Anyone here good at math?

House always wins. I have met a gambler who played for a living - think that was probably on the wheel. I think perhaps I once had a former pro dealer help me win as I won $40 at blackjack - which I spent on fried chicken for a picnic for all the next day. Many years ago. You never see poor casinos or poor bookies.

 

There is a fascinating book I desperately want to read, but it's out of print. It's called 13 Against the Bank. It's the true story of a guy whose father was wiped out at the Casino in Monte Carlo, and literally tossed out in the street. This was shortly after WWII. The guy was obsessed with getting back at the Casino, and he began to study various "systems" for beating roulette.

None of them worked. Then, he made the wonderful leap of illogic and thought, "What if you play to lose?" Turns out there was a system that was wildly variable, but actually produced positive player odds over the long run.

He advertised for people with good mathematical aptitude and in good physical condition to help him with his project. He selected 12 people (plus himself to make the 13). They studied the system and practiced playing it for 12 hours a day (it required long hours of continuous play). The day they were to leave for Monte Carlo, one player revealed he was with the Scotland Yard CID who thought he was up to something illegal. The cop said they had to wait a bit while he went in and resigned because it was legal, and he was now committed to the project.

The went to Monte Carlo, and wonderfully, it was the same maitre de Casino who had had his father thrown out. They began to play, went up, then down, then up even more, then down further, then up further. As they began to win, the Casino stopped the free drinks, removed the chairs so they had to stand all the time, and turned off the air conditioning. They had anticipated that, and continued to win.

Finally, they were arrested and hauled before a magistrate for cheating. The proof? They were winning. The magistrate told the Casino to get out of his court, and then told the players to be on the noon train out of Monte Carlo. In all, they had won several hundred thousand pounds, at a time when a salary of 5,000 pounds a year was a VERY good salary.

I heard an interview with one of the players once (where I got the story), and I would love to read the book. Statistical analysis seems to suggest that their system (the Reverse Labouchere) should not work, but the story is supposed to be true

 

Thanks!
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Finally I can use the stupid internet meme "cool story, bro" without being sarcastic. Yeah there are a few people who have had great luck beating the system. I have a movie called "21", which obviously is about blackjack. Pretty new, with Kevin Spacey; this movie is based on a real story. Very interesting! I definitely don't have the math skills to even remotely be able to do what they did in the movie though, i.e counting cards.

 

Rounders is my favorite movie about gambling (texas hold em)

 

Blackjack is one of the very few casino games where you CAN turn the odds in your favour by counting cards. That's one of the reasons they now use multi-deck shoes for the cards. The more cards in play, the harder it is to count the cards. The guy who originally came up with the idea was allowed to have a notepad beside him to help him to keep track of the cards played. Once he proved it could be done, they put a stop to that, and increased the size of the shoe.

 

The size of the shoe doesn't necessarily make counting harder. There are effective counting systems that function independently of deck size, because they don't actually require you to remember anything other than the count and the values of the cards as you see them. Adding decks does make counting less effective by increasing the 'depth' of the deck. The more cards remaining in play, the less the cards that have been removed matter. The other thing they do to combat counting is frequent shuffling which resets the count.

 

Thanks. Don't be afraid. Math doesn't take chances.

 

The similarities between the movie and reality consist of there having been an MIT blackjack team and some names. There have been a few documentaries about them, but the movie is a work of fiction.