Category: Blackjack

Business Plan for a Blackjack Team

by Bob Fisher
(From Blackjack Forum Vol. XVI #2, Summer 1996)
© 1996 Blackjack Forum

Some of my ideas regarding blackjack team play:

A major concern of most blackjack teams is being able to trust their teammates. Using people you already know well is fine; but, the problem is it takes a long time to get to know people which reduces the number of possible teammates. Then there’s the possibility of the casinos recognizing the teammates through guilt by association, plus problems such as being available, etc.

My idea for team play requires three kinds of people:

• Type A: There are many people who have high-paying jobs or businesses that they can’t quit just to play blackjack. These people’s work, vacations, etc., take them to casino areas. They would like to supplement their income playing blackjack while they are in a casino area. They have the bankroll. Though they can be card counters, it isn’t necessary. Minimum requirements would be bankroll and blackjack basic strategy. They will only play for short periods (during their work-related trips/vacations).
• Type B: These people will be card counters who live in a casino area. They are not bums and do have small bankrolls, but cannot play high stakes with low ruin for a decent win rate. Poker players who know how to count, or could learn, are good candidates. Minimum requirements would be blackjack basic strategy and card counting knowledge and a small bankroll.
• Type C: These people would be middlemen to bring the other members of the blackjack team together. They would test and evaluate the prospective players. Applicants would contact the C players.

When an A player wants to go to a casino area, he calls the appropriate C player to let him know when he is coming. The C players contact the B players, trying to find 2 to 5 players that can join the A.

Prior to playing, the C player has the A and B players meet where and work out the details. Basically, the B players will play at several nearby tables, counting and making minimum bets. When they get a good count, they signal the A player who then joins that table unless playing successfully at one of the other tables.

Because the A player finds many more advantageous situations than he could if he played alone, he will except to win considerably more. Some of this extra win is shared with the B players, allowing the Bs to make more than they otherwise could with minimal risk and exposure. The B players shouldn’t expect to lose, but try to break even by leaving on very bad counts and raising their bets slightly on good counts. They should not use bet raises as signals to the A players to join the play. The B players keep their winnings and pay for their losses.

Since there is no commingling of money, honesty, though desirable, is not essential. Also, if the casino puts the A and B players together, the A player can have an entirely new set of B players on his next trip. The players can be constantly switched around, making putting them together difficult.

The B players also would not get burned out since they make minimum bets and use small spreads as they are only trying to break even or win small amounts. The casino may be further reluctant to harass B players if they give them other business such as poker or video poker. The A player would not be too concerned because he will not be a full time player and will travel a lot anyway, playing a few days here and there.

I don’t know of anyone who has suggested this idea of putting strangers together on a blackjack team before without the need to commingle money, and it’s associated problems. ♠

Fake ID: A Credit Card Under An Assumed Name

by Arnold Snyder
(From Blackjack Forum VIII #4, December 1988)
© Blackjack Forum 1988

[Note: This 1988 article is obsolete as far as the legality issues. Federal and state laws regarding identification became much stricter following 9/11 (2001). I’m including this article for historical purposes only. Loompanics Publishing, the fake ID specialists, have been out of business for decades. – A.S.]

In the last issue of Blackjack Forum, a correspondent (“Letters”) remarked that as a method of maintaining anonymity in the casinos, one might “… get a credit card under an assumed name. Some cards, such as Visa, permit this as a ‘second card’ provided the primary card holder assumes responsibility for the second user.” Blackjack Forum readers want to know: How is this done? Is this form of fake ID safe? Is this form of false identification legal? If you already have a credit card, it’s done very easily. You receive a solicitation by phone or in the mail from some out-of-state bank, offering you their Visa or Mastercard with a pre-approved line of credit. If you have a decent credit rating, you probably receive these solicitations frequently. If this is a mail solicitation, you can call the bank and say, “Gee, I’d like to thank you for preapproving me for your credit card, but I don’t realIy need another credit card right now. I was wondering if you’d send me a credit card in my nephew’s (or niece’s) name, who lives with me?” They will answer, “Of course, if you will assume responsibility.” You say, “I would like the card in his (or her) name, but I would like all billing and statements sent to me. I will be 100% responsible for paying the bills. But I don’t want my name on the card. I don’t want to have to co-sign for purchases. He (or she) is a student, with no credit history, and I would just like to set this up for emergencies.” They will say, “No problem. What is your nephew’s (or niece’s) name?” You will soon possess this credit card. Now, as for the next two questions: is this safe, and, is this legal? Well, the fact exists that you don’t have a nephew, or, if you do, you’re not him. The name you’ve given to the bank is phony. This may constitute fraud. You will find, however, that when you make reservations at a casino, using the card with the phony name, you will have no problem. If they run a check on the card, it’s valid. You will be known by your new name, no questions asked. In fact, you could have half a dozen valid credit cards in half a dozen different names — all, of course, from different banks — allowing you to be someone different at all of the casinos where you stay. So long as you pay your bills, you will probably never have a problem with the bank. Even if it were somehow discovered that you had a credit card in an assumed name, it’s unlikely you’d ever be prosecuted for fraud, since no one would be able to prove any damages (again, assuming you pay your bills). Various states have their own laws regarding fake l.D., its use, possession, etc. Most of these laws are designed to recover damages from defrauded parties. My advice, if you’re seriously considering this route, is to talk with your lawyer about possible repercussions in your state and/or other states where you may use such methods of protecting your identity for non-fraudulent purposes. There are also a couple of books in print that deal with this subject in depth — The Paper Trip I and The Paper Trip II. The Paper Trip I was first published in 1971, then revised in 1984, and updated again in 1987. This book never mentions gambling or blackjack, but it answers many questions of importance to card counters with regards to using fictitious names, false l.D., etc. Much of this book is a “how-to” guide — i.e., how to obtain a birth certificate in a name other than your own; how to obtain a driver’s license, state l.D. card, passport, various and sundry membership cards, credit cards, university degrees, etc. This book also discusses the issue of legality. It is not only possible, but relatively easy, for anyone to obtain multiple sets of authentic l.D., including driver’s licenses and credit cards, in various names. The Paper Trip has long been the classic “underground” reference work on this subject. The Paper Trip II was first published in 1977, then updated in 1987. This is a companion guide to the above book for the serious paper tripper. Although the original book contains all you need to know to obtain new l.D., this book makes it a lot easier by providing state by state breakdowns of exactly where to write for vital records, the fees, etc. There is also more information on obtaining social security cards, “counterfeit” I.D., and state by state laws regarding legal name changes. This book also contains various sample forms, a complete printout of the federal laws regarding the possession and use of identification and false identification, discussion of various state l.D. laws (including Nevada), etc. This book is recommended for authentic imposters only. Both books are published by Loompanics. ♠

Problems with Fundamental Math in Blackjack Ace Prediction

by Arnold Snyder

(From Blackjack Forum XXIV #2, Spring 2005)
© 2005 Blackjack Forum

I purchased my copy of David McDowell’s Blackjack Ace Prediction at the Gambler’s Book Shop in Las Vegas last month (January 2005). No errata sheet was provided and there is no instruction anywhere in the book to go to Dalton’s Web site for the errata sheet.

I have recently been alerted to the errata sheet for McDowell’s Blackjack Ace Prediction on Dalton’s Web site. Unfortunately, as ETFan has pointed out on other Web sites, the error in the page 114 formula that I addressed in my initial article is still there in the errata sheet. In fact, the situation with the errata sheet “correction” is even worse.

This math is not rocket science. It is simple, straightforward, and logical. It is based on the fundamental principles of blackjack math. David McDowell does not understand the mathematical logic of blackjack. So, I will try to explain this math. Dalton seems to think that McDowell has already addressed my concern. He has not. Please just try to follow…

According to the Errata sheet, McDowell says he made an error in his formula on page 114 (which is the formula I found fault with in my initial review of this book). The errata sheet “corrects” the formula by stating that instead of the dealer and player getting 6 additional aces each, they will be sharing a total of 6 extra aces, with only three extra aces each per 100 aces bet. The errata sheet “corrects” the player’s win rate with this assumption from 4.2% (as per the book) to 1.3% (per the errata sheet formula).

Again, McDowell is making a HUGE error. The same error with slightly different numbers.

Please follow the logic.

The errata sheet now assumes that the player and dealer will each get only 3 extra aces per 100 aces bet. Dalton’s errata sheet assumes, as per BJAP, that the ace is worth 51% when it lands on the player’s hand, and -34% when it lands on the dealer’s hand. The errata sheet now uses McDowell’s assumption that there are 7 “random” aces going to both the player and dealer per 100 aces bet, and 3 “predicted” aces going to each, for a total of 10 aces each per 100 aces bet. The errata sheet presents the math for this as follows:

E(X) = (+0.51 x 0.10) + (-0.34 x 0.10) + (-0.005 x 0.80)

= +0.051 – 0.034 – 0.004

= +.0130

Or, a 1.3% advantage when betting on an ace.

I do not know how to explain the math on this any more clearly than I did in my initial BJF article, but I will try. The MAJOR error McDowell is making is that he is assuming that the 80 hands where neither the player nor dealer get a first-card Ace are played with a house edge of only 0.50%.

This is a very important concept. Please pay attention to this: If neither the player nor the dealer are dealt a first-card Ace on any of these 80 hands, then the house edge is no longer 0.50% on these hands for the basic strategy player. That -0.50% basic strategy expectation assumes that the player and dealer will each get the random number of aces as a first card that would be expected to be dealt from a full six-deck shoe. As soon as you remove all of the random first-card aces from this set of 80 hands per 100 (which McDowell has done), then we must reconsider what the cost of these 80 hands with no first-card aces is.

