How to beat the casino – legally

 

If there’s one thing everybody knows about  judi online  gambling it’s that the house always wins. And while it is true that casinos always make a profit, there are a number of ways to cheat the system – some of which are actually perfectly legal.

Half a century ago, mathematician situs judi slot online Edward Thorp published a groundbreaking book outlining how a player could use “card counting” to get an advantage in the game Blackjack by keeping track of the cards left in a deck. Ever since, casinos have been trying to eradicate card counting while card counters are getting increasingly skilled at not getting caught. So is it possible to outplay casinos today? And what will it be like in the future?

Casinos are businesses and operate by building  judi online in a margin – often referred to as the house edge. If you play roulette and bet on a single number you will be paid at odds of 35-1 when the true odds are 36-1 in Europe and 37-1 in the US. The fact that you  judi online are receiving less than the true odds is the house edge and explains why casinos make money in the long term. Of course, some people have to win, otherwise casinos would cease to exist.

Advantage players

What casinos don’t like are “advantage players” – people  judi online seeking to have an edge over the house. Sometimes this involves cheating and/or illegal activities ranging from past posting (making a bet after the time when no more bets are to be taken) to collaborating at the poker table and using a computer to help make decisions.

Card counting, however, is legal. In situs judi slot online Blackjack, the aim of the player is to achieve a hand of cards whose points add up nearer to 21 than the dealer’s hand, but without exceeding 21. Many hands are played from the same deck of cards, so what happens in one hand will influence what happens in future hands. As an example, if a ten has been played from the pack then it cannot appear in the next hand. This is different from other games, such as roulette, where the outcome of one spin has no effect on the next spin.

Professor Thorp and his contribution to card counting.

Card counting is based on the fact that a large proportion of high cards (such as tens, jacks, queens and kings,  judi online which are all worth ten points) left in the unplayed deck statistically improves the player’s chances. This is because a player situs judi slot online can decide not to draw a new card to a hand such as 16, but the casino is forced to, as it follows strict rules. If there are a high proportion of high cards left in the unplayed deck of cards, the dealer has more chance of busting (going over 21). This can be situs judi slot online combined with “basic strategy” – developed from computer simulations of millions of blackjack hands – which tells the player the best action to take for each possible card combination.

Combining card counting and basic strategy can help a player convert the (long term) house edge from 2.7%, in favour of the casino, to about a 1% advantage to the player. Of course, once you have this advantage you can increase your bet.

To  judi online give a simple example, if you were playing basic strategy and were dealt a ten and a six, and the dealer had a three showing (one of the dealers cards is visible to the player), you would stand (not take another card) as you hope that the dealer would draw a ten and bust. If you were card counting, and you knew that more low cards had been played, you might decide to increase your stake at this point.

Evolving battle

Casinos judi online have introduced a number of measures to deter card counting. These include spotting those doing it and simply banning them from playing, or even from entering the casino situs judi slot online. Another approach is to increase the number of decks from one to (typically) six, or even eight. Some casinos also shuffle the cards after only about 75% have been played or shuffle them constantly using automatic shufflers.

You might  judi online wonder why casinos don’t simply withdraw blackjack. Well, it remains a popular game, and one that is still profitable. There are also many would-be card counters who are not actually that good at it, and they provide income to the casinos.

Many blackjack  judi online players have fought back against such measures, arguing that casinos should allow gamblers to use skill when playing the game. As a card counter operating on their own is relatively easy to spot (intense concentration, increasing bets and so on), a team of students situs judi slot online from MIT showed it could successfully  judi online be done in teams. The idea is that somebody else counts the cards – they may not even be sitting at the table. When the count reaches an agreed value, they signal to another player, who joins the table to start betting. This is a lot more difficult to detect but casinos may stop players joining the