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How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

nytimes.com

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Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#81

Post by Falcon9 »

llamataboot wrote: post #57
simonswords82 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the best description of playing poker professionally that I ever heard was that it was like playing a game of chess for $1, then flipping a coin for $100. In the long run that chess game is the only thing that matters, but in the short run those coin flips can be brutal Great quote! What books or online resources would you recommend for getting better at poker? Not looking to play professional but do enjoy the game…

It's been a long time now since I've studied intensely (haven't played much poker outside of the occasional home game with friends for 10 years), but I imagine the 2+2 forums are still the best forums around for discussion of strategy, hand reviews, theory, etc. David Sklanksy and Harrington and Ed Miller's books are probably the best around still in terms of a comprehensive overview of the various games, especially…

Daniel Negreanu is always fun to watch, and he has some great streams on Twitch when he's out of the country: https://www.twitch.tv/dnegspoker (He often plays Hearthstone when he's home in Vegas, and that's fun to watch too.)

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#82

Post by sokoloff »

abduhl wrote: post #36
bluecalm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am just guessing but from the name it seems that it's about using one "naive and careful" player to observe the game and count the cards while placing small bets. Once the deck becomes advantageous the "wild gambler" joins and starts blasting huge bets. Of course the first player signaled a good moment to join. This way it doesn't look suspicious as no one altered their behavior (one early method to detect card cou…

No serious casino running a card game has allowed midshoe entry at a table for years now. This is method of counting is why.

I can't recall many low-limit blackjack tables that ban mid-shoe entry. That seems to only come in at the $50/100 min-bet level.

Honestly, many blackjack players that I see at the $5/10 tables are playing so badly that the casino wouldn't want them to have to wait for the shuffle to start getting their gamble on.

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#83

Post by llamataboot »

dharmon wrote: post #80
llamataboot wrote: post #46

I used advantage gambling to help put myself through grad school during the first online casino boom. There were so many casinos vying for players, that many offered a bonus -- say $500 extra to play with if you deposit $500. Of course that $500 had a playthrough requirement -- you may have to wager a total of 20x that to withdraw -- so $10,000. Now you simply find a casino that has a game with odds that beat the pla…

I also started playing poker a lot in college for "fun money", and was looking to step up my game. I went a different route, though. I did the math and realized that even at a very good hourly take, I would never make very much money, and that by going up to higher stakes tables if anything I would do worse. I didn't have much hope for tournaments either. A few years before this I had worked at a day trading firm. I…

Depends on your definition of money I guess. At my peak before I moved to heads-up I was playing about 4-8 tables of 10/20 shorthanded at a time and averaging about 1.5 BB/100 hands after the rake. 4-8 tables online is about 400 hands an hour so that's a take of approximately $120/hour. Granted they were grueling hours and no way could you really do 8 in a day. I could make more contracting programming now I guess, but at the time it was an unreasonable amount of money for someone in grad school to be a social worker.

I know a lot of people that went the poker - day trading route, some who love it and make money. I'm not much interested in business enough to learn anything beyond P/E, and I'm still not 100% convinced that people who make money trading are doing anything but ending up on the good side of the random walk, but I accept that it's possible ;)

I also know some people that went from poker -> day trading -> fantasy sports because there's a lot more casual sports fan playing fantasy sports and making bad bets than there are traders making bad bets.

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#84

Post by ryguytilidie »

llamataboot wrote: post #46

I used advantage gambling to help put myself through grad school during the first online casino boom. There were so many casinos vying for players, that many offered a bonus -- say $500 extra to play with if you deposit $500. Of course that $500 had a playthrough requirement -- you may have to wager a total of 20x that to withdraw -- so $10,000. Now you simply find a casino that has a game with odds that beat the pla…

I too did this during college. I remember specifically deciding to go for a SUPER HIGH VARIANCE playthrough and just did 3 max bets in a row, won all 3 and then Autobet a dollar at a time while i went to the beach to finish the rest. Made about $2k for laying on the beach. Gosh I miss those days.

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#85

Post by function_seven »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #54
MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are some examples where it wouldn't mean bad faith, and I'm pretty sure the majority of the time a bad check would NOT indicate bad faith: I wrote a check, but I was changing direct deposit accounts at my employer to a new account. I transposed my account number, my paycheck didn't get deposited, my check bounced. Oops! I completely forgot that I wrote a check earlier in the week. I write the second check after…

Most of those do constitute "not knowing how to add up a list of numbers". Checking your balance before writing a check is not sufficient, as the examples demonstrate. This is almost a perfect example of 'bad faith' e.g. the check writer isn't diligently accounting for all of their expenses. What you 'mean' to do doesn't matter. Writing more checks than there are deposits to cover, is bad faith.

