I figured you guys saw that on A&E, it was when they aired all the casino scams, MIT BJ team. This guys was amazing, he used sleight of hand. He would put a chocolate chip (5k) under a black chip on a busy roulette table. If his color didn't hit he would switch it w/ 2 blacks chips. The key was the angle of the top chip, he would push it slightly forward so from the dealers angle, they couldn't really tell what was the color of the chip under it without really looking. Was the most profitable casino scam ever.... I'll do a search to see if i can find him....
I used to play when I lived in Vegas, I didn't try much for comps,didn't need a room.
I used the simple count of +1 for 2-6, and -1 for tens ans aces, and a high differential in bet sizes.
The game has changed, harder to win now.
Don't expect much in comps for 5-25 play, if anything at all.
Any of many books can teach you the counting systems. Lawrence Revere's book is good. Thorpe is the original guy. Patterson and Wong are good too.
Its kind of too late for BJ,IMO. It used to be good much like sports used to be good when there was Neteller, bonuses,reliable books,etc.
yes, but a counter needs to vary bet size, and typical players bet the same amount consistently, changing bet size from 1 unit to 5 units stands out as play typical of a counter, and the casino can say... go away.
The deck fluctuates to being favorable and unfavorable to the player, betting more when favorable gains the advantage, but is hard to do for long.
You can't realistically bet $10, then suddenly $100, then back to $10. You'd have a better chance of that with a shoe game. In a hand-held game, that move often causes the dealer to shuffle.
I think really it takes a strong will to not pop it up and get greedy. Trust me, I was chomping at the bit, had about 1.5 decks left in the shoe and my true count was over 15. I went from 5 too 25/30 and actually got a nice fat 11 that doubled to 25 and hit the 10, but I really wanted to be dropping down 50-100, I just thought that would be way to obvious so I went about my business....
yes, but a counter needs to vary bet size, and typical players bet the same amount consistently, changing bet size from 1 unit to 5 units stands out as play typical of a counter, and the casino can say... go away.
The deck fluctuates to being favorable and unfavorable to the player, betting more when favorable gains the advantage, but is hard to do for long.
You can't realistically bet $10, then suddenly $100, then back to $10. You'd have a better chance of that with a shoe game. In a hand-held game, that move often causes the dealer to shuffle.
But since card counting only gives you slight advantage, say the actual payout is now 100.1%, you have to bet $10000 overall to make $10. If you play 5 to 25, it takes longer than an hour to bet $10000 and make 10 bucks.
I heard that you have to pretend to be a casual player, you can't just concentrate on card counting, you have to, for instance, bs with dealer and other players all the time.
A 3-1 spread ratio between bet sizes used to be considered acceptable, and would be tolerated at most places, 5-1 is kind of pushing it,IMO.
It always seems best to finally unload big when a good advantage comes up. But it's all in relation to your overall bankroll. Even with the greatest of advantages, you're still looking at a 40-45% of losing. So you've got to be ready to take the loss if it happens.
you can count all day long betting $5-$25/hand and they won't care. They probably wouldn't care if you went from $50 to $250 like Doug references.
I imagine they don't even waste their time considering counting on the smaller tables.
If you want comps at a decent vegas casino, they want a minimum of of 4 hours/day at $125/hand. I think Mandalay last time I was there said 5/day at $200 or something absurd like that.