Well Sam it seems that I should research ALL my postings a little better. (Message Board “Dopers” are very sharp). Basically, I learned about Scarne through 1) his appearances on TV talk shows (Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin, etc) and 2) In Recreational Math books by Martin Gardener.
However, since Scarne died in 1985, I imagine much has changed in those 18 years in the gambling business.
Still, I always thought he was a good “mechanic” (card manipulator). Here is the IMDB’s mini-biography of him and it does conflict with the things you said particularly blackjack.
http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Scarne,%20John
Since I’ve been a message board “Doper” myself, I’m finding the IMDB NOT to be the authoritative figure I once thought.
Scarne WAS a good card manipulator. He just wasn’t a mathematician. And his information pre-dates the availability of computers. Specifically, his strategy on blackjack pre-dates the work of Edward Thorp, who used computers to analyze the game and determine the proper strategy. That work showed much of Scarne’s strategy to be simply wrong.
Scarne became known as a world expert on gambling probably due to the enormous success of “Scarne on Cards”. And much of his information is okay. Nonetheless, his own mathematical limitations and the era in which his work was published limits its value today.
His emphasis on cheating was useful when he was writing, because much of his audience was U.S. servicemen, and the games they played were often crooked. He was biased by his times.
Incidentally, I wouldn’t treat the biographies on IMDB as unimpeachable sources. Scarne was a master of self promotion, and has a lot of followers who still fervently believe that he was the greatest source of gambling info who ever lived. He wasn’t.
Re: Dealers Cheating
The most blatant case I saw was in one of the major casinos in Vegas. The player was some green kid that was hot on the roulette table. He was stacking the chips 10 high or better on the spots, corners and edges. It seemed like every spin he was getting some kind of payout. Whenever anyone gets hot, a pit boss shows up immediately to throw some confusion into play. But anyway, in this particular case I see the pit boss kind of whisper at the dealer. The next payout the dealer stiffs the kid on one of his corner plays, the kid was ecstatic he was winning so much, he probably didn’t even know how much he was supposed to win on any particular payout. After the stiff, the pit boss whispers something else to the dealer and then walks away. Now if this isn’t blatantly cheating the player I don’t know what is. I think their rules are, if they stiff you on a payout it’s your tough luck, but if they make a mistake in your favor the game stops until the error is corrected. Anyway, you won’t see me giving Vegas any more of my money, if they can’t survive by simply raping people with the odds, then that’s their tough luck.
Questions for Sam Stone since he seems to have the answers:
Since odds on slots can’t be changed remotely, have you heard of casinos placing “higher payout” machines in high traffic areas so they attract the attention of passerbys thinking “wow, the machines in this place seem to be hot.”?
Do machines in “older” casinos have better payouts? Is it better to play the machines at Barbary Coast rather than the Belagio?
Everyone seems to agree that Blackjack and Craps have the best odds. Are there any gambling programs and books you recommend so one could practice and see if they could get good?
I’ve also heard video poker is winable if you learn how to play well. Is this true?
ccwaterback-- this sounds highly unlikely. Casinos win money on roulette. Period. Sure, they might be down a few thousand one hour or possibly even a whole day, but in time it all comes back to them. Why on earth would a casino risk their license just to shave a few hundred on roulette? I can almost guarantee that whatever the pit boss whispered to the croupier it wasn’t, “Cheat the bastard, or else the casino is not going to make a profit!”
People have ideas about gambling and probability that are often 180 degrees from reality. Casinos don’t mind this, naturally.
Best way to learn blackjack is to get a computer program that will train you to use proper basic strategy. You have to first learn basic strategy (it changes slightly depending on the house rules, number of decks, etc.) and then a decent bj program will let you play hand after hand, and tell you when you deviate from basic strategy. I’ve done this for probably millions of hands and I now have the proper plays memorized.
However, even playing perfect basic strategy 100% of the time will not let you get an edge over the house in the long run. You may come close (pehaps +.12 or .10 house edge) but you will never turn a long term profit without card counting-- and even then, you probably will gain less than a .6 edge over the casino.
Counting is pretty easy if you practice, but casinos now use tracking software and can detect counting pretty easily by monitoring how your betting amounts change when the count changes.
Well I can easily imagine casinos cheating. (Incidentally, I’ve never gone to any casino and so I’m not some bitter gambler that lost a bundle and then blamed it on house cheating.)
