Category: Blackjack

Stalking the Elusive Tell

by Dog-Ass Johnny
(From Blackjack Forum Volume VIII #2, June 1988)
© Blackjack Forum 1988

[Note: When this article was published in 1988, many dealers were still manually peeking under their tens and aces, making tell play possible for the astute observer. I know of no casinos in the US where dealers still peek, so this article is published more for historical than practical purposes. – A.S.]

About eighteen months ago, pursuant to a long-abiding but generally profitless interest in playing dealer tells, I began trying to apply the principles in Steve Forte’s Read The Dealer. Happily, after an uneven start, I eventually learned to turn a profit with these techniques.

In what follows, I hope to help you, the prospective tell player, avoid a few of my early mistakes, thereby saving plenty of cash. [Editor’s note: A tell is any subconscious mannerism of a dealer that indicates whether his hand is pat or stiff.]

As with card counting, your chances for successful dealer tell play will increase substantially if you have some time to invest beforehand. Think back to when you were first learning to count – remember how the excitement of being in real casinos, playing for real money, interfered with your ability to concentrate? How it could make you forget your index numbers, or the count itself, even though you could handle these things easily at home?

The hard truth is that, for most of us, only those skills that can be exercised reflexively figure to survive the awful crucible of casino play. By acquiring these talents before you go out to seek your hole-carding fortune, you’ll avoid many costly errors. In other words, you have to practice.

I suggest you begin by practicing at a place where the dealers donít peek. This will give you a chance to experience basic dealer behavior in the abstract, plus you wonít be tempted to bet real money on your nascent abilities. Don’t distract yourself by trying to win; rather, just play basic strategy, bet the minimum, and enjoy being a gambler for a few days. Your purpose should be twofold:

1) Develop some systematic way of evaluating each element of the dealer’s behavior. Try to carry out a specific sequence of observations on every hand. If you don’t work out a methodical approach, then you’ll tend to become fixated on one or two areas, overlooking other possibilities. (The material on pages 81-83 of Read the Dealer should point you in the right direction.)

Practice until you can execute your routine quickly and automatically. If you’re not quick, then you’ll miss a lot, and if it’s not automatic then your counting efficiency will be adversely affected.

2) Learn to become aware of the dealer’s attitude toward the other players. Counting does not adequately prepare you for this; optimally, as a counter, you would prefer to have no awareness of the outside world at all – just keep the count, play basic strategy, and occasionally do the calculations for a potential departure play.

As a tell player, however, you’ll have to pay attention to everyone else’s hand as well as your own. One reason for this is that you need to know what a given tell is based onówhere it’s coming fromóto protect yourself from giving it undue weight when circumstances change.

For example, you notice a dealer who seems involved in the game. You sit down and immediately spot a good, strong basic tell. Great, you think – here’s a nice-guy dealer who wants the players to win.

You prime yourself to deviate from your count-related strategy – i.e., to make the wrong play – just on the basis of this dealer’s behavior. And yet your understanding of the situation may be quite mistaken; often the dealer just wants some particular customer to win, usually a toker, or maybe a cute girl.

When the toker loses a few tough ones and starts to complain, this dealer’s tell may begin to flicker; when the cute girl brutally rejects his pathetic advances, it will probably go out entirely. And if her drunk boyfriend were to show up, this tell, which just twenty minutes ago looked like it was going to make you rich, might actually reverse itself and puncture your lungs before you can get out of your seat.

Few Tells Last Long

Few tells are enduring. Few profitable situations are there time after time, waiting to pay off on demand. Until you’ve learned to absorb what’s going on between the dealer and the other players – thereby acquiring the means to identify situations like the one above – you would be unwise to assume that a particular dealer’s mannerisms are going to represent the same thing from shift to shift, or even from hand to hand.

In my case, I spent countless wasted hours at the tables, chasing various long-vanished tells that had once been so strong I was unable to accept that they had somehow become null and void. Eventually, more or less by accident, I wised up. Why stick your head in the propeller? Practice until your grasp of whatever player-dealer interaction is going on becomes second nature to you.