Let me give an example that should clarify this error. The average number of “random” aces dealt as a first card to both the player and dealer is 1/13, or 7.7 first-card aces each per 100 hands. Exactly 1 out of every 13 cards in a six-deck shoe is an ace, so if we’re simply playing random hands, with no predictions, we would expect 7.7 aces per 100 hands since 7.7 is 1/13 of 100. The dealer would also get 7.7 aces per 100 hands.

Is this clear?

Here is how you find the error in McDowell’s formula:

McDowell estimates that the average number of aces per 100 hands is only 7, not 7.7. This is a minor error, but the math on it is so simple, I do not know why he did not just say 7.7 instead of 7. We are attempting to estimate an advantage here, so why not use the most precise number?

McDowell then says (as per the Errata sheet now) that the player and the dealer will each receive an extra 3 aces, for a total of 10 aces each. In his formula, he provides this number as a percentage (0.10) of the 100 aces bet on. He then figures out the expectation if the player and dealer each get 10 aces (0.10) per 100, and no aces are dealt on the other 80 (0.80) of the 100 aces bet on.

His mistake is in assuming that these 80 hands are played against the standard house edge of -0.50%. Note in the formula the last item: (-0.005 x 0.80), which is the notation for his mistaken calculation that 80% of the hands will be played at -0.005 (or -0.50%).

Here’s how you know the formula is WRONG.

What if we use this formula to calculate the player’s advantage when the player and dealer are each dealt exactly 7.7 aces per 100 aces bet (the exact number of aces that would occur at random with no prediction)? Here is what the formula gives us:

E(X) = (+0.51 x 0.077) + (-0.34 x 0.077) + (-0.005 x 0.846)

= +0.03927 – 0.02618 – 0.00423

= +.00886

If this were correct, it would mean that a basic strategy player, getting just the random number of aces (7.7 per 100), and with a dealer also getting 7.7 random aces, would be winning at almost a +0.9% win rate. But we’re assuming that in this game the house has a 0.50% advantage over the player. So, why isn’t our result on this completely random basic strategy game -0.50%?

The reason is because of McDowell’s incorrect assumption about the 84.6% of the hands (100% -7.7% -7.7%) that are played when neither the player nor the dealer is dealt a first-card Ace. He is making the mistake of assuming that on these other 84.6 hands per 100, the player’s expectation is the same as in a 6-deck game where those random first-card aces are included.

The house edge on hands which do not contain an ace is not the same as the edge on hands where a random ace occurs. It’s only when you combine the house edge on the ace hands with the house edge on the non-ace hands that you get an overall player expectation of -0.50%.

If we separate out our basic strategy edge on the 7.7 hands per 100 when the player is dealt a random ace (51% player expectation) and the 7.7 hands per 100 when the dealer is dealt a random ace (-34% player expectation), and we want to know the overall expectation for the basic strategy player on all 100 hands played, then we have to figure out what the player expectation is when neither the player nor the dealer is dealt an ace. This is a fairly simple calculation if we use Griffin’s numbers from Theory of Blackjack. If neither the player nor dealer is dealt an ace as a first card, the house edge is approximately 2.13%. Let’s try this number in McDowell’s expectation formula:

E(X) = (+0.51 x 0.077) + (-0.34 x 0.077) + (-0.0213 x 0.846)

= +0.03927 – 0.02618 – 0.01802

= -0.00493

Which shows the basic strategy player’s expectation to be about -0.49%, just about exactly what we expect.

You do not need a computer simulation to know this. This is long-established, fundamental blackjack math.

So, if the dealer and player are each getting 10 aces per 100 aces bet, as per McDowell’s errata sheet, then the correct math is:

E(X) = (+0.51 x 0.010) + (-0.34 x 0.010) + (-0.0213 x 0.80)

= +0.051 – 0.034 – 0.01704

= -0.00004

which is a -0.004% expectation for the player.

In other words, if the dealer and player each get 10 aces per 100 bet, instead of 7.7 aces per 100 bet, then the house no longer has a 0.50% advantage over the player, but only a 0.004% advantage.

Unfortunately, 10 aces per 100 is not quite enough aces to get the player an advantage over the house, if the dealer is also getting 10 aces per 100. The house still has a slight edge. Does this sound impossible to you? Consider what 10 aces per 100 means to the player who would normally get only 7.7 per 100.

This is an extra 2.3 aces (not 3, as McDowell claims) per 100 aces bet on. That means that for every 43 times that you bet on an ace, you will get one more ace than normal expectation. So, if you are betting on 4 aces per shoe (as per McDowell), you will get one extra ace every 11 shoes.

Unfortunately, the player advantage from getting this extra ace will be cut by the dealer also getting one extra ace every 11 shoes.

I do not know how to make the math any more clear than that.

If McDowell’s “correction” is right, and the dealer and player expect to get 10 aces each per 100 bet by the player, then there is no advantage whatsoever to the player using McDowell’s system.

McDowell then goes on in Dalton’s errata sheet to show what happens “if the dealer can be prevented from getting the ace.” This section is entirely without explanation. This is not acceptable. It is extremely important to know how the dealer is prevented from getting the ace, and an expectation cannot be calculated without specifying this information. Since the first formula shows the dealer and player splitting the 6 extra aces, then in order to prevent the dealer from getting his share of extra aces, either the player must spread to more hands in order to get the aces that would have gone to the dealer, or the aces must go to a hand played by someone else, possibly a civilian. In the first example, where the player spreads to two hands to get the ace on a big bet, we could give the player 13 aces, but we would have to show that the player is now placing 200 bets (not 100) in order to capture the dealer’s aces. In the second example, where a civilian hand is catching the dealer’s share of extra aces, then the formula should show the player is getting his 10 aces, and the dealer is getting only his 7.7 random aces.

(I want to make it clear that I am NOT saying that by spreading to two hands you can prevent the dealer getting extra aces. I am using two hands in this example only to illustrate the principle, not to provide a practical guideline.)

Unfortunately, neither of these methods are shown in the errata sheet formula. The player is shown getting all 6 extra aces, but only playing a single hand (100 hands total). The dealer is shown getting only 7 (not 7.7) aces. And the other 80 hands where no first-card aces are dealt are still being shown with a house edge of only 0.50%, not 2.13%.

I don’t even know how to correct this formula unless McDowell can describe the mechanism by which “the dealer can be prevented from getting the ace.“

If you want to put the numbers into the formula yourself, go ahead. I’ll spare you the math. If the player is spreading to two hands, placing 200 bets total to get all the extra aces, he actually does have a win rate: +0.12%.

On the other hand, if there is a convenient civilian at the table, ready to catch the dealer’s aces at no charge to the player, so the player is placing only 100 bets but still getting just a total of 10 aces to the dealer’s 7.7, the player also has a positive advantage: +0.07%.

So, in this example, spreading to two hands is the better strategy, assuming that you prefer to make +0.12% instead of +0.07%. But neither strategy is of any interest whatsoever to the player who is trying to make money by ace tracking.

Here is the problem: David McDowell didn’t go through the hard work necessary to test the theories he presented in Blackjack Ace Prediction. As a result, he never learned how to track or sequence aces. He never came to understand the techniques, the problems, or fundamental blackjack math, a problem we find with many non-players who profess to be “blackjack experts.” ♠

Blackjack in Ecuador – Casinos, Rules, Limits, and Adventure

by BJ Traveller
(From Blackjack Forum XXIII #2, Summer 2003)
© Blackjack Forum 2003

Overall Ecuador Blackjack Observations

Some casinos in Ecuador offer full Early Surrender in addition to dealer stands on soft seventeen (S17), double after splits (DAS), double on any two cards (DA2), European no-hole card (with dealer blackjacks taking doubles and splits), on 6-deck games with 66% penetration. The limits are low, however, with most maximums in the $30 to $50 range. Card counting blackjack players should be able to cover travel expenses but not expect a big win.

Major Casinos in Ecuador

Quito Colon Hilton MRP Casino (MRP has been running casinos for over 50 years). There is only one MRP casino in Quito, the capital city of Equador, and it has a higher tolerance of winning players than other casinos here. There are three MRP casinos at Guayaquil, the largest city of the country. The Guayaquil casinos will react faster to card counters and will inform all other MRP properties about you. The other 10 casinos in Quito are not worthwhile to play.

Risks: Normal travel precautions should be taken as with any low-income country.

Foreign Exchanges: No control.

Transportation: Cheap taxis.

Accommodations: Can be easily arranged by the airport Service Center.

Blackjack Traveling in Quito and Colon, Ecuador

Equador is the smallest country in South America with 15 million people,1.5 million of whom live in Quito. Quito is the second highest elevation capital city in the world at 8,500 feet above sea level. The Galapagos Islands are the main attraction for foreign visitors because Darwin invented his theory of evolution there.

The airport Service Center arranged the Hotel Quito for us (my girl friend and I), for which we paid $54 a night including breakfast and airport transfer. Taxi fare costs less than $3 within the city. We went to a restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet and ordered the $6 seafood plate, only to have it cost us $11.50 (it was mediocre).

There was a rotten casino called Reynabel nearby the hotel that was not among those on the casino list I printed from Casinocity.com. There were but two small blackjack tables here with $10 and $20 maximums, but at 8 p.m. they still were not open! We took a bus to visit Saqisili market where they sold clothes, carpets and agricultural products. We were shocked to see a woman peeing on the roadside. We had dinner at Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant, spending $10.

Crown Plaza has the second largest casino here, but with poor rules (Early Surrender against 10—ES10–only) and penetration (66%). We then went to a very small casino called Tambo Real. It offered the same poor rules but the dealer mistakenly gave us $10 chips for $5! We left with a small win.

We headed for Colon, and though the table limits were low at $0.50 to $10, $1 to $25, and $2 to $50, we won $2,200 in 4 hours. We doubled A8 on our last hand, taking away the dealer’s 9 that would have made a dealer 21. One good thing is that the dealers seemed to be competing for the world speed-dealing championship. As a result, most dealt eight shoes an hour, giving us 60% extra play.

