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How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

nytimes.com

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Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#61

Post by s_q_b »

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.

It's a good reason to avoid serious casinos. With the gambling law contagion spreading through the Northeast, it's fairly easy to find newly opened casinos.

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#62

Post by llamataboot »

mod wrote: post #59
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…

This sounds a lot like my story, only with less money involved. I casino whored about a 4k bankroll, and then started playing poker with it. I played recreationally until I quit my job for other reasonse--by then I had a 5-digit bankroll and then I played professionally for a few years, specializing in HUSNGs. I should have done more casino whoring in the beginning, it was just free money.

I ended up specializing in heads-up limit cash games...until the bots came in...heads-up poker is a special game I think - meta-play can get really high with two skilled players. Definitely the hardest I've ever has to think at a high-level for hour after hour, used to end a session absolutely wiped out mentally and emotionally.

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#63

Post by DerekH »

simonswords82 wrote: post #55
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…

> 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…

Professional poker players streaming on Twitch is rising in popularity. You can learn quite a bit about the game by simply tuning in on a regular basis. There are people who play small stakes ($10-$100) and people who have streamed tournaments where they've won >$100k for a 1st place finish.

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#64

Post by PaulHoule »

I used to think my sister-in-law was impervious to the law probability because she plays the slots.

Then one day she noticed there was a scratch ticket where you could put the losing tickets into a raffle being held at the local casino and win a prize but you had to be present at the drawing. Well, she looked in the jar a few days before the drawing and estimated there were only about 50 tickets in the jar so she bought 80 tickets and put the losers in the jar and got her mother to put 20 in... And her mother won a trip to Las Vegas worth around $2000.

Which is the rub because people who look for this kind of thing are people who are serious about gambling and often they lose it back some other way.

I think of the many WSOP winners who immediately lose the money playing craps.

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#65

Post by gozur88 »

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…

Most of the professionals I ran across when I played poker seriously weren't the kind of people that achieve great things. You can't make it as a pro unless you're very intelligent, but there's usually a reason they settled on a job with no boss and no customers. They really, really don't like to be told what to do, say, or have very short time horizons.

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#66

Post by ap22213 »

the_watcher wrote: post #9

Casino (and gambling in general) benefit from the perception that they can be beaten. It's why they sell card counting books in the gift shops. While they'll shut down anything like card based craps that advantage players can just clean up on, they're generally perfectly fine with professional gamblers who work their asses off to get a slight advantage.

Years ago I worked on gaming software, and the inside word was that casinos loved when this kind of stuff was publicized. A popular book, a movie, an article in the NYT - pure gold for the casinos. And, many guessed that they actually paid for these types of stories to get out.

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#67

Post by dpark »

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" 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.

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#68

Post by gozur88 »

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.

That's what I was thinking. Everywhere I've been the dealer calls out new players and any nontrivial increase in the betting, from existing or new players, triggers a reshuffle.

Re: How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos

#70

Post by tedunangst »

MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #44
Waterluvian wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not legal in Canada. Debt isn't a criminal offense. I don't think they can arrest you. But maybe I'm confusing it for: they can't throw you in jail for debts.

It's also illegal in the US to jail someone for debts. The way they get around this in Nevada is to jail you for writing bad checks, which is fraud. THat is to say: intentionally writing a check you know will bounce is fraud and a crime, but in the event that a check you wrote bounces, it's hard to prove that you didn't know the check would bounce when you wrote it. So it's not really debtor's prison, but almost a lo…

In short, checks are more like cash than IOUs. If I give you $100 cash and it turns out to be magic disintegrating paper, we don't revert back to the "I owe you $100" state.
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