Beginning Tell Play

So, now you’re ready to play for real. The first thing I think you should do is to establish yourself in one or two well-scouted, high-probability casinos as a player the dealers are glad to see. In distinction to card counting, where most players aim for anonymity, tell playing can thrive on notoriety. If you play every day for a few weeks in the same small or mid-sized casino, word will spread to all the dealers on the shift that you’re a desirable player – that’s the sort of thing they talk about in the dealers’ break room.

Of course, some dealers are robots who will be unaffected by anything you do, but many others will be happy to see you sit down at their table, even before you’ve toked your first dollar. One dealer at Dog-Ass Johnny’s favorite casino strongarmed the first hand Dog-Ass Johnny ever played at that table. You will never get this sort of benefit if you spread your play around town, card counter style.

How to make the desired impression? Dog-Ass Johnny’s tactics, hardly revolutionary, are to lose well, sympathize with the dealer’s problems, and, of course, toke. You do not need to toke lavishly, but you must toke at least minimally.

Additionally, while you are introducing yourself to the selected casinos, limit your card counting behavior so as to avoid arousing any defensive sensibilities among the dealers; you’ll be able to get a fabulous spread once you’re established – after all, you’ll be playing against dealers who want you to win. Whenever you feel you’ve gotten across especially well to a dealer, be sure to play through his break, so he’ll have a chance to communicate your wonderfulness to the relief dealer.

And losing well is a must. Should you feel yourself on the verge of violating this commandment, leave immediately, lest you poison one of your primary venues. If coping with bad losing streaks is tough for you, don’t worry; I think you may find it surprisingly easy at a casino where you feel known and liked. The usual emotions when losing big – hostility, anger, and paranoia – are a function of your perception of yourself as an unwanted felon in enemy territory. You will find yourself much less prone to experiencing these feelings when playing with a dealer you know is on your side.

Donít expect to get rich quick. Try to regard the first few weeks as a time for undergoing painful learning experiences and laying the groundwork for future success. Be satisfied if you can win, on balance, one bet per day that you would have lost with counting alone.

Above all, over your first fifty hours or so, you absolutely must limit acting upon your predictions to those cases where the evidence is extremely compelling. I suggest that during this time you favor a tell play over what’s indicated by the count only when the tell is a ghost or strongarm tell (Editor’s note: ghost and strongarm tells are defined below). Reading accuracy for these tells is quite high. In fact, even if you never go beyond this relatively easy-to-achieve level, you’ll have made a major improvement in your game.

And you can expect to acquire this nifty ability without making a lot of expensive errors. Indeed, you’ll positively enjoy your leisurely stroll up the pleasantly-shallow learning curve. Here’s an idea of what to expect.

Ghost Tells

[Editor’s note: In Read the Dealer, Steve Forte defines “ghost tells” as tells you can pick up from the reactions of the dealer to another player at the table. To employ dealer ghost tells profitably, you must sit to the left of whichever player(s) the dealer might be reacting to, so that you do not have to play your hand until after you’ve seen the tell.]

All you need to do to play ghost tells properly is keep your attention on the game. By this, I mean that you must be able to maintain a background-level awareness of what the other players are doing and how the dealer is responding to them. If you had practiced more diligently, you’d already have this ability. You’d be right there inside the dealer’s head, reading his mind. But nooo!

Fortunately, you can expect very good reading accuracy when playing ghost tells, even if you are a beginner. This is partly because you are under no pressure to act on your own cards at the time, and can thus devote all your attention to the play of the other hands. But primarily it arises from the fact that many otherwise careful dealers don’t see any harm in commenting on an already-completed hand; they assume that only the player of that hand can understand their cryptic remarks.

The information you acquire as a result of their innocence is as pure as the driven snow. Read The Dealer contains examples so common that you’ll find it difficult to believe you never grasped their meaning before.

Naturally, you should begin by trying to spot a high-roller. These players offer the greatest potential for success. For various reasons, however, you won’t get much tell playing done if you rigorously insist upon such advantageous circumstances.

First, there just aren’t that many big bettors around, especially during the day. Then, if you do find one, he may be playing against a robotic dealer, or the dealer’s responses may be inhibited by a pit boss at her elbow.

Finally, when at last you manage to sit down to a promising situation, you’ll invariably lose your first hand (despite getting a clear read and successfully executing the required departure play), at which point the high-roller will angrily leave, claiming that your foolish play has ruined the order of the cards.