Colon is a world heritage site with many old churches and buildings. We walked into a small market that sells clothes. A woman cut my friend’s purse for her accomplice, while my friend caught her hand in the purse and yelled! The assailant ran away while waving a fruit knife at us. We went to three police stations to get a certificate (in Spanish) for insurance purposes. Later we learned that this Ipiales Market is very well known for pick-pocketing.

On our return to the casino, Colon welcomed us back warmly. We won $1,870 in five hours, a net figure after accounting for $55 in tips. In addition to Early Surrender, this casino offers Early Surrender after Doubling (basic strategy calls for surrendering stiffs against dealer’s 8 and up, and doubling on 11 against dealer’s 10). The rule gives an extra +0.15 EV for the player.

Mark Dace wished to join us, so we made a quick visit to all the casinos on my list to decide whether Colon was the only playable one in town. It was. But Colon would not open a new table for us on our third casino assault, which took place on a busy Saturday night.

Instead, we were asked to play at a $0.25 table with a $50 maximum limit. So we played five boxes, winning $700 in two hours.

An elderly lady bet $1 on one of my boxes (I had a bet of $20 on the same box). She would not surrender “my” 14 against the dealer’s 10. The dealer said the elderly lady owned the box despite the fact that I had been playing the box for quite some time.

After much discussion, the elderly lady finally gave up and left. Almost immediately, a large man who appeared to be of Korean descent joined the game and started to play two boxes. He asked rudely for my fifth box after several rounds of play. I ignored him and kept betting $2 at that box. He reluctantly bet behind me.

When I attempted to hit my 12 against the dealer’s 7 up card, he opposed my decision, claiming that he was betting bigger with his $10 wager. The dealer backed him up and allowed him stand on “my” 12. He played $50 on the next hand on my box. I continued to bet $2. The dealer pushed my money away. I complained. The Korean man jumped up and scowled at me. I ignored him. While this situation was unfolding, I was giving serious consideration to getting a bodyguard. The casino manager came to comfort the other player as if I was their common enemy. The player collected his money and left.

I kept on playing. Another Korean guy then joined the game. He asked politely for my fifth box and I agreed. The first Korean man came back and watched as I played five boxes of $50 and won them all. He cheered for me. I pointed to the fifth box and said, “All I want is a please.” We shook hands and played together until 4 a.m., which was the casino closing time. I won $1,600. The total win from Quito (mainly Colon) had amounted to $6,200 so far.

We went to take the Cotopaxi Mountain train recommended by the guidebook. It allowed for passengers to sit on the train top, but we hadn’t worn clothes warm enough for such an adventure. Foreigners were charged five times more on fares than the locals. It took two and half hours one way and the train waited an hour for passengers going to the cloud forest only.

We went to the good rules casino, Reynabel, but it was still closed. So we could only go back to poor overworked Colon. The casino manager was surprised when he saw me shake hands with the Korean gentleman. While in the casino, we met a guy who would later go with us to the rain forest. You can arrange a rain forest trip from Ecuador for a price of $400 for 6 nights including airfare.

The casino manager encouraged small bettors to play at my table. An Israeli student, who was learning Spanish while there, was playing the minimum of $0.50. He liked to split 10s, which cost me dearly. I hinted to him that he shouldn’t be doing that but he claimed it was an advantage move for him. I pointed out that his $1 win cost us a few hundred. He left soon after. Almost immediately, a new player joined. I had been betting behind a local guy who played basic strategy. The new player invited me to do the same. However, after observing him standing on his 15 against dealer’s 10, I withdrew my initial vote of confidence in him. He lost hundreds while I won $2,220.

There was a craft market near Colon and a Sunday market with a park facing it. The markets here sold better goods than we had seen in other markets in the country. I also went to see the Natural Museum; however, in my humble opinion, it was not worthwhile.

I played higher at Colon on my next casino visit, betting $20 off the top of a freshly shuffled shoe. The night started with a $700 loss but I ended up winning $710. The casino manager seemed very disappointed. Luckily, from the casino’s bottom line standpoint, the Korean gentleman lost $5,000.

Blackjack in Guayaqil, Ecuador

Our next city stop was to be Guayaquil, a southern city with a population of about two million people—the largest in the country. I met a businessman from my home country who was going there and I decided to join him in order to give Colon a break. Between his party and mine, there were seven of us, including my friend’s local contact, so we rented a van. My fellow countryman arranged a surprise brunch at a trout farm. We fished and caught nine rainbow trout for the chef to cook. These trout sold for $18 a kilo in my country but cost only $3 here.

After our meal, we dove down from the high plain. This small country has twice the average number of bird species (1,600) of all of North America. We stayed at a villa adjacent to a golf course. The villa’s owner was a friend of our local friend. The 60 acres of land was worth, I was told, half a million dollars and had 350 kinds of birds within its boundaries. We dined with humming birds flying around.

Guayaquil was named after Guaya, the Mayan king, and his queen, Quil. It was lively, hot and wet. We got a $54 room through my friend’s connection but paid $5.60 a minute for international calls.

There were four casinos in Guayaquil. Three (Unipark, Colon, and Oro Verde) were MRPs. The independent Ramada had the best game: 6D, S17, ES (including after doubling), 2 to 1 on suited blackjacks, unlimited full double after double, 3 to 1 for 777, and 7 to 1 on 7-card 21s. All of that and the shuffle was trackable! Basic strategy players, of which we saw none in this city, had an edge of over 1% off the top on this game. The table maximum was $30 per box and up to 7 boxes could be played by one player. I played seven boxes at maximum bets trying for $130 an hour expected value but ended up down $2,066 for the first night.

My friend bought 24 crabs and brought them to a Chinese restaurant for cooking. The owner said he played often at casinos and believed them to be honest. He also said the city was safe.

There was a park near our hotel known as Iguana Park, with about 50 iguanas climbing around. Locals believe that iguanas change to humans at night and, as a result, leave them alone. Conversely, some Chinese people have been known to pay $1,400 a head to eat them.

Mark Dace, who has traveled to many destinations with me, finally joined me from Las Vegas. He brought more specific and intricate strategies on the Ramada game such as doubling 8 against dealer’s 4 and 5, doubling 9 against 7, and doubling A2 through 4 against 3 when the true count was equal to or higher than plus 1.

We played at Ramada together. The casino was a tad scary. For example, there was a sign at the front door requiring that everyone leave their guns before entering. There was a certain comfort in having another trusted companion with us. Outside of the Ramada game, which had only two tables, we then split for higher action. I won $1,000 early in the day at Oro Verde (the Ramada was only open in the evening). On day #2 at the Ramada, we both lost. My end of the loss was $1,300.

We agreed the casino did not cheat, and that the initial losses were simply a byproduct of standard deviation. Day #3 produced a total group win of $4,000 while we both played at the same table.

The casino paid us partly in $5 bills. We took that as a bad sign that perhaps they didn’t have much money on hand and that the ceiling on our upside was possibly lower than our potential downside. Even so, although we had planned to leave Guayaquil to fly to Galapagos, we decided to play more at the Ramada for as long as they could stand it.

On day #4, we won $4,000 again while playing at the same table together and through some nicely tracked shuffles. At this point, we were not sure whether to press our luck at the Ramada or to play at other casinos. Mark wanted to keep on playing, predicting that the casino would change rules. We continued to play but cashed in our excess chips more frequently.

On day #5, we lost $1,400 very quickly to a tough (non-busting) dealer. I called it quits for the day. Mark stubbornly kept on playing and lost $1,900. I had won $3,000 earlier in the day from the three MRPs.

On day #6, we went back for revenge. Mark lost doubling A2 three times. I doubled my A2 four times to form a 6-card hard 17. The next card was a 4! I would have had a 7-card 21 and won $7,000 if I had doubled again. I felt tired and left earlier with a $700 win. Mark won $850.

My girlfriend and I went to the new history park while Mark was busy at Internet gaming. There was a small zoo with piglets and three-toed sloths.

On day #7 dawned the first rule change. The Ramada canceled the 7-card 21 bonus sensing the $7,000 risk. The tough dealer was glued to our table for seven hours, resting only for toilet breaks. We lost $1,400 to him despite the fact that he was the most trackable shuffler.

Day #8 found us to be the only blackjack players on a Friday night despite the great rules. I won $1,750, while Mark lost $850 playing at the same table.

Mark had only two nights left. We went back to the Ramada Saturday night and won $4,000 in 6 hours. We decided to leave early (the casino closed at 4 a.m.), as there were many strangers milling around the casino and we had already received many small bills while cashing in that evening. When we (that is, Mark and I, as my girlfriend didn’t come out of a fear of being barred) left at 3 a.m., there was no taxi. This was very unusual. We left with close to $10,000. The casino security found a taxi for us that had no sign on it to designate it as such. We held the door handles on both sides and were ready to jump out at the first sign of a wrong turn.

Back to Colon for More Blackjack

On the last night I went to the Colon casino. Casino security tried to talk to me, but they were stopped by the casino manager before they could convey their thoughts. I thought perhaps I was not wearing formal enough attire. I lost $2,000, and then, while exiting, was told not to come back. Afterward, I wondered if I would have been paid had I won or, if I had started winning, at what point they would have stopped me. Once again, there was the risk of a big downside with a small or no upside.

With no more MRP casinos for us to profit from, we headed once again for Ramada. Here we found what we knew was inevitable. They had drastically changed the rules, canceling all favorable rules, and they limited our bets to a $20 minimum and a $40 maximum.