"Bad faith" means something different than you think it does. It's a willful intent to deceive. It does not cover negligence or carelessness.

I bounced a rent check once. I had forgotten another large check I had written 3 weeks prior, and it got to my account before the rent check did. I wrote both checks in good faith, but failed to do the proper accounting in my ledger.

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#86

Post by dharmon »

llamataboot wrote: post #83
dharmon wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also started playing poker a lot in college for "fun money", and was looking to step up my game. I went a different route, though. I did the math and realized that even at a very good hourly take, I would never make very much money, and that by going up to higher stakes tables if anything I would do worse. I didn't have much hope for tournaments either. A few years before this I had worked at a day trading firm. I…

Depends on your definition of money I guess. At my peak before I moved to heads-up I was playing about 4-8 tables of 10/20 shorthanded at a time and averaging about 1.5 BB/100 hands after the rake. 4-8 tables online is about 400 hands an hour so that's a take of approximately $120/hour. Granted they were grueling hours and no way could you really do 8 in a day. I could make more contracting programming now I guess, b…

Yeah, I figured the best I would ever do was around $100k / year, and with a huge time commitment.

I would not recommend day trading either. A long time ago you could find arbitrage opportunities, but those have been essentially squashed out for quite some time. I have seen technical traders who claim to have a read on things, but to be honest I don't see it. (There are a number of long-term successful commodity traders, but there are not many day traders in stocks who last)

I actually do longer-term fundamental-based investing (my average holding period is probably around 2-3 years). Initially it was way less money than poker, but had the huge advantage that it scales up pretty well (at least to numbers people actually care about) versus poker where I would've been stuck making the same amount. It also has the advantage that I can do it anywhere.

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#87

Post by Spooky23 »

mmastrac wrote: post #2

> But when Sun was arrested in 2007 for a $93,000 gambling debt owed to MGM, she vowed revenge What? How is that legal?

Gambling is a scummy business.

One of the reasons why I always eye roll when some sports nerd is passionately arguing about how allowing sports books is some sort of expression of freedom.

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#88

Post by Spooky23 »

dpark wrote: post #67
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of those do constitute "not knowing how to add up a list of numbers". Checking your balance before writing a check is not sufficient, as the examples demonstrate. This is almost a perfect example of 'bad faith' e.g. the check writer isn't diligently accounting for all of their expenses. What you 'mean' to do doesn't matter. Writing more checks than there are deposits to cover, is bad faith.

"Bad faith" requires intent. Carelessness is not "bad faith". It's negligence. I've had my debit card declined because I'd already withdrawn everything and failed to pay attention to the balance. If I'd written a check instead of using the debit card, it would have bounced instead of being declined. That's not bad faith. It's careless and embarrassing, but not bad faith.

In New York, you have 10 days to make good on the obligation.

http://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/article190.htm

I imagine in some of the nastier states, the law is harsher. IIRC, you can get 10 years in prison.

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#89

Post by erik998 »

This article was great. It made me remember reading Scarne's New Complete Guide to Gambling long time ago.

https://www.amazon.com/Scarnes-New-Complete-Guide-Gambling/d...

He has a great story of how gamblers would get casinos to increase betting limits and allow them to successfully use a martingale system. To this day, casino owners still fall for this and lose substantially.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_limit

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#90

Post by mattmaroon »

SonicSoul wrote: post #31
downandout wrote: post #22

For those of you that don't know, the primary character in this piece, James Grosjean, isn't just any advantage player, he is the advantage player. He wrote what is often referred to as the Bible of advantage play - Beyond Counting - and its sequel, Exhibit CAA: Beyond Counting . Both of these books are incredibly hard to find, and when they do come up for sale, often sell for thousands of dollars. Here's a current l…

I know it might be judgmental and possibly hypocritical, but I can't help but think that kind of intellect and education is wasted on trying to beat a casino. If money is the end goal, wouldn't there be a bigger opportunity in pursuing investment strategy ideas (i.e. market inefficiencies), or working on making some process more efficient that could disrupt some industry (i.e. spam/phishing detection, or deep learnin…

Money isn't the end goal. It's just the scoreboard. You do something like that because it's thrilling.

But yes, if money were your end goal, someone smart enough to pull that off could probably make more elsewhere.

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