A more common situation for ghost tells is a crowded, talkative table with a friendly, slightly dull-witted dealer, and happy, talking players who are winning. To get a seat at such a table, of course, you will need to fight off several prospective TARGET players, so remember to bring some sort of bat or truncheon.

Always sit in the last available position, maximizing the chance of catching a hint before you have to act on your own hand. You’ll want to monitor the biggest bettors first, of course, but I have found that the relative size of the bet can be more important than the absolute size of the bet; that is to say, dealers are generally aware of the bet structure of most customers, and many will react more strongly to a $25 bet made by a $5 player than to a $100 bet made by somebody who’s been betting black on every round.

Strongarm Tells

[Editorís note: In Read the Dealer, Steve Forte defines “strongarm tells” as the most blatant, reliable dealer tells, in which the dealer virtually plays your hand for you prior to your having indicated how you intended to play it. You may still receive strongarm tells from dealers with the ability to deal seconds. We’ve run into a couple of these dealers who used their ability occasionally for the good of players. Always listen when such a dealer tells you to walk.]

In distinction to ghost-telling dealers, strongarm dealers seem to be brighter than average, and will generally appear to be more in control of the game. While the degree to which these dealers are aware of their revealing mannerisms is a topic on which much could be written, suffice it to say that some which are quite blatant are nevertheless not intentional.

No matter how obvious a tell may seem to you, never mention it to the dealer, and do not attempt to socialize with such a dealer away from the tables. This is elementary. If you find yourself wanting to inform the dealer of how impossibly clever you are, you’re probably playing more for ego than for money.

Strongarm dealers especially shine when dealing a face-up game. As you wander about the casinos, always check the face-up games carefully. You’ll be amazed at what a helpful dealer can do for you when he knows your cards – in the best cases, you need only give an ambiguous signal, and the dealer will hit or pass your hand as necessary.

Playing in such a game will also serve to remind you to make sure that friendly dealers know what you’re holding whenever you need help. Don’t be shy; you need to get the most out of each potentially profitable situation as a hedge against the inevitable hard times to come.

One familiar subgroup among strongarm dealers are those extremely other-directed types, usually males, who are always entertaining their players, as though the table were a miniature night club, with the dealer as master of ceremonies. Invariably, they give you a lot of advice on how much to bet and how to play, often grabbing some of your chips and adding them to your bet, refusing to give you a card or demanding you take one, and so forth. You are supposed to follow their suggestions as Revealed Truth, ring up a handsome win for the first time in your drab, uneventful life, and in return, shower them with love and admiration (and tokes).

Clearly, your mission – should you decide to accept itóis to play out your assigned role in the dealerís scenario, while at the same time ignoring or minimizing all his “help” except when he’s showing a ten. This is not difficult if you are sufficiently theoretically inclined as to have a good grasp of how much a given deviation from proper strategy figures to cost you.

Alternatively, if you’re a jovial, gregarious sort – or if you’re not but can induce this behavior with, say, alcohol or powerful drugs (Editor’s Note: We assume, of course, that Mr. Johnny is referring to legal drugs such as No-Doz or Jolt Cola), then you should be able to get into a bit of friendly one-upmanship with this kind of dealer, indirectly challenging him to make you a winner. Within this framework, you can periodically question his advice, daring to match your opinion against his. When your play turns out to be correct, project a sense of relief at having tempted fate so foolishly and surviving; when your play turns out to be a loser, bewail your dunderheaded stupidity and vow that you’ll never again ignore this fine dealer’s sagacious counsel.

Among the most blatant strongarm dealers are some who will admire your perceptivity and tell you so. More than one such dealer has explained to me the comic frustration of trying to get across to players who are too opaque to grasp that when the dealer shows a ten he always knows the right move.

[Editor’s Note: This was true only back in the days when dealers peeked under tens to see if they had a natural. Now dealers slip their hole card into a card reader, and most no longer know how strong or weak a hand they have. Still, this article is of great value in other casino situations, so we recommend you keep reading.]

You will generally have little trouble settling into a mutually agreeable quid pro quo with such a dealer, though at some point it becomes appropriate to ask whether this activity really qualifies as tell-playing. A side benefit with these dealers is that you can expect them to be frank about whether you should sit down at their table or not. Consider that some strongarm dealers may have helped you on the assumption that you were a weekend tourist they’d never see again; they may not be interested in a long-term association. Others may have been losing all week and can’t afford you for a while.

