Oh, there is one more way where gambling in the casinos gives odds that are actually in your favor. It’s with slot machines, believe it or not. Sometimes, the jackpot on a progressive machine will be so high that the odds will favor the gambler until someone hits the jackpot. Typically this happens with video poker.
Haj
Are you sure about this? I thought that in Nevada, they can pretty much kick anybody out for any reason, and it is understood that counting cards is one of those reasons, whether you do it with external aids or not.
In Atlantic City, if I recall correctly, they DO allow card counting, because the laws state that only games of chance, not skill, are allowed, hence kicking people out for card counting would be admitting that blackjack is a game of skill. Hence they do the 6-deck shoes and shuffle often. I could be completely off base about my understanding of AC rules, though.
Good point. Everything I wrote about applies to Nevada. I don’t know about the rules in NJ.
Haj
If somebody won consistently, and the casino believed it was due to luck, my guess is that the casino would not only not ban the person, it would try to get him or her to stay.
I’m told that in roullette, the wheel can get unbalanced over the years and a patient player who takes notes can do ok. I imagine that in such a situation, the casino would invite the successful player to move to a newer wheel.
Good article on this topic: Nevada Supreme Court Orders Casino to Pay Card Counter.
It talks about Nevada and New Jersey.
Things have changed in Vegas over the past 10 to 15 years. Vegas is overbuilt now and casinos are fighting even harder to take every dime you have. If you are a winner, generally what I have seen happen is this: you win, you draw attention, you will be assigned at least one house “badger” to keep you playing until you lose.
i can’t decide if my OP is answered, so let’s try a hypothetical.
let’s say a ninja walks into the casino and consistently (…) win at craps, will he be thrown out? i.e., no cheating, just being a master at dice throwing and all…
This (to me) was among the most interesting parts of that excellent linked article.
He probably wouldn’t be bodily thrown out. The powers that be on the floor that night would have a pow wow and decide what to do. They might mess with the guy and start short changing him on his wins (and when he complains, make HIM look like the asshole). They have all kinds of dirty tricks they can use to make you “go away”.
In the book Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, Richard Feynman describes an encounter he had in a Las Vegas casino with Nick the Greek, a well-known professional gambler. Feynman met Nick at a craps table, and asked him how it was possible to make a living as a gambler when the odds were against him. Nick the Greek replied that he never bet against the house. He placed side bets with the other players at the table - for example, he would bet someone five to four that the shooter wouldn’t make his point. Nick knew the odds better than most of the other gamblers, and would get an edge this way.
It’s true that the vast majority of professional gamblers are poker players and sports bettors.
However, it is possible to make a substantial income at blackjack. If you’re happy with an income of, say, $25,000 a year, it’s easy. If you want to make more than that, it’s very hard, because the casinos focus their card counter detection efforts at higher limit players who can really hurt them. If you want to bet $5-$25, and are polite, they’ll leave you alone even if they know what you’re doing. In most casinos, anyway. I wouldn’t try it in the smaller ones that are sweating their action, but at Caesar’s palace their floorman has more important things to do than try to bust some young guy who’s pulling $8/hr off their blackjack tables. Especially since most of the young guys who are trying to do this are probably losers anyway, so the whole population of people trying to do it are probably a wash anyway, and good advertising.
The guys the casinos are afraid of are the big limit counters betting $100/hand and up, and the professional teams with bankrolls in the millions of dollars who can swoop down on a casino and take them for tens of thousands.
Even so, there are a handful of people still making over $100,000 a year playing blackjack. How do they stay undetected? By camouflaging their play, and by adopting a ‘hit and run’ strategy. They’ll play until they get a shoe with a count that requires them to spread their bets a lot, then if they win some money they pick up their chips and leave before the casino can spot any patterns in their play.
This is a tough road to go down. Moving from casino to casino takes a lot of time and effort that returns nothing. These guys will play Vegas for a few weeks, then go on the road to regional casinos, Atlantic city, etc. Always travelling, living out of suitcases, etc. And when they do get caught, the casinos share their information, and these guys can have their careers ended overnight. And even the best of them are gaining maybe a 1% edge over the house, which means in any given year their income can fluctuate wildly. Not for the squeamish.