As Mark had shown an interest in the poker table at some point during the trip, the casino owner invited Mark to play Texas Hold’em with him that evening or the next day. Mark was leaving the next day but he did not want the owner to know so he stated that he would play him the following evening. However, Mark left without having joined the poker game as he didn’t like the “home field advantage” the casino owner had with his table, his cards and his own dealer. My girl friend and I left for the beach town of Salinas. There were two casinos there and an interesting 8,000-year-old “lovers’ tomb” at the “Las Vegas” area.

The Barecelo Colon Mirama, an MRP casino, was not open on Monday, so we played at the Calypsso Casino, which had the same good Ramada rules. We won a total of $30 with the table maximum of $10 per box. The casino would not raise the limits.

On the next session, we won $500 in three hours. The casino changed dealers frequently (like a bad bullpen that keeps trotting out another pitcher). We lost back our profits to the last of many dealers. The casino owner sat at our table’s third base position and started whistling along with the music that was playing as our profits for the day dwindled down to nothing. He stopped whistling as soon as we began to win again and decided to close the table early. My girlfriend was not keen on playing at such a small joint, fearing they might go over the edge and do something drastic. I didn’t think a $10 maximum casino would do something funny.

At the Colon Miramar, we were stopped at the entrance and forced to wait. We were not let in. With all of our options taken away in the southern part of the country, I went back to Quito, and the Quito Colon specifically, to change a $100 chip I had found. My girl friend would not go to the casino. Surprisingly, I was welcomed warmly. We won $50 and $1,200 in two nights. We stopped early the second night hoping to lengthen our playing life, which was a mistake as the news from the casinos in Guayaquil finally arrived in the form of a letter.

We ended up winning $18,500 from the country of Ecuador playing blackjack. That number is equal to approximately ten years income of an average Ecuadorian.

Two months later, Mark walked into the Bellagio poker room and was surprised to find the owner of the Ecuador Ramada casino there playing 20/40 hold’em. Mark joined the game and early on the two of them were in two pots heads up. Mark won both pots. The Ramada owner left $2 on the table to save his seat but never returned! Victory is sweet whether it be on foreign or domestic soil! ♠

A New Roulette Strategy from an Old Play

by Arnold Snyder
(From Blackjack Forum Vol. XXIX #1, February 2013)
© 2013 Arnold Snyder

Roulette Culture

The most surprising thing for a blackjack player about the transition to roulette is the culture shock. Blackjack has had a few staid decades now since the transition to corporate casinos and shoe games and auto-peek devices. (It’s getting less staid again with all the new hand-held games that have been launched since the invention of bad payouts on naturals).

But roulette is like going back to the days when dealers peeked and Mickey MacDougall had to be at the table to protect Thorp from card mechanics. The thing to remember is that those were also the golden days before Beat the Dealer had been published, when the handful of people who had figured out how to beat the game had the opportunities all to themselves.

One way that roulette differs from modern blackjack is that at most U.S. casinos there is either no fixed dealing procedure for the game, or whatever procedure is in place is never enforced, except when it comes to payouts. Casinos are universally strict about procedures for roulette payouts. But everything else is up for grabs.

In recent weeks of looking at roulette in Las Vegas, I’ve seen dealers who were clearly trying to aim for players give the ball less than three spins. Most dealers have been giving the no-more-bets wave 3 to 4 spins from the time the ball falls off the wheel track, but it hasn’t been unusual to see dealers waving off bets ten or twelve spins out, even when big action players are still trying to get their bets onto the layout.

These dealers seem to have no awareness at all that many players prefer to bet after the spin and that this is a long-standing tradition in the game. The reason it’s a long-standing tradition is that players believe dealers can steer the ball and worry that dealers will try to steer against them. Dealers who wave off right after the spin seem to have no clue that action roulette players will keep chunking out chips on the layout as long as they are allowed to, and that dealers who wave off such players ten or twelve spins out are costing the house money. Inexplicably, the house allows this.

Between spins, some dealers remove the ball from the wheel and set it on the table, while others leave the ball in the wheel and only pick it up again when it’s actually time to launch the next spin.

Some dealers spin the wheel by giving the rotor edge a light nudge with their fingertips; other dealers grab a fret (the divider between pockets) and shove it to boost wheel speed.

Dealers are allowed to spin the wheel at any speed they want, even when the wheel speed is causing the ball to fly out of the wheel and off the table repeatedly during their shifts. No one in the pit seems to care about delaying the game to hunt down the ball and respin. When players at the table (typically Europeans) complain about the wheel speed, they are ignored.

To summarize, in the U.S. every roulette dealer seems to have his or her own idea of how the game ought to be run, and, with the exception of payout procedures, every one of them is allowed to deal the game however he or she wants.

To get an idea of how bizarre the lack of procedural uniformity is for U.S. roulette, imagine a world in which blackjack games were dealt with a similar lack of standards. Some dealers would be dealing one deck of a six-deck shoe, others would be dealing three decks, and others would be dealing every last card to the bottom. Some dealers would deal the game face up, while others, at their own discretion, would allow players to pick up the cards with one or both hands.

Imagine playing blackjack at a table where the cards dealt regularly flew past the table edge and landed on the players’ laps or the floor, or at a casino where every dealer could deal from either the top of the deck or the bottom of the deck on any hand, and use the auto-peek device or peek manually according to her mood. Think of what it would be like if every dealer was permitted to design his own shuffling procedure, or just move the cards from the discard tray into the dealing shoe without a shuffle whenever he felt like it.

That would be the rough equivalent of roulette as it currently exists in the U.S., especially Las Vegas. At no other casino game that I’m aware of does the dealer wield such absolute control over dealing procedures. Blackjack players familiar with standardized dealing procedures and dealers whose attitudes toward the players don’t affect the outcome of the game will be amazed by the loose roulette dealing culture.

I haven’t scouted roulette in Europe or elsewhere in the world, except for parts of Canada, so it may be different elsewhere. This article will focus on roulette as dealt in the U.S.

Roulette Culture from the Players’ Perspective

I’ll discuss the debate over roulette dealer signature and section shooting (or ball steering) directly below, but for the purposes of discussing roulette culture from the players’ perspective, I want you to just assume, for the moment, that some skilled roulette dealers can steer the ball accurately enough, frequently enough, to alter the house edge on the game, either in favor of the house or player.

All hardcore roulette players believe that dealers can “section shoot”—meaning steer the ball to the area around a desired number. Squares who get to Vegas only once or twice in a lifetime bet birthdays, anniversaries and other lucky numbers—typically one chip per number. There’s often no way for the dealer to aim for a table of these types—if there are two or three of them at table, they may cover every number on the layout with a single chip. It never occurs to such players to team up on a number and give the dealer something to aim at. These players bet before the spin and sit there placidly, waiting for luck to strike them or not—the ideal casino customers. They play small and, when their buy-ins are gone, they leave the table.

Hard core roulette players, by contrast, not only stack up their chips on a sector for the express purpose of giving the dealer something to aim at, but expect the dealer to deliver. I get the feeling from European roulette players that dealers in Europe are more widely competent at steering than dealers in the U.S.. European players get really pissed off when a dealer seems unable to hit a big sector.

Sometimes you’ll see a conflict at the table—one action player betting a sector around zero, for example, while another action player bets a sector around the 17. But usually one of these players will concede the battle fairly quickly, so everyone can team up and avoid diluting their results. If they don’t team up on one sector, they all tend to start betting both sectors. They all want to be in on the win if the dealer should start to aim.

I don’t mean that action players at roulette actually expect to win—they don’t, because they virtually never do. One reason they never do is because they bet too big of a sector (or too many sectors) for any dealer, no matter how skilled, to hit frequently enough to be able to overcome the house edge on all those bets.

Another reason such players lose is because it never seems to occur to them that what the dealer giveth, either through luck or skill, the dealer will soon taketh away. After these players get a few hits, they stack the chips higher or spread out on more numbers, and they quickly give their winnings back, plus some. Action roulette players seem comfortable with this arrangement. All they seem to expect is that the dealer will give them a decent amount of play and excitement for their money—significantly more play and excitement than they are likely to get without help at a game with a house edge of 5.26%.

At casinos or on shifts or in pits where virtually all of the dealers do seem to follow a strict house dealing procedure, or where none of them can steer, a crowd of hardcore action roulette regulars never seems to form. That’s because hardcore action roulette players tend to test dealers before they’ll commit any significant amount of money at their tables. Action players who buy in, stack up their chips in a sector, and get wiped out in two or three spins leave the table or the casino in disgust for a dealer who knows what he’s doing.

The Debate Over Roulette Dealer Signature and Steering

As I mentioned above, hardcore roulette players tend to believe that dealers can steer the ball to the area around a desired number. This belief is shared by many dealers and casino personnel.

Casino management consultants and gambling experts, on the other hand, have almost universally denied the possibility. Let me first lay out the recent history of the debate, and then I’ll provide my response to each aspect of the argument.

As I pointed out in “The Roulette Debate Heats Up” (Blackjack Forum Vol. XII #1, March 1992—link at the upper left) John Scarne, in his 1978 revision of Scarne’s Guide to Casino Gambling, states in response to a reader’s question about roulette dealer steering:

The modern wheel, with its obstacles on the bottom track of the bowl, together with the fact that the croupier must spin the wheel and ball in opposite directions and must spin the ball from the last number into which it dropped, makes [steering or section shooting] an impossible feat even for the greatest of all Roulette croupiers. I once heard a lady friend of mine ask a croupier in a Las Vegas casino if he could drop the ball into any slot he wished. “Lady,” he said, “if I could do that I wouldn’t be working here. I’d have been worth millions years ago.”

In some makeshift casinos throughout the country you may, however, find croupiers who can drop the little white ball into any predetermined group of 12 adjacent numbers on the wheel. Doc Winters, an old-time crooked Roulette dealer, could even drop the ball into any six-numbered section he desired. But this can only be done by spinning wheel and ball in the same direction and using a wheel that has no obstacles. You can guard against this sort of cheating by not placing your bets until after wheel and ball are spinning, just before the croupier announces that no further bets are allowed.