Whatever the reason, you can be sure that if a dealer who has knowingly helped you in the past warns you not to sit down (ìBetter watch out, I’m really hot today!), it’s a good idea to follow his advice.

Finally, you should be aware that many strongarm dealers correctly perceive themselves as not giving away a lot. Some are simply hustling tokes, and know they can control your advantage to whatever degree they might find necessary, just by giving an occasional misleading signal (avoid them, toke less, or find a way to squeeze out a little more information).

Some, generally the more empathetic types, will help you if you’re losing but not if you’re winning. (Hide your winnings). Others, aware when holding twenty that they figure to win no matter what you do, will groan and roll their eyes theatrically with a ten in the hole, but will give conflicting signals or no signals at all with nineteen or less (only play against dealers who get a lot of twenties).

In all these cases, you must weight your prospective costs (tokes, time, exposure) against your anticipated gains, as your advantage with these dealers is considerably less than with the kind of strongarm dealer who’s actively trying to build you up. Still, I advise you to take what you can get, and to remain alert to the possibility that dealers who like you enough to give you a little overt help may be unintentionally telling you a lot more on a more subtle level.

In closing, I must remind you that the sun is setting now on the golden age of hole-carding and reading dealer tells. The shadows lengthen and the purple twilight looms, as with each passing moment another casino goes no-peek forever. Some say that somewhere in this wide, mysterious world of ours, there will always be casinos with dealers that peek. Others, less optimistic, point out that these are the same people who accept dualism, posit a deterministic universe, and think that Charlton Heston still has all his real hair.

Whatever the truth of these matters may be, dealer tell opportunities certainly do exist right here and now. Why not get yours while you can? ♠

The Myth of Roulette Dealer Signature and “Section Shooting”

by Steve Forte

(From Blackjack Forum Vol. XII #2, June 1992)
© 1992 Blackjack Forum

Roulette Dealer Section Shooting

After first reading “Nevada Roulette” by Laurance Scott (Blackjack Forum Vol. XI #3, September 1991), I was left with a number of puzzling observations. There were so many inaccuracies regarding Nevada roulette versus roulette played elsewhere, modern wheels, dealer job security, the roulette “hold,” system players, countermeasures, hustling for tokes and the overall general conduct of the industry.

The thrust of the article had little to do with the controversial idea of dealer aiming, or “section shooting,” at roulette, but described Scott’s beliefs about supposedly common countermeasures used against winning players. I find it difficult to believe these practices could get past a real expert roulette player more than once, nor would I consider the practices “cheating.”

Laurance Scott is probably more qualified than most to describe the physics, technical factors and methods he believes would be used to section shoot. But aside from the ridiculous “Jane gets cheated” scenario, and the statement: “…the characteristics that make the wheel beatable from the player’s standpoint are the same characteristics which allow experienced dealers to cheat players by ‘aiming’ for sections,” there isn’t even a brief description or possible theory as to how it’s actually done.

It’s been over 15 years since I dealt the wheel and first heard the stories about roulette section shooting. I remember trying to spin the ball the same way from the same starting point and tracking my results. There never was any correlation.

Years later I learned that this “same spin, same starting point, fall into the groove” reasoning was fallacious, and just one of many traps you fall into when you try to convince yourself that this “skill” is possible. I also witnessed my first demonstration of roulette section shooting from a 20-year veteran, and it was far less than convincing. After years of listening to the debate I’ve found that those who support such claims seem to fall into one of three categories:

1. Those who believe roulette section shooting (or steering) is a manipulative skill that can be acquired with practice.
2. Those who contend that if beating the wheel by eye is possible then section shooting must be possible as well.
3. Finally there’s the group that has either heard about it, claim to have seen it done or believe they can do it themselves.

Interestingly, these views are all apparent in the article by Scott, and the subsequent letters submitted to Blackjack Forum by the ex-roulette dealer, the pit boss and Harry McArdle.

For example, in the letter from the former roulette dealer, the dealer asks: “How long would it take to learn to spin a roulette ball exactly four revolutions before dropping?” The implication is that if one can perfect the skill at this level, then one can master the technique for actual casino conditions.