But the blackjack teams are a different story. There are a few teams around that have been in existence for decades. They have spotters, accountants, you name it. A member finds a casino with a good game, and alerts the team. The members are often professionals in other fields, and they’ll take a few days’ holidays from the jobs and fly in to the casino and play BIG money. The team pools their bankrolls, and each player can play as if he owned the whole bankrolls. So they play huge. And they have sophisticated ways to avoid being spotted, such as using the ‘big player’ technique - the counter sits at the table flat-betting, and when the shoe composition favors the player, he’ll signal the ‘big player’ to come in and put down a huge bet. If the guy wins, he’ll leave, and another comes in. All of them shuffle and circle around, sometimes laying bets at random to avoid pattern detection, etc. It can really hard to spot these guys.
The term “professional gambler” is, more often than not, used for filing taxes. A skilled gambler will have some big hits now and then. While everyone is able to deduct losses against winnings, the average Joe is only able to deduct losses up to the amount he’s won. A professional gambler can claim a loss on his income tax return.
I don’t know all the requirements necessary in order to assume the moniker for tax purposes, but I suppose they are easily located online.
Also, professional gamblers usually play the tournament circuits. That’s where the real money can be won (and lost).
"and how can they call themselves ‘professional gamblers’ if they don’t earn consistently? "
Who says they win all the time in casinos? They may be professional poker players who play in poker contests & can win prizes.
Ever see a film, Rainman, shijinn, it’s about a card counter…
Most professional poker players do NOT make their living from tournaments. Most of them make their living sitting in games playing for money. A lot of them also play the occasional tournament for fun or profit, and a handful focus on tournaments. But the majority just play games for money.
I hate to be a nit-picking a-hole here, but gambling, in particular craps, is near and dear to my heart. It is not possible to be a master dice thrower. I’ll answer in two ways:
Assuming the hypothetical is true, the master ninja decides that instead of the small-potatoes craps games, he will bet on the lottery and use his master mental abilities to cause the ping pong balls to fall with his numbers.
Assuming he doesn’t realize the lottery angle, and plays craps instead, he can and will be kicked out if and only if he takes his winnings in large and garish chunks. If he adopts a grinder’s mentality, the casino probably wouldn’t care even if they noticed.
No one gets kicked out of a casino for playing craps unless the casino suspects them of cheating, or if they are being rude and obnoxious and bothering other players.
This is because (stay with me now…) You cannot win at craps. Period. There are no expert craps players, because craps does not take any skill. Here’s the all the world’s craps wisdom distilled into one sentence: Bet the pass line, and take all the odds you can get. There. You are now tied with everyone else for being the best craps player in existence.
And you’re still a long-term loser.
If the casino saw someone winning consistently at craps over a long period of time, they’d put security on them. They’d put undercover people at the table to see what you’re up to. They’d pull the dice after every roll and balance them. They’d make you throw the dice harder. They’ll do everything they know to thwart cheating.
And what if you’re still winning consistently? Well then, maybe you’re the luckiest person on the planet. Someone’s gotta win a lottery occasionally. The casino will happily take your action for as long as your willing to play.
Could you elaborate on this? What exactly does the badger do? Is there any reason a player could not thwart this, either by leaving with his winnings or ignoring the badger?
Technically the Don’t Pass is better odds than the pass. Substituting “Don’t” for “Pass”, Sam Stone speaks the gospel truth.
While card counting isn’t “against the rules” of blackjack per se, it’s discouraged in Las Vegas casinos, so can be thought of as being against “house rules” and in most casinos can get a counter asked to leave or formally 86’ed.
A casino in Las Vegas at which I used to work, long ago, offered single-deck blackjack and welcomed counters - with, when they were detected or suspected, a polite card requesting them to limit their bets to “seven units”, i.e. $14 max at a $2 table.
Well the badgers in Vegas are of many different stripes, it depends if they have surmised that they can con you into staying and take all your money, or if they have decided to get rid of you. I guess it’s just something you have to witness first hand to get a real grasp on it. If some weirdo in a suit standing stiff closely behind you watching your every move doesn’t bother you, then I guess you would be able to thwart their efforts. Generally, they will use physiological pressure or a friendly tap on the shoulder asking you to “Please step over here, we need to talk to you”, rather than brutally toss your ass out.