Russell Barnhart, in his 1992 book Beating the Wheel, has a chapter titled “Can the Croupier Control the Ball?” He describes a meeting between himself and a couple of European gambling experts and says this:

There was one point on which we all agreed. No croupier can ever consciously influence, even in the slightest degree, the ultimate destination of the ball as it circles the roulette wheel. Indeed, no croupier can get it into even a predesignated half of the wheel, let alone into 1, 2, or 3 favored numbers.

Barnhart goes on to quote Alois Szabo, one of the people at the meeting:

In theory it seems not impossible that an adroit croupier with tremendous experience might succeed in directing the ball according to his wish, but he could do so only if he could spin as he wanted and if there were no obstacles to divert the ball on the border of the roulette machine.

Szabo goes on to say that numerous roulette dealers had told him that directing the ball was impossible. He wrote, “One of them told me that in the Roulette School he and his colleagues tried countless times not to spin but simply to drop the ball into a certain number, and even in this they succeeded very rarely.”

Szabo also wrote that the most experienced croupiers, after a lifetime of practice, agreed “that only under the following conditions could one possibly succeed in spinning the ball into a predetermined section of the wheel:”

1. If the spinner could throw from a fixed point in every instance.
2. If, each time he does so, the wheel were turning in the same direction as the ball.
3. If the wheel were always turning at the same speed.
4. If he could always spin with the same hand.
5. If, and this is most important, there were no obstacles [canoes or ball stops] on the machine.

Ironically, Barnhart says later in his book that he believes in dealer signature (the unconscious creation of an exploitable pattern in spin results, based on fixed dealing habits), which strikes me as illogical. If the obstacles and other factors that he identifies actually worked to randomize results too much to allow conscious dealer steering to a predictable number, they would also randomize results for ball spins that weren’t consciously aimed.

In any case Barnhart refers to Stephen Kimmel as a recent proponent of the idea of unconscious dealer signature. In fact, he says Stephen Kimmel came up with the term “dealer’s signature.” The basic idea of dealer signature is that a person who deals roulette eight hours a day 50 weeks a year will tend to develop routines that would create predictable results for the dealer’s ball spins. Kimmel published his views on roulette in an article titled “Roulette and Randomness” in the December 1979 issue of Gambling Times.

Kimmel suggested scouting for dealer signature by looking for a series of results a similar number of pockets apart. If you’re walking by a roulette wheel, for example, and you see on the reader board that the last five results are 1-19-23-30-34-27 (on an American wheel), you are looking at results that are all eight pockets back from the previous result (an extremely unlikely occurrence). Kimmel said you’d need to see at least 50 spins before you started to bet, but he tracked 199 spins before betting on a dealer in Las Vegas.

Barnhart says many more spins than that would be required. I will quickly point out that the number of trials required to ascertain exploitable dealer signature would depend on how strong the signature was—a weaker pattern of results would require more results to confirm an exploitable signature than a strong, consistent pattern of results.

Ed Thorp on Dealer Signature and Steering

Ed Thorp addresses Kimmel’s dealer signature article in the roulette chapter of his book, The Mathematics of Gambling (Gambling Times, 1984). He writes that for dealer signature to be exploitable three factors must be consistent from spin to spin: rotor speed, ball revolutions, and the position of the rotor at ball launch.

Thorp also provides a formula for statistical analysis of roulette that has since become key in the arguments of all gambling experts who maintain that dealer steering and signature cannot occur. Thorp instructs analysts to gather data on the number of revolutions the ball makes between release and crossing onto the rotor, and to state the results as the “average number of revolutions plus an error term.”

Next, the analyst should count the number of revolutions the rotor makes during each of these ball spins, and again compute the average number of revolutions, plus a second error term. Finally, Thorp instructs roulette analysts to “count how far the ball travels on the rotor after it has crossed the divider between the rotor and the stator.” These results should again be summarized as an average distance (in pockets or revolutions) plus an error term.

To tie it all together, Thorp says that for a dealer’s “signature” to be exploitable, “it is necessary that the square root of the sums of the squares of the error terms be less than 17 pockets.” In other words, if the dealer’s average ball spin is 10 revolutions, plus or minus 10 pockets, and his average rotor spin during each ball spin is six revolutions, plus or minus 19 pockets, and the average ball roll is 19 pockets, plus or minus 19 pockets, you square each error term and add them up: (10 x 10) + (19 x 19) + (19 x 19) = 100 + 361 + 361 = 822. Now take the square root of 822, which is 28.7.

Thorp provides a table that shows the rate of return given various root mean square errors (“Typical Error E”). This table is reproduced below. If you look at Thorp’s table, a Typical Error E of 28-29 pockets would have you betting at a disadvantage of 5.26% (the house edge on an American wheel) if you were trying to exploit dealer signature in this situation.

	Percent Advantage Betting on Best:
Typical Error E (No. of Pockets)	Pocket	Octant
0	3500.00	620.00
1	1278.53	611.06
2	610.69	467.86
3	376.52	328.65
4	258.12	236.98
5	186.76	175.71
6	139.09	132.62
7	105.00	100.89
8	79.41	76.65
9	59.54	57.60
10	43.77	42.38
11	31.19	30.18
12	21.24	20.52
13	13.54	13.03
14	7.73	7.37
15	3.47	3.24
16	0.46	0.30
17	– 1.62	– 1.72
18	– 3.01	– 3.07
19	– 3.90	– 3.94
20	– 4.46	– 4.49
21	– 4.81	– 4.82
22	– 5.01	– 5.02
23	– 5.13	– 5.13
24	– 5.19	– 5.19
25	– 5.23	– 5.23
26	– 5.24	– 5.25
27	– 5.25	– 5.25
28	– 5.26	– 5.26
29	– 5.26	– 5.26
30	– 5.26	– 5.26
31	– 5.26	– 5.26
∞	– 5.26	– 5.26

Thorp goes on to explain that his own observations of roulette dealers in action indicate that the error terms at each stage will be too large to make dealer signature exploitable.

My own observation is that the dealer error in the number of revolutions for the ball spin is about 20 pockets for the more consistent dealers; it is much larger with a less consistent one. I also noticed that the rotor velocity is not nearly as constant as Kimmel would like…

It is also true that the deflecting vanes on the sides of the rotor add considerable randomness to the outcome [of the ball travel after it has crossed onto the rotor], as do the frets or spacers between the pockets. The upshot is that I don’t believe that any dealer is predictable enough to cause a root mean square error of less than 17 pockets.”

Thorp uses the same formula to dismiss the idea of roulette dealer steering. He believes, based on his own observation and data, that the variance in dealer ball spin, wheel speed, ball launching point and ball roll upon entering the rotor will be too high for the dealer to either steer the ball or have an exploitable dealing signature.

Steve Forte, in his excellent book Casino Game Protection (Las Vegas: SLF Publishing, 2004), relies heavily on Thorp’s formula when he concludes that it’s impossible for dealer steering to exist (see his subchapter titled “The 17 Rule” in his chapter on roulette). He argues that it will be impossible for any dealer to meet the requirement of Thorp’s formula:

I don’t believe that section shooting exists on any level, and here’s why…Many gamers believe that section shooting is an acquired skill, a manipulative skill that one can learn through arduous practice. Juggling, golfing, typing, what so different about learning to section shoot versus many other difficult eye-to-hand manipulative skills? The answer lies in the limits of human capabilities. Has anyone ever learned to juggle 100 balls, hit nothing but holes-in-one, type 500 words a minute?

Although there’s no reason to doubt that muscle memory may result in dealers releasing the ball with similar velocities, that’s not enough precision to accurately control the speed of the ball. On the first revolution the error may only be a half-pocket; after the second revolution, experience has shown that the error can jump to one pocket, then two, then four, and so on. As you increase the revolutions, a significant margin of error compounds. With only ten to twelve revolutions, which is considered very slow, it’s not just ten to twelve times harder, it can quickly become impossible.

Another factor regarding the alleged skill, and, curiously, one that many seem to overlook, is that section shooting is an act comprised of three questionably attainable skills, not just one, and they must occur simultaneously. The dealer must push the rotor to a predetermined speed, spin the ball with a predetermined force, and then factor in the impact of the ball’s bounce, in order to have any chance of controlling the outcome. Compare these actions to those of professional bowlers, golfers, pool players, and similar athletes. They only aim once and can take as much time as they want to warm up, evaluate, and calculate their actions. A baseball pitcher might be able to throw a variety of pitches, all at different speeds, and all with incredible accuracy, but he doesn’t have to throw three strikes at the same time!

Forte further writes that steering and signature are made impossible by “the capricious nature of the wheel,” or purported changeability in drop and roll according to minute changes in conditions (experts have suggested humidity, barometric pressure, and phase of the moon as factors, among others). He stresses that this information is based on discussion with many experts who have told him that drop and roll and bounce characteristics of wheels are highly variable from day to day.

The final argument made by gaming experts against roulette steering and dealer signature is that they’ve simply never seen it, and further, that if such skills or traits existed, modern casinos could not survive.

Barnhart quotes Szabo saying that dealer steering would bring ruin to all the casinos of the world.

Darwin Ortiz, in his “Letter Regarding Nevada Roulette” (Blackjack Forum Vol. XI #4, December 1991—link at the left), says that dealer steering is “rather like Bigfoot or flying saucers.”

I’ve met people who know people who know people who can do it. I’ve met people whose brother-in-law can do it. I’ve even met people who could do it on every day except the day that I happened to meet them. But I have yet to meet one dealer face-to-face who could reliably do it when challenged by me.