I don’t believe you can rationalize in this way. Even with only one revolution and a super slow rotor, a significant margin of error still exists. As you increase revolutions (eight and nine revolutions are rarely seen, and 10 to 12 are considered very few) and pick up rotor speed, the margin of error will compound quickly eventually wiping out the skill factor.

The former roulette dealer also implies that the “skill” is easily attainable and the methodology is very straightforward. I believe these views to be a gross understatement of the difficulty. There are too many factors that move section shooting past the point of attainable manipulative skills.

Factors Against Dealer Signature or Section Shooting

Consider the capricious nature of the wheel. It is an undeniable fact that the characteristics of a specific wheel that may theoretically make it beatable one day can change the next day, or even the next minute, making the game unbeatable. Even the same dealer, same equipment and similar measurements of ball and rotor speed will yield different results at different times.

I proved this phenomenon to myself some years back after spending 17 days on the road scouting, evaluating conditions, and recording data on hundreds of wheels. Laurance Scott states the same opinion in How to Beat Roulette. He cautions: “…there are inherent factors of the game that cause wheels to phase in and out of predictability,” and: “I have scouted over 300 wheels and only a handful exhibit consistent behavior day after day.”

Many people will argue that roulette dealers after time develop “signatures” to their spins. They argue that roulette dealers “fall into a groove” and that a typical spin tends to produce similar results. I disagree. These same typical spins, produced with the same force (whether deliberately or by habit) will produce different results from day to day! How then could roulette dealers ever possibly develop “signature” spins?

What causes the unpredictable nature of a roulette spin? Basic wear and tear on the wheel. A tilted wheel, high spot(s) on the track, oil or dust on the track, temperature, oil and dust on the ball, and air density are a few of the many forces that represent the real nemesis of roulette computer teams and visual players.

Are the balls perfect spheres? Is the composition (weight) even distributed? Many experts say no and believe that these flaws are responsible for some of the strange results that one commonly encounters. I believe this phenomenon was first mentioned in the Romeo Project, a book that detailed an algorithm for roulette computer play.

Interesting side note: Don’t try to find this book, as every copy was purchased by a serious roulette computer team before it ever reached the public.

Finally, the most obvious factor, and remarkably, the one that many seem to forget: Roulette section shooting or steering would require the perfect correlation of two questionably attainable skills, not one. The roulette dealer would have to aim twice! He would first have to push the rotor to a perfectly pre-determined speed, and then spin the ball with a perfectly pre-determined force.

And the actions would have to be executed naturally to avoid suspicion. Compare these actions to those of professional bowlers, golfers, pool players and similar athletes. These pros only aim once and can literally take as much time as they want to warm up, evaluate conditions, and calculate the effects of their actions.

These are just a few of the many factors that contribute to the unfeasibility of section shooting. I hope to show that section shooting or steering would be infinitely more difficult and complex than most believe.

The ex-roulette dealer also comments, “If a player can clock a moving roulette ball, couldn’t a dealer?” This is a little like comparing apples to oranges. Just look at the mechanics involved.

A section shooting dealer must first push the rotor perfectly to a practiced, pre-determined speed. The ball must then be placed into the track perfectly at a pre-determined starting point. The ball spin would then have to begin with the same practiced initial velocity, carrying the ball perfect around the track a consistent number of revolutions before drop off. These are the physical skills that would have to be perfected. It would not at all be just a matter of interpreting observations of events that had already occurred.

When you read the views of the former roulette dealer and pit boss in Blackjack Forum, it becomes clear that these people really believe what they say is fact. This is not surprising. It seems that after people work in gaming for a short time they fall victim to the “I’m a Pro” Syndrome. After performing the same actions repeatedly, day in and day out, they convince themselves that they “should have” and therefore “must have” control over these actions.

Ask blackjack dealers what they do when players start “running over” the game. Most will change their shuffle in some way. They feel that by adding an extra riffle, an uneven break or perhaps a thinner strip, these changes may help get the game turned around. Then, when it does turn around—and it always does—they take the credit. They convinced themselves they can control the uncontrollable instead of simply realizing that normal fluctuation is alive and well.

In roulette, I believe every wheel dealer has at one time or another probably tried section shooting. Since very few players walk away from the roulette table a winner, the dealer takes the credit. He seems to forget about the 5.26% house advantage.

