Systems for Vegas?

[trdrmac]

Originally posted by Aaron


Better strategy for what? Winning money? In a game with a negative expectancy the optimal strategy is to not play. I'm defining "optimal" to mean the strategy that results in the highest resulting net worth.

I agree with you 100%. And that is why I said the recreational gambler. A better strategy than doubling down on losses. For instance both BlackJack and Craps have roughly a 1% house edge if you bet "PERFECTLY". So over time if you continue to double down, you will eventually lose.

However, the difference between Craps and BlackJack is that the negative expectancy never goes away in Craps. Each toss of the dice has it's own outcome and does not effect future tosses of the dice. BJ is a different animal in that how the cards are dealt and which cards remain has a direct impact on the EDGE the casino has. So a deck that is rich in large cards carries a negative expectancy for the casino. Exploiting this is why card counting works and card counters are banned from casinos.

So all that I am saying is if you play BJ, it makes more sense to raise your bet when you are winning than it does when you are losing. But at the end of the day, they don't pay for all those lights and hot waitresses from the many winners.

 

[Carboxyl]

ok, I sort of understand what Don and some of you said, but don't the casinos do BlackJack with 6 decks now? And they don't play a portion of the deck when it gets down to the end so how would one ever know how much 10's or Faces are left that'll give the player an advantage? Don, have you ever tried playing this strategy with the normal blackjack? (not the single deck one)

I don't plan to win at casinos (I'll do that trading), but I wouldn't mind playing smart and not lose money while having fun and getting free coronas!