Regarding the idea that skilled roulette dealers would bankrupt the casino industry, Ortiz says:

The fact is that if dealers could actually [steer], the game of roulette would have been destroyed long ago. Dealers would, indeed, have used their talents at every opportunity to bankrupt the house by helping agents win.

Regarding a claim by Laurance Scott, in his article “Nevada Roulette” (Blackjack Forum Vol. XI #3, September 1991—link at the left) that roulette dealers would use steering for job security, Ortiz responds: “The money-making potential of such a skill makes the whole issue of job-security irrelevant.”

And here is Steve Forte on this point:

I asked a close friend and triple sharp, all-around gaming executive … to help me find the top wheel dealers in Las Vegas. Our research led to a couple of Cuban dealers who worked together in a major casino. This was no surprise, since the best roulette dealers in the world come from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico.

Having spent time in the casinos of the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and having watched the Cuban dealers work here in the states, I can vouch for their incredible mastery of and dedication to the wheel. With a combined 75 years of dealing experience between them, both in Cuba and in the U.S., they were asked for their opinions regarding the recent controversy. They laughed and said, “If we could do that, do you think we’d still be working?”

Laurance Scott is pretty much alone in the serious literature on the other side of the debate. In his article “Nevada Roulette,” which he says is based on his own experience at the tables, he portrays a roulette scene in which dealers are not only able to steer the ball to a sector, but do so routinely to bust out players for themselves and the house. He does take care to limit this claim to dealers on the old-fashioned, deep-pocket wheels, of which there were a number still in action at the time his article was written:

How can anybody cheat at roulette? Well, first of all let me qualify the statement by saying that not all Nevada casinos cheat. Some casinos run a fair game. They use modern wheels which tend to yield truly random results. However, other casinos still use older style equipment which is quite beatable. Why would a casino use beatable equipment when modern non-beatable equipment is available?

When I first published Scott’s article in Blackjack Forum I got quite a response, but the only correspondence I received in support of Scott’s assertion that it was possible for roulette dealers to steer the ball came from pit bosses and roulette dealers, none of whom claimed to be able to steer the ball themselves.

So, to sum up the case against dealer steering or signature we have the argument that there will always be too much variance in ball speed, rotor speed, and ball drop and roll for steering or exploitable signature to be possible.

According to section-shooting detractors, part of this variance will be due to the design of the wheel itself, with its deflectors in the path of the ball as it crosses the apron to the rotor. Part of this variance may be caused by dealing procedures that require the dealer to launch the ball in alternating directions or vary rotor speed on each spin or perform a blind spin without looking at the wheel during the launch. Part may be due to simple human physical limitations. More variance may be due to the effects of weather and other physical conditions on wheel and ball behavior.

And finally there is the argument that none of the experts have seen a dealer with such skills, and that if such skills actually existed the casinos would all be broke.

Laurance Scott, on the other hand, believed that such skills could exist for the same reason that wheel predictors could exist—if there’s not too much variance for a roulette computer or visual predictor to get an edge (and all of the experts agree that roulette prediction by computer or visual methods is possible, at least on some few deep-pocket wheels), there’s no reason to assume there’s too much variance for dealer steering to exist.

Further, Scott and the pit personnel, dealers and players who believe that dealer steering and/or exploitable signature is possible usually believe they have seen it.

My Response to the Debate on Roulette Dealer Steering and Signature

I will first address the claims that variance is inevitably too high to allow dealer signature or steering. As Thorp pointed out, variance in ball landing results can come from variance in dealer ball launch, variance in launch location relative to the rotor, variance in rotor speed, and variance in drop or ball roll after the drop. I will address each type of variance separately.

Variance in ball launch location relative to the rotor

Thorp’s biggest objection to the idea of dealer steering or signature was his belief that a dealer would be unable to launch the ball at a consistent place relative to the moving rotor because the dealer would be unable to respond precisely enough to the visual cue of the targeted launch number. There are related casino procedures mentioned by Steve Forte in both his book and his article “The Myth of Roulette Dealer Signature and Section Shooting” (Blackjack Forum Vol. XII #2, June 1992—link at the upper left), described as follows in his article:

There are two procedures that effectively stop any possibility of the roulette section shooting or steering myth from becoming a reality. They are the “blind spin,” where the dealer spins the ball without ever glancing into the rotor, and the “last pocket spin,” where the dealer picks the ball out of the winning pocket, waits one revolution and spins from the same position the ball last landed.

My response is that a dealer needn’t rely on a visual cue to launch the ball. Instead a dealer may rely on timing for his launch, or a fixed set of ball pick-up and launch acts carried out the same way, with the same timing, every spin.

At one casino on the Las Vegas Strip where I believe we observed dealer steering to agents, there was a house policy in place that required dealers to do a blind spin. (The policy was apparent in the dealers’ behavior, and I was able to confirm it with casino personnel there.) The dealers adjusted the wheel speed, then looked away from the wheel while feeling for the ball with their fingertips. When their fingertips made contact with the ball, they picked up the ball and launched it with a fixed routine. They were able to maintain a remarkable consistency of launch position relative to the ball pick-up point with no visual cue, based solely on consistent timing.

Regarding Scarne’s idea that steering requires the ball and wheel to be rotating in the same direction

As I pointed out in Part 1 of this article, “How to Win at Roulette: Traditional Visual Prediction” (Blackjack Forum Vol. XXVIII #1, October 2012—link at the upper left) the length of ball spin merely sets the length of time the wheel will be rotating before the ball drops onto the rotor. The speed of the rotor determines how much of the wheel will pass any given point during that amount of time. There’s no requirement that the ball and wheel be going in the same direction to calculate how much of the wheel will pass in a given amount of time.

Regarding house procedures that require alternating direction for each spin

A dealer’s only got two hands, and a roulette wheel only has two directions. If a dealer is required to change hands or directions for each spin, and there is a difference between the number of ball spins when launched by the right and left hands, or in the rotor speed when spun in one direction versus the other, all you’d have to do is adjust for the difference in your prediction, or bet only on those spins launched in the preferred direction, or by the preferred hand.

Regarding variance in roll due to deflectors

It’s true that the ball deflectors (obstacles) on the apron have an effect on how far the ball will roll after dropping off the track, and cause variance in ball roll that leads to variance in results. This makes it impossible for a dealer, no matter how skilled, to hit a single target sector of consecutive numbered pockets every spin.

But because wheels tend to have drops (caused usually by tilt, sometimes by wear), the variance in results is often not too great to eliminate the possibility of gaining an edge from steering.

I don’t agree with the assertion that small changes in weather and other conditions lead to significant changes in the wheel itself, or a wheel’s drop. Based on my data, I believe that the changes that experts say they have observed are mostly due to normal, ongoing variance in the drop unrelated to weather and external conditions. The exception would be when there is a sudden rapid change in barometric pressure. It’s not that the wheel changes due to such barometric pressure changes, but that you can get extreme changes in normal ball behavior at such times.

Regarding inability to drop the ball into a specific number

My reply to Szabo’s story of the roulette dealers who had tried, unsuccessfully, to drop the ball into a particular number would be that simply dropping it from above would leave lots of energy to be dispelled by the ball in a very random manner. That’s very different from a ball launched into a particular direction in a spin, for which you’d expect inertia to carry the ball in basically the same direction until its energy was dispelled.

Regarding variance in rotor speed

Let me just say that we have clocked wheels—that is, taken measurements of their speed using reliable instruments—sufficiently to confirm that some dealers are able to maintain a consistent rotor speed if they choose, or hit a chosen rotor speed consistently.

Regarding house requirements to vary the speed of the rotor

First, as I have mentioned at the beginning of this article, very few U.S. casinos enforce any kind of fixed dealing procedures on roulette.

But even at casinos where a fixed dealing procedure seems to be enforced (at least on some shifts), we have found roulette dealers who are able to steer the ball using various combinations of wheel speed and ball speed. In other words, a dealer doesn’t need to maintain a single rotor speed to steer, because the multiple factors involved in steering a ball allow for multiple ways of getting a ball to a targeted number. If you are forced to change speed each spin, you can compensate for the changed speed by changing ball speed or launch location relative to the rotor.

In fact, one of the ways we confirm that a dealer is steering the ball is by watching for the dealer to use these factors in multiple combinations to achieve a specific goal.

I’ll go even further and say that a dealer who attempts to steer by always launching from a specific number, while maintaining a consistent wheel speed, is probably a dealer who can’t steer very well. We see this type of kindly dealer all the time in casinos, when the players have all joined together in betting the area around the 17, for example. The dealer strives to maintain a constant wheel speed and tries time and again to hit the 17 by adjusting his launch point, only to miss the target on every spin and quickly wipe out the players he’s trying to help.

But what about Thorp’s formula?

I don’t have any problem with Thorp’s formula per se, or with the data he provides (which are similar to my own), but I partly disagree with the factors used in the formula, I disagree with the way his formula has been applied, and I disagree with conclusions that have been drawn from these applications of the formula. I can’t discuss all of these disagreements within this article because casino personnel will be reading but, for example, I disagree with the way Thorp measures ball roll (as well as other factors). One problem I can discuss briefly in this article lies in the calculation of mean error terms.

Let’s say that a particular wheel has a drop which half of the time causes a ball roll of three pockets plus or minus two pockets, and half of the time causes a roll of 41 pockets plus or minus two pockets. (You will never find such a wheel—this example is simplified to make it easy to follow.) To assume that the 41 pocket roll is a 38 pocket error term would be unhelpful (if you look at a picture of a wheel, you’ll understand why).

It would also be unhelpful to calculate that the average roll was 22 pockets, with an error term of 21 pockets. Average roll might be a relevant factor if the roll was as likely to roll any number of pockets between 3 and 41, but if the actual rolls center around 3 pockets and 41 pockets, with a large gap of pockets mostly unhit, then using the average roll as a factor in this calculation is not helpful.