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. Both the pit boss and Harry McArdle point to these procedures as proof that roulette section shooting or steering exists.

After all, the logical question is, “Why do you think they have procedures like these?” As it turns out, the procedures are excellent, but the benefits realized by the industry have nothing to do with the prevention of “section shooting.”

They do, however, create good control and uniformity, and minimize the most annoying, ludicrous, unprofessional reality in gaming, which is dealers and pit bosses who sweat every dollar as if it was their own. Roulette dealers of this type visibly and with emotion try to “place” and “aim” the ball as if trying to steer, and mistakenly believe they can affect the outcome.

I also decided to give the accused a chance to tell their side of the story. I asked a close friend and triple sharp, all-around gaming executive, Gary Saul, 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?”

Their response suggests two very important contradictions to Scott: “Why would anyone develop this skill to cheat players when you could work with outside accomplices to cheat casinos?” and, “If, in fact, this skill was real, you might just have the perfect crime as far as gambling scams go.”

After all is said and done, I will admit, I believe there could be a set of circumstances and extremely hard-to-find conditions that might possibly allow section shooting to exist for extremely limited periods of time. But even attempts under such theoretically perfect conditions seem futile after analysis on a practical level.

Just ask yourself these questions:

There are approximately 300 wheels in Nevada, but how many must be excluded from even the possibility of dealer steering or section shooting due to the procedures in place at the casino (the blind spin, etc.)? How many casinos use the best old-time wheels with the most favorable features? How many of even these old wheels will exhibit manageable rotor decay rate and predictable bounce? Less than thirty, if even that.

Then ask, “How many dealers work in the same casino, with the same equipment, long enough to develop these questionably-attainable “skills”? How many are able to identify the right conditions? How many understand the physics involved and know exactly what it is they are trying to accomplish? A handful? I doubt it.

Finally, how many roulette players are then vulnerable? You can’t cheat any player who bets after the ball is released, skilled or otherwise. You can’t cheat the majority of system players or typical players who spread multiple bets across the layout with no preference for specific numbers or sectors. So who’s left? The occasional player who makes one straight-up bet or a few bets in a specific section? When you do find these roulette players, what happens when other players are betting the other side of the wheel?

If Laurance Scott had stated that he believed a possibility existed that, with exceptionally favorable conditions, an extremely knowledgeable and skilled dealer might theoretically be able to section shoot on a temporary basis, I might have agreed with him.

He did not express these views about roulette section shooting or steering. He stated: “Nevada casinos cheat their roulette customers,” and “…experienced dealers cheat players by aiming for sections of the wheel,” and, “Nevada roulette is really nothing more than a carny game,” and you can “…assume the game is rigged (which it is).” I couldn’t disagree with him more. ♠

Note: Steve Forte is responding to Laurance Scott, author of Professional Roulette Prediction.

Nevada Roulette

by Laurance Scott

(From Blackjack Forum Vol. XI #3, September 1991)
© 1991 Blackjack Forum

Scott is the author of Professional Roulette Prediction: Volume 1 – Basic Methods]

There are two roulette universes that exist on planet earth: Nevada roulette, and roulette as it is normally played throughout the world. Most people who purchase my How to Beat Roulette system seem to be interested in how to beat Nevada roulette, so it is important to understand exactly how the game is different in Nevada than in other parts of the world.

First, a little recap for those of you not familiar with the techniques of beating the game. First you must find a wheel with a predictable ball fall-off point. Second you must be skilled at identifying an exact point within each ball spin at which to make your prediction–generally three to four revolutions before the ball actually drops from the track. Third, you must make your prediction based upon a visual observation of the ball in relation to both the position and velocity of the wheel. Finally, you must place your bets on the layout.

As a general rule, about one out of four wheels throughout the world can be beaten to some degree with edges ranging from 5% to 40%, depending upon the playing conditions. In Nevada roulette, however, you can throw out all of the rules.

I recently spent a week scouting and playing roulette wheels in Reno. It had been a long time since I had visited Nevada for serious play, and on previous occasions I was troubled by the fact that I always seemed to get big edges on paper, but whenever I played the edge diminished. I now realize why this is so: Nevada casinos cheat their roulette customers.

What? Cheat at roulette? How can anybody cheat at roulette? Well, first of all let me qualify the statement by saing 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?