Anyway, consider Las Vegas casinos. They bring in huge amounts of revenue to the Nevada State Treasury and to private businesses throughout the state. It isn’t much of a stretch of the imagination to think that the Nevada Gaming Commission and Nevada citizens in general might not be too outraged if casinos are trying to get more than their percentage.
As Dean Martin said in “Ocean’s Eleven” - ‘The odds are always with the house. With the house !!’
This theory has been going around for a long time, and some believe in it and some don’t. I’m not a casino insider, so I can’t tell you for sure, but I find it unlikely. I find it more likely that the machines in high traffic areas are going to have low payouts, to extract maximum profit from the casual passers-by. For example, the slots at airports, convenience stores, and other non-casino locations typically have horrible payouts.
Another thing arguing against this theory is that casual passers-by aren’t likely to notice the difference between a good machine and a bad one, because the difference of a percentage point or two is going to take a fairly long time to see. More likely, machines in these areas would have their payout adjusted to pay back lots of little jackpots instead of fewer big ones.
I don’t know. My guess would be the other way around - the better the odds for the player, the greater the chance that the casino could lose money for the day or week. So I would think that the smaller casinos that get less volume in play would have poorer odds. On the other hand, you could also make the case that without all the attractions that the large casinos have, the smaller casinos have to offer better odds to attract the players.
In blackjack, this seems to be the case. I always found that the ‘downtown’ casinos in Reno and Vegas offered better games than the large casinos out on the strip. The locals usually play downtown, while the tourists play out on the strip.
Well, you don’t have to practice craps. Here’s all you need to know: Bet the pass line, and take the most odds you can afford. If you can’t afford to take maximum odds, lower your passline bet until you can. That will give you the best odds and the most variance, which are both friends of the gambler.
As for Blackjack, it really depends what you want to accomplish. If you just want to learn basic strategy, here’s an interesting site I just found that seems accurate: blackjackinfo.com. It allows you to enter the rules for the game you play, and then it prints out color basic strategy tables. You should memorize those tables. You should know instantly whether or not you should hit a soft 18 against a dealer’s 2, or a 12 against a dealer’s 3. That sort of thing. It’s not as hard as it sounds, because if you look at those tables you’ll see some patterns. All you need to learn are the plays that define the edges of the patterns and you can figure out the rest. It shouldn’t take you more than a day or two of practice.
There are plenty of freeware blackjack games one the internet that will allow you to play the game and will tell you if your play is correct or not. I’d suggest printing out the strategy tables, then download a good blackjack training game and play with the tables until you can play without mistakes, then play without the tables until you play perfectly. Trust me - it’s not that hard.
There are some video poker games that have payouts slightly over 100%. Typically, they are only low-limit machines, and you can’t make much more than minimum wage playing them. They are also getting increasingly hard to find. That’s about all I know about them - Video Poker was never my thing.
Well, all I can say is that sure seems like the pit bosses are under tremendous pressure these days to not let a winner walk away from their station. How can they lose their license by periodically stiffing a hot player when any “mistake” made in the favor of the house by a dealer is snickered away by the pit boss with a snide “Pay him the difference”. Like YOU are being petty about the situation. Try grabbing a chip off their pile and watch the reaction you get.
That said, I don’t like those slimy used-car-salesmen-turned-pit-bosses breathing down my neck every time I get on a hot streak anyway. I’ve seen enough of the underbelly of Vegas for one lifetime.
I’m not being bitter about losing money in Vegas, that’s what you go there to do. But when you play against an opponent that is going to take every advantage of the situation, legal or not, to take all your money, it’s time to call it quits.
I have a system in blackjack that is nearly fool proof. It seems to work best with 2 deck and 3 deck dealers. With more decks than that, it seems the dealer just has too many small cards to draw into his hand. I have had not one, but two or three pit bosses breathing down my neck, in more than one occasion. They do their usual things to try to get you flustered, sit and talk in your ear while you are trying to play, insist on new decks being brought into the game much more frequently, deal you a card when you have passed, etc. I have a better time when I get drunk and play, then I just laugh right in their faces while I stack up the chips.
There are several reasons I don’t play blackjack at the casinos for a living. One, if you win consistently you won’t be welcome back. Two, the system I play makes some unusual plays like I might hold on 12 if the dealer shows an 8 or better. I usually get moans and groans from the other players when I make plays like that, or the dealer tosses me a hit when I said I want to pass. All this makes it look like I am disrupting the table. I try to explain to them that they are used to player with losers … lol. And lastly, the system I have is very boring, if I get dealt this, I do that, if I lose 3 hands in a row I do this, etc. Even if I am winning, it bores me to death.