Or let’s say that half of the time the ball roll is 5 pockets and half of the time it’s 24 pockets, each plus or minus 2 pockets. You don’t have to regard the 5-pocket roll as correct and the 24-pocket roll as an error term of 19 pockets. Nor do you have to regard the average roll as 14 ½ pockets, with an error term of 11 ½ pockets. Instead, you’d want to adjust your betting sector and consider the error term of the ball roll very small.

As I mentioned in Part I of this series, there’s no reason a betting sector in roulette has to be comprised of consecutive numbers. A sector for a particular wheel could be a couple of adjacent numbers and another number twelve pockets away. Optimal betting sectors can take on many different configurations on modern wheels spun at modern speeds.

There are similar problems with error term measurement for other factors in Thorp’s formula.

And what about the argument that all casinos would go broke in a year?

After watching an awful lot of professional gamblers now for over three decades, many of them with enormous bankrolls, it’s never seemed to me that the casinos were in any particular danger from us. If the Hyland team, the MIT team, the Greeks, the Czechs, Al Francesco, Zeljko, and a few thousand other high stakes blackjack pros couldn’t kill off the casino industry, I don’t see how a few steering dealers could do it.

For one thing, there truly aren’t that many dealers who can steer well enough to get an edge steering to an agent, and it’s unlikely many will learn because of the difficulty of understanding the natural variance in spin results. For example, it would be difficult for a dealer who was trying to learn to steer to know whether a bad result was due to variance or to his poor skill. He would lack the kind of consistent feedback most people need to learn.

And any dealer who could steer would be restrained in the use of his skill by the rational desire to extract the maximum possible lifetime gain from his hard-won skill rather than burn out a great play in a couple of sessions for a much smaller total win. It’s true that a steering dealer without a big bankroll of his own could play at a much higher level if he involved an investor, but it’s also true that the investor would demand the bulk of the win for his cut, and involving an investor entails other risks, such as the risk of the investor training other dealers, or the risk of the investor revealing the play. I’ve never known a professional gambler to prefer giving away the bulk of his win when he could afford to keep it all to himself simply by taking a play more slowly.

Also, card mechanics of varying skills have worked at blackjack tables for as long as the game has been dealt, and many have used these skills for decades without putting the casinos where they work out of business. Cheaters who have spent years developing special skills have no desire to kill the golden goose.

Another huge factor in protecting the casinos from bankruptcy would be the steering dealer’s fear of going to jail for cheating—I would think that fear would be huge in the case of a casino employee who was steering a roulette ball for the benefit of an associate.

Another limit on how much a skilled dealer can take from roulette in a short time if he is concerned about avoiding discovery is the behavior of the average roulette player. No gambler at roulette who actually manages to get ahead ever seems to leave with his winnings. Instead, what they do is continue playing until their winnings and buy-in are gone, plus any other amounts they may have available for buy-ins. In other words, they play until they run out of money, and all they really hope for, if they believe in dealer steering, is for the dealer to give them a longer playing time.

Again, in our experience, roulette players don’t get angry because they’re leaving the table broke. (They’re accustomed to leaving broke.) They only get angry if they’re leaving the table broke after receiving a very short period of play. People want some fun for their money.

So a dealer who is steering for an agent, and who is concerned about getting enough money out of other players to keep up appearances, probably has natural limits on how fast he can extract money from the game. While a dealer who was steering against players might take their money faster, I don’t believe that he’d necessarily get more money from them. Again, players who lose their money quickly at a roulette table tend to leave that table quickly.

As for a dealer who says, “If I could steer, why would I still be working here?” I would say, “Where else would you be working?” A dealer who can steer would probably choose to practice his skill as long as possible.

To those who say, “Why wouldn’t they take out millions?” my answer would be, “What makes you think they haven’t?”

Response to Scott’s claim of widespread dealer cheating

Scott’s claim of widespread dealer cheating at roulette (that is, steering against players) doesn’t fit what we have actually seen at the tables. But Scott was describing conditions he encountered over two decades ago, on wheels that are seldom seen on today’s roulette tables.

That isn’t to say we’ve never seen dealers steering against players. We have seen what we believed to be dealers steering against players in three kinds of situations.

First, we’ve seen dealers steering against players after periods of steering for those same players, essentially taking back the house money they had passed out. This has occurred with a small percentage of the dealers we’ve observed.

Second, we’ve seen dealers steering against players they seemed to dislike. Again, this has occurred with only a small percentage of the dealers we’ve observed.

Third, we’ve seen dealers steering against players after steering for different players that we believed were agents. This has been extremely rare, and in each case, it has been a number of years since we’ve seen any of these dealers working in Las Vegas.

How I Came to Believe that Roulette Dealers Can Steer

I came to believe that a small percentage of dealers can steer well enough to get an edge at roulette by sitting at the table of a particular dealer and recording enough spin results to ascertain that his frequency of hitting a particular sector had gone beyond three standard deviations.

We were at a large Strip casino one week when we observed what we believed were possible signs of a biased wheel. Specifically, the ball was landing in a small sector of the wheel too often for it to be likely that it was due to chance.

We sat at the table placing even-money bets and recorded the results of enough spins to reliably calculate that the edge on betting the sector would be roughly 20%. All of this play was on the same shift, and almost all of it was against the same dealer. Some of the play was against a relief dealer.

Then we returned to the casino for one last session of data collection—this time on a different shift. To our surprise, the results for that session, when taken alone, indicated no bias whatsoever. We went back to record more data against dealers other than our original dealer, and none of it showed a bias.

We went back to observe our original dealer over the next year or so, and we learned a lot about roulette by observing him. (Thanks, man.) We also began to notice that we would observe certain behaviors of his used by other dealers who appeared to be steering, while we didn’t see these behaviors used by average dealers.

With time we found a collection of dealers we believed could steer. We could often tell whether a dealer was steering before we even got to the table just by observing her behavior as we walked around the casino. Occasionally it would seem to us as we returned to one of these dealers that we had arrived in the middle of a play.

One skilled dealer at a Strip casino had unusual and distinctive facial features—black eyebrows shaped like sharp upside-down v’s and earlobes that were fleshy and elongated. (All details have been changed to protect any players and dealers described in this article.) Sitting at this dealer’s table, however, was a guy about the same height and weight, with the same black sharply pointing eyebrows and the same elongated fleshy earlobes. He was betting a small sector and doing well, with the ball landing in his sector at an unusually high rate. My first thought was, “This guy’s steering for his brother.”

After the next spin, we placed some bets in the same sector and had a win, but right after the dealer had paid us all off, the other player asked to be colored up. On the next spin the dealer changed to a wheel speed different from the ones he had used on the other spins we’d observed.

Other times we believed we’d stumbled onto a play just because it had that play look that you recognize quickly if you’ve ever been part of team gambling efforts yourself. Participants make eye contact for no seeming reason, and then sustain it for an unusual length of time. You hear certain words repeated when they don’t really fit the conversation, or the conversation seems strained. Strangers at the table get angry with each other, or look surprised with each other, when the emotion doesn’t seem to fit.

On one dealer/agent steering play, the agent was posing as a square who always bet the same adjacent numbers, always before the spin. He had the seat next to the wheel, but he never looked at the wheel. Then, late in the play, toward the end of the dealer’s shift, after a bit of a drawdown of his profits, he stared at the wheel intently as the ball drew near the end of its spin. On the final spin before the ball fell off the track, as the ball passed the drop-off point for the last time, this “square” pumped his fist and yelled “Yes!” The ball came around to hit the drop deflector, rolled beautifully, he got a hit, and the dealer got tapped out by his replacement. The player left a few spins later.

At another casino, after observing what we believed were multiple occasions of dealer steering for agents, we saw a steering dealer engaged in what we believed was a deliberate bust-out of a player. This player was a regular at the casino—a high-roller, a classic action player, and a memorable character, both because of his fashion sense (Steve Martin’s “wild and crazy guy”) and his unusual companions (Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver). We had observed him playing many times, always using the same system. He seemed to have a few preferred dealers at the casino, and every time we saw him playing one of them, he would get a long play on his buy-in.

But on this occasion, the dealer appeared to be steering against him from the very first spin. The reason we believed this dealer was steering against this player was because he used a different set of wheel and ball speed combinations than he used during the plays when we believed he was steering for a player. Based on my wife’s read of the speed, we would have been betting an area of the wheel where this player had no bets at all. This player bought in multiple times for large amounts and lost it all quickly. It was a massacre.

We’ve even run into dealers who openly discussed with us what they were doing. Early in our roulette learning process we ran into a dealer off-Strip who appeared to be steering for the players on his table. We started to bet on the target numbers, but only after we had a read on the spin to confirm that the dealer was still steering. The dealer watched us watch the wheel, then after we had bet he said something like, “You sure about that? I’m going for the six this time.”

That was a shocker. He made these kinds of comments for the next few spins. I was not comfortable with the situation. After one spin, our read indicated that the optimal bet was outside of the former target sector. I bet and he said, “Really? You sure?” My wife answered, “I’m sure.” He stared at the wheel a moment and said, “Looks like you’re right about that.” He and my wife openly discussed the next few spins, then I cut the play short. When we left, he said, “Come back any time. That was fun.” We never went back.

Again, though I could tell you more stories of this type, this kind of thing is not the norm. And, although we ran into other situations in which dealers appeared to be steering, we did not rely on the appearance of steering to determine whether steering was possible and exploitable in casinos. To determine whether or not a particular dealer could steer, we collected data.

How to Win at Roulette Using Dealer Tell Play

It’s virtually impossible to beat modern roulette as dealt in the U.S. with the old-style visual prediction methods I wrote about in Part I of this series. Even computer play (which is illegal in Nevada anyway, as well as in every state and country that has copied Nevada’s cheating statutes) is problematic on modern roulette, because of roll variance and other factors. All other methods of beating the game are either illegal or very difficult, requiring much research, scouting and practice.