The answer lies in the fact that the characteristics that make a wheel beatable from a player’s standpoint are the same characteristics which allow experienced dealers to cheat players by “aiming” for sections of the wheel which would cause a player to lose a big bet. On some wheels I observed, an experienced dealer could maintain an edge of up to 30% over the majority of the players at the table.

Why Roulette Dealers Cheat

Job security is, in my opinion, the main reason dealers cheat. Roulette just doesn’t get that much action and in order to survive many casinos require that a dealer produce a hold percentage above 40%. A totally random roulette game will produce a hold percentage of around 25% for the house. A dealer who cannot maintain an increased hold percentage for the casino is history.

The second reason is greed. As long as the casino gets its 40% it will look the other way when the dealer “helps” a confederate or hustles high rollers for tips (as long as it doesn’t get too out of hand).

Any dealer experienced enough to hit sections (it takes about 5 years to learn this skill) and who can produce a 40% hold percentage is worth his or her weight in gold. These dealers have essentially free reign to do whatever they want to.

How Roulette Players are Cheated

First of all, as a player you must realize that the casino’s objective is to wipe you out. Here is how the “average” player is hustled:

Jane buys in for $40 and starts to play her numbers. The dealer looks for any section pattern in the numbers and does one of two things:

1. If Jane is a person the dealer wants to get rid of (i.e. she doesn’t have any more money in her purse), he will do his best to wipe her out as fast as he can by aiming for sections which she hasn’t bet.
2. If Jane is a person he feels will “dig in” for more money, he will start to play the hustle. Jane will lose about $30 and then win. Jane will press up and possibly win again. A feeling of winning and euphoria will be induced. The dealer will also console and encourage Jane when she loses. Jane will then reach into her purse and keep pulling out money until she has lost it all.

As a player, you are continually encouraged to play straight up numbers. Outside bets, corners, streets and splits are discouraged. This is because the dealer cannot aim for randomly distributed bets such as red or black. He will tell you that you can’t win any money by betting the outside. He will belittle and ridicule you for your stupid play. I have even seen some dealers go so far as to move players’ bets from spits to straight up saying, “You can’t make any money that way–why don’t you go for it?”

Make no mistake. Some of these dealers have been in the business for over 30 years and most are real seasoned pros. They are in the business of sizing up a player and then playing them for every nickel they have.

Enter the Roulette Prediction Player

Casinos that cheat do not like system players. They will ridicule you as a system player by telling you that they love your action because system players lose faster. But the fact is that most system players who play a red/black/even/odd system will lose at the normal 5.25% rate rather than the 30% rate preferred by the dealer. System players who play a section system (pre-betting sections trying to follow the dealer) are wiped out in an instant. Their section never comes up.

Prediction players are another matter. The casinos really don’t like prediction players and apparently have had to deal with them for many years. Prediction players wait until the ball has been set in motion before placing a bet on the layout, and most prediction players are of a “dealer signature” variety. Here is how an experienced dealer handles a prediction player:

Sleight of Hand Ball Switch

A prediction player is allowed to get a “read” on the dealer and maybe even win a bet. But the dealer knows exactly when the signature player is correctly reading the dealer’s intent and it is at this instant that a ball switch is made.

It is a sleight of hand move. The new ball is palmed from behind the wheel and switched just before the spin. Why is it sleight of hand? Because most signature players realize that a different ball means a different signature.

The signature player will start to press his bets thinking that nothing has changed. The new ball, however, does not react the same. Generally, the switched ball comes up 1/2 or 1/4 wheel opposite from the predicted section. This is usually enough to wipe out a signature player, and the dealers generally have an arsenal of three balls from which to choose, all of which look identical but have different physical characteristics.

Roulette Wheel Speed Change

Should a prediction player solve the ball switch (which usually can be recognized by the sound of the ball), the next move is the speed change. The dealer will alternate from fast to slow trying to confuse the prediction player. Combined with the ball switch this is a pretty effective maneuver. Only the very best predictive players (e.g., me) can handle varying rotor speeds combined with ball switches.

Wheel Rotation

Should a predictive player keep winning, the next step is to actually pick up the wheel and turn it 90 degrees. This is quite an event, and happened to me twice during my week in Reno. Both times the dealers said they were doing it to change my luck! I hadn’t had a hit for a few spins and I guess they were trying to help me out, even though I had all of the chips in front of me!