I guarantee your system is a loser.
Sorry about the massive hijack, but I am on a roll 
It does seem like the slots in heavy traffic areas pay out more often. I have been told that’s because they are played more often. I’m not sure that is true.
Here’s a story about one of the last times I was in Vegas. I was on my way up to my room after a long day of gambling and site seeing the new casinos. I had to pass a 5 dollar slot on the way to the elevator, there was a group of slots right in the path so you just couldn’t miss them. I plunked in a 5 dollar coin and won a 5000 dollar jackpot, first pull. This was in the wee hours of the morning. I had to sit there listing to that slot ring and ding for good 20 minutes before someone came by to investigate. They looked at the slot, wrote down a couple things, then said they would be right back with the payout. At least a half hour later, slot still ringing and dinging, they show up with my payout. Seems I had to pay taxes on my winnings right then and there, oh well I can handle that. The next day I go out and lose that payout, being stupid playing 5 dollar slots. Come tax filing time my accountant tells me I can’t write off my losses against my winnings because I don’t have enough deductions to itemize. So, I end up paying 1000 bucks to the IRS for my LOSSES!!!
Such is the life of a gambler
It may very well be, but in the short run (20 years or so), it has done well by me
Sam-- If I were a betting man (which I definately am) I would wager large stacks of chips that CC’s system is a loser, too.
That being said, we know that when a card count is at a certain point it is actually the proper play to split tens or take insurance. With that in mind, do you suppose the count could be at a point where it is correct to stand on a 12 against the house 8? I can’t think of such a case, but then again my counting ability is not that great. Maybe CC has devised the best counting system ever. (doubtful).
One edge I take away from the house is I NEVER bust. I pass on 12 or higher no matter WHAT the dealer shows. I know, I know, I will get all the probabilistic arguments, but just watch the times people draw into a bust and the dealer ALSO draws a bust, they have forfeited their hands. But that’s a minor detail of my system, albeit the one that pisses off the other players and the dealer the most.
I have given my system to friends to try out. They always end up putting their own little spin on things and lose. Then they tell me my system sucks. Like, OK I will use your system, but I don’t like this feature of it so I will improvise in my own losing way. And I have also had the “well mathematically you should hit in that situation” comments. OK, you play your way, I’ll play mine. My system isn’t overly concerned about how you play a particular hand, it’s more concerned with money management, or how much you bet each hand. Now if you’re one of those players that thinks the object of the game is to get close to 21, then there is no hope for you, the object of the game is to beat the dealer.
I don’t have too many other oddities in my system, as far as how a hand is played. I split only aces and eights, double down on 10 or 11 ONLY if the dealer shows a 6 or less, etc. As far as my money management, that’s my secret, only my closest friends have been privy to that strategy.
Remember, I only play with 2 and 3 deck dealers. I DO NOT ALWAYS win in a playing session, only MOST of the time.
Getting back to fruit machines, you may want to read this: you know how when you’re gambling up the features, with a reel from 1-12, you’re at 11 and confidently go for “Low” and the 12 drops in? Well, you’re not just being paranoid - the machines really are fixed.
From Need to Know - http://www.ntk.net/2003/06/06/
Look at the link in the above quote - interesting reading.
A ‘never bust’ strategy is one of the worst ways to play blackjack there is. The house edge under such a system is almost TEN TIMES higher than it is by playing perfect basic strategy.
Your ‘system’ is looking worse and worse.
I’ve got to agree with Sam Stone here. I know fuck all about blackjack, being a poker player, but doesn’t the dealer in BJ usually draw to a soft 17 ? If you always stand on 12 you’re gonna get fucked.
I’ve never known a house that would draw on a 17, soft or hard.
I also favour the basic strategy approach, especially knowing when the odds favour doubling down. And knowing when to walk away.
And knowing when to run.
Some casinos are now hitting soft 17. I believe this is a fairly recent development, and obviously, this is bad for the player, and these games should be avoided. Along with the 6-5 blackjack payoffs, it’s like they’re doing their best to drive even smart basic strategy players away.
When playing a dealer using 4 or 5 or 6 or 20? decks, I agree, seems like all the dealer ever draws in those games is duces and threes. With 2 and 3 deck dealers, I’m not sure the odds are are bad as you say.
If you want to play the “hit until I bust” technique with your hand, that’s fine, I think my money management scheme would still work, as long as you are CONSISTENT in your play.