Betting on dealers who are steering is potentially the easiest way to beat the game if you can learn to identify dealers with that capability and learn how to tell when they are turning the steering on and off. Further, observing dealers who are steering is the best way to learn visual prediction methods that will actually work on the modern game. The easiest way to do these things is by learning to read dealer tells.

The first person I’m aware of to suggest exploiting dealer steering and emotions at roulette was Laurance Scott, once again in his article “Nevada Roulette.” He wrote:

I also believe that it may be possible to get an edge at Nevada roulette without any predictive skills just by using an applied psychology approach. First, assume that the game is rigged (which it is) and that an experienced dealer can hit a section with alarming accuracy.

Next, develop an act such that the dealers can’t stand the sight of your face and start pre-betting sections with 25-cent chips. Have a co-conspirator bet $5 chips (at the opportune times) in the opposite section while hiding at the end of the table.

Now, though I do not recommend the specific tactics suggested by Scott, I can confirm that roulette tell play works.

In early 1986, I served as an expert witness for the defense in a case where a blackjack dealer had been accused of colluding with a player. This was back when blackjack dealers still manually peeked under tens, and I had just learned about tell play from Steve Forte’s manuscript of Read The Dealer.

When I reviewed the surveillance tapes of the dealer, it was clear to me that the dealer was not colluding with an agent, but simply had a strong unconscious tell that any player could exploit. I explained tell play to the judge and jury, and taught them how to read the dealer’s tells on the tape. Everyone in the courtroom spent the next ten minutes watching video of the dealer and correctly guessing her hole card. The verdict was “not guilty” but that tape and trial transcript got around. I’d just published Forte’s book, and soon auto-peek readers were being installed on blackjack tables all over Nevada.

So I don’t feel it would be wise to talk about specific tells in this article. Tells tend to vary a lot from dealer to dealer anyway—they did in blackjack, and they do at roulette. Suffice it to say that a dealer who is attempting to steer for players and feels confident in his ability to help them win money tends to exhibit behaviors that are different from the average roulette dealer. The average dealer who can’t or won’t steer goes through his work life stripping people of their money while giving them very little in return. It’s depressing, shameful work for any dealer with any feeling for other people, and a dealer’s demeanor may reflect that.

Similarly, a dealer who has steered some hits to players but who has decided to take the money back has significant changes in appearance and behavior. He’s changed himself from a host and benefactor into an executioner, and it affects how he feels about himself and the players at his table. These feelings often show up as tells and can be used as indicators of when to get in or out of the game.

Dealer tell play at roulette is similar to the old dealer tell play at blackjack, except that blackjack dealer tell play didn’t involve conscious help from the dealer. Roulette tell play only works if a dealer is consciously steering for you, but if he suspects even a little that you are aware that he can steer, he will usually end the steering immediately.

If you’re actually watching the wheel to ascertain whether the dealer is steering, he will usually recognize that very quickly. (Camouflage is essential at all times!) And if a dealer suspects you of trying to get an advantage over him that he hasn’t chosen to bestow, he can and will make it very difficult for you to play.

The other thing to remember is that even if a dealer is rooting for the players and steering for the players, at some point the dealer will stop. Friendly dealers seem to enjoy giving customers a few big payoffs. But when your chips start stacking up, or the pit boss starts hanging around, they seem to feel you’ve been given enough, and they either go back to random or, more typically, start steering against the players they helped. Again, this only occurs with a small percentage of dealers.

I suggest you read “Stalking the Elusive Tell” by Dog-Ass Johnny (Blackjack Forum Volume VIII #2, June 1988)—to get an idea of how to keep dealers rooting for you, understand when they are rooting for or against someone else, and get the hell out when their good will disappears. Get your hands on a copy of Steve Forte’s long out-of-print Read The Dealer (Oakland, CA: RGE Publishing, 1986) if you can and read that as well. Some of the most useful information for roulette in Forte’s book will be the material on “ghost tells” and creating dealer tells, which are as valid at roulette today as they were at blackjack when the book was written.

A ghost tell is information you pick up from a dealer’s reaction to another player. Ghost tells are ideal for scouting purposes and, as Forte points out, they are simply easier to read than tells you pick up based on a dealer’s behavior toward you, because the dealer’s attention is focused elsewhere. Forte preferred looking for ghost tells between a dealer and a big player who had already established a friendly relationship with the dealer that usually included liberal tipping. That works at roulette as well.

If there’s no friendly big player and tipper around to provide you with ghost tells, you may have to encourage tells yourself. You can do this by cultivating the dealer’s good will. Be friendly, complimentary; toss him a tip on your first hit.

Don’t try to cultivate her ire. Be aware that a dealer’s hatred does you no good unless she can steer against you, which means your pre-spin bets are a goner, and even if you start seeing tells that a dealer is steering against you, that doesn’t tell you what numbers are most likely to hit, only what numbers are not likely to hit. Dealer hatred tells work best when they are ghost tells and the disliked players are really covering the felt, leaving only smallish groups of consecutive numbers without bets on them—something for the dealer to aim for—and where you can get some money down after the spin. (And tip when he hits you!)

For example, I once had a terrific opportunity for tell play at a large Strip casino where an experienced female dealer was trying to cope with a group of obnoxious French players. The French players were betting sectors, but their sectors were huge—there were only a few small sections of the wheel that they hadn’t covered with stacks of chips. The dealer disliked them because they all smoked and, despite the dealer’s hints that the smoke was bothering her, they refused to put out the burning cigarettes in their ash trays and took no care to prevent the smoke from drifting into her face. They even exhaled smoke directly into her face. You should have heard the outpouring of French when she started hitting the few numbers they weren’t betting and swept all those stacks from the table.

Here are some more tips on tells from Forte’s Read the Dealer. I’ve added my own adjustments to his comments (in parentheses) to make them more relevant for roulette:

• It is important to be natural when trying to read the dealer. Peripheral vision can be a great asset… You can’t just lean back in your chair and stare at the dealer.
• The first thing to always look for in a dealer is his base or normal behavior. Where do his eyes normally look… (immediately before and after spinning the ball? How about near the end of the spin? When does he normally wave players off?)
• When trying to analyze a new tell, I find it easier if I mentally ask myself questions. Would a dealer make a comment like that… (if he knew he was steering for me)? Absence can be a key word. Instead of asking myself what would I expect to see in this situation that might give me a clue, I say what didn’t the dealer do or what’s missing that I would expect to see in this situation? (Your first hint of an exploitable opportunity will always be some small behavior out of the norm.)
• If you play in smaller clubs, tokes will carry more weight…
• Sooner or later you will run into the dealer who is always smiling and seems to be extra courteous and helpful. In reality, he’s trying to win every dollar you have, your watch and your socks if they’re worth anything. This dealer wants the best of both worlds…It doesn’t make any difference how much you toke or how friendly you are. This is a perfect example of the “house dealer…” This dealer is not on your side and will attempt to deceive you by acting opposite to his true feelings …
• Learning to play tells can be difficult. For the most part, every tell you read on paper is clear and easy to learn. When you look for these same tells in a casino, they will be extremely subtle, disguised and at first seem almost invisible. The best way to begin learning tells is to get into the casino and observe. Walk up to a game and get a feel for the level of involvement. Then any time you see the dealer deviate from his normal behavior, force yourself to try to find the motive behind the action.
• Finally, [tell play] is 100% legal. So long as you don’t pay off the dealer to (steer for you)… or otherwise alter the “criteria of selection,” the law specifically states you can take advantage of any information that is available to all players. What exactly is the information that is available to everyone? The entire spectrum of subconsciously generated human behavior that takes place anytime you put a dealer behind a (roulette) table, pay him minimum wage so that he really must earn his living from tokes, treat him like dirt, have a pit boss sweat the game, then bring in the players who want to win so bad they can taste it. Skilled tell players simply exploit these facets of human behavior and turn this information into an advantage…

To learn more about reading dealer tells, even books on poker tells will be helpful. Two excellent books include Caro’s Book of Poker Tells, by Mike Caro, and Peter Collett’s Book of Tells. I also recommend Joe Navarro’s book on body language, What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent’s Guide to Speed-Reading People. One important point made by Navarro is that while some tells are fairly common and usually mean the same thing, other tells are unique to a person, or can mean opposite things depending on how a person feels about a given situation.

And remember that you need two sets of tells—one that lets you know that the dealer is capable of steering, and another that lets you know whether or not he is steering right now, either for or against you. That first tell is critical, and you will be better off if you can confirm it over time with some hard data. Just because you get a tell that says the dealer is trying to steer for the players, that doesn’t mean you can automatically bet the numbers you think he’s trying to hit. Sometimes a dealer with poor steering skills will be exploitable, but usually not by betting the numbers you believe he’s targeting. I’ve often seen friendly dealers with poor steering skills wipe out the players they were trying to help.

Another thing to remember about any form of tell play is that you can expect your ratio of scouting time to playing time to be very high—in the hole card scouting-to-playing range, or higher. (Skilled hole card players may spend twelve hours scouting for every hour playing.) Once you have a collection of reliable tell dealers, your scouting time will go down, but you still have to find the dealers in situations that are good for tell play.

Lastly, you need to keep in mind that no dealer can steer the ball to a target number or sector on every spin. It’s impossible because of inevitable variance in the ball roll and other factors, and, again, that variance can make it difficult to discern in a short time whether or not that dealer can actually steer. That’s one reason it’s easier to play dealer tells at roulette than to learn to read wheels yourself. A roulette dealer who has spent many hours on a wheel will know a lot more about the normal variance in the drop than you can find out without many hours of clocking the wheel. ♠