Bobby Vegas — The Smart Money Dance

A very interesting article (for me anyway), just posted in The Economist on the lengths smart money bettors go to once they’ve been ID’d. Mostly referring to UK betting, there’s plenty of info for U.S. bettors too.

I don’t consider myself “smart.” Possibly enlightened. Maybe swimming with the smarts, happy being a catfish, a scuffler.

When North Carolina opened sports betting, like any half-conscious advantage player, I took every sign up, netting over $1,000 (then used my NFL futures strategy, which I’m told is NOT smart, though I won three out of four seasons, then stopped).

But what really struck me in the article wasn’t just the inventive covers smarts used to avoid detection and get their bets in (like using beards, especially whales), but how thoroughly the books could detect and ID a square or a smart by the first bet, or sooner.

Did you use a debit card (square, good) or e cash? (smart, bad). Male? Or female? (Bad.) Type of bet placed? When was it placed? At posting? Bad. Are your bets smarter than the house’s from day one? (Very bad.)

Though illegal in some states, the smarts’ bets were restricted immediately.

The continuing automation of gaming makes it harder every day to implement advantage plays. It becomes increasingly important not just to play smart, but also coy or with covers. Or both. Using every advantage you can.

A Huntington Press book on blackjack strategy focused on how to effectively throw off the house by making certain bets that LOOKED square, but barely affected the player’s edge. Taking the minimal loss in edge was worth it compared to the reduced house heat.

In sports betting, a simple strategy is to throw in parlays. They’ll leave you alone.

There are areas in electronic game software that appear to deploy additional randomization when the software detects betting patterns particularly in e-roulette.

When e-roulette first came out, many games were deployed without software pattern-detection settings. Certain bias patterns occurred that could be exploited — for almost two years. Eventually, the house turned on the pattern-detection software, probably because the game wasn’t earning “enough.” Then when you played that same machine, as soon as a betting-pattern bias was detected, the ball speed changed. End of pattern.

Reading the manufacturers’ manuals revealed that the software was implementing “cheating-prevention” techniques almost as bad as old-school magnets.

I’m deploying strategy. So are they. Mine’s advantage play. There’s is illegal. Beyond calling Gaming Control, there was little I could do to stop it, except continue my relentless pursuit of advantage play … elsewhere.

They want losers. Period. In reality, I’m neither a square nor a smart. Just a scuffler. My goal? I don’t like to gamble. I like to win money. Play as long as possible, win some and lose as little as possible. The house doesn’t like that either.

Example: Just came back from a week in Vegas. My trip was free. The secret? Stay under the radar.

The adventure continues.