 2-card 21 instead of $7.50). When the casino does this, playing perfect basic strategy and flat-betting $5 a hand will yield the player an average of $5 extra every 20 hands. If you can play 100 hands an hour (depends on how busy the casino is and how often they shuffle), you can make $25 an hour playing $5 bets…in my experience, they limit it to $5 bets.
The average blackjack player either doesn’t know anything about basic strategy or they know it but deviate from it based on superstition and the house still has the edge. But the professional blackjack players always swoop in and the casino loses a few thousand dollars (yeah, I’m sure that’s gonna bankrupt the casino :dubious: ) and they end the promotion.
There is no system to beat a casino.
The odds are clear.
Also bear in mind that players are trying to win something, however small. The casino has to win enough to pay staff, lighting, heating, maintenance, taxes, dividends etc.
Well that is interesting.
Even so, I’m surprised casinos bother with such small promotions - I thought they would concentrate on publicising the big jackpots and having bells ring and lights flash whenever a one-armed bandit pays out.
Mmm, OT hijack, but I’m going to LV for Christmas. I’m sick of blackjack and I’ll give slots a try this time.
Is there a website out there that talks about the odds of specific slot machines in Las Vegas? I know that those huge slot machines that they put near entrances are among the poorest in odds, but that’s about it.
Outside of special (and presumably unusual) promotions like you describe, how can there be a “professional” blackjack player? Previous threads have described how counting cards is theoretically advantageous but doesn’t work in practice (basically, because it’s easy for casinos to detect and to frustrate). So how can anyone (except a casino owner) make money playing blackjack?
The craps table is your friend. First, it offers the least house-heavy odds, plus you’re dealing with humans. People that are generally sales types that have some personality.
Tip these guys in a manner consistant with what you’re winning, and they’ll “help out” by “suggesting” where and how many chips you should lay. I can’t attest to all casinos, but in the 7 I’ve stayed at with heavy stake money, this is what I’ve seen.
If you’re winning, and tipping on winning bets, the croupier and the rest working the table want you to win. That’s money in thier pockets. And when it comes to a casino, everyone is looking to make money.
Can you describe how it would work better for Bacarrat?
I don’t think it (or any “system”) can work when the odds are rigged against the player (as they are in all casinos). And if you’re playing a game in which the odds are in your favor, you don’t need a system.