Bold-Faced Cheating

When all else fails the dealers actually stick their hand into the wheel during the spin and alter the speed of the wheel. At times this has been done when my back was turned as I was placing bets. Sometimes it has been done when I was looking at the wheel. This is about as close as you can get to out and out cheating, and presents one of the final stages of a player’s welcome at the roulette table.

“Get Your %@#(^*! Out of Here”

The final countermeasure I encountered was having a dealer lean on me and say, “How do you politely tell someone to Get Your Fucking Ass Out of Here?”

How to Counter the Counter Measures

For the first few days in Reno, I fell victim to many of these countermeasures. I’m good, but these 30 year pros are out for blood. I dropped about $800 playing $1 and $5 chips. Every time I would press I would lose. Every time I thought I had narrowed in on an edge I would lose. I was going nuts. I was keeping meticulous wheel statistics and, on paper, could show a whopping edge of 30% significant to the 4th standard deviation.

But then I noticed the ball switch. At first I could tell by the sound and then I confirmed it by looking into the ceiling mirrors (spy vs spy!). I then gathered statistics on each ball/speed combination.

I then realized that sometimes they were altering the wheel speed after I started making my bets. As a result, I made it a point to never turn my back on the wheel and only play the numbers in the first dozen.

What finally worked was a high variance strategy betting 1 to 5 numbers in the first dozen only. For those of you not familiar with high and low variance strategies, a high variance strategy is where you bet fewer numbers, but with higher amounts per number.

You win fewer times and have a higher variance in your bankroll, but given enough trials with the same action your result will be the same as if you were betting more numbers. For example, if you have a 10% edge you will win the same amount of money in the long term by betting $10 on one number as you would by betting $1 on each of 10 numbers.

The high variance strategy served several purposes: 1) It confused the dealers for a while, because they don’t usually see sections bet in this manner. 2) The wins were scattered far enough apart so that the dealers were “lulled” into complacency. 3) I could get the bets down and there was never any question of betting too late. I never pressed after a win. This is usually when conditions are at their worst. Instead, I retreated after wins and slowly let optimum conditions return. Sometimes under optimum conditions I would press after a series of losses.

My end results were several wins which netted me $1200. I came away an overall $400 winner betting $1 to $8 a spin. I played over 800 trials and my edge was about 25%. I stuck with $1 chips because this was the action that was normally tolerated. Did they like it? Not a bit. They sweated every dollar. But there was really nothing they could do except ask me to leave (which they politely did–after I camped out at the table for over 8 hours on my last session).

How to Beat Roulette

I have shown where a polished high variance prediction strategy can beat Nevada roulette. There is really nothing they can do about it except ask you to leave. You can predict the section they aim for when they try to aim. And when they try to go random, you can predict the section anyway! If you can learn to predict, learn to spot the ball switches, and bet in a smooth manner (never turning your back on the dealer) then you can get a substantial edge at Nevada roulette.

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.

This act won’t last for long but there are many variations which could keep it going maybe for days.

Will Nevada Roulette Continue?

One of the fears professional roulette teams have harbored throughout the years is that all of the opportunities will disappear because of more knowledgeable casinos, modern equipment, etc. However, this just hasn’t been the case–not only in Nevada but throughout the world. Roulette teams generally don’t worry about Nevada because devices are illegal and because casinos seem to sweat every dime. There are easier pickings elsewhere.

Favorable Nevada roulette conditions will apparently last forever. This is because the house is maintaining ideal conditions so that they can exact an edge over unsuspecting players. Nevada roulette is really nothing more than a carny game in the truest sense. However, this is one carny game that an be beaten by knowledgeable and skillful players trained in the art of predictive roulette.  ♠

Disappearing Spots at the Blackjack Table

by Arnold Snyder

(From Card Player, December 14, 1990)
© 1990 Arnold Snyder

A reader wrote to ask me why a popular Nevada casino had six playing spots on its blackjack tables instead of the traditional seven. There are two good reasons for this break with tradition that we’ve been observing in the past few years — fear and ignorance.

The six-spot blackjack table is another one of those foolish countermeasures that wastes playing time, reduces action, and costs the casino money. This is what it boils down to in theory: A casino wants to offer single-deck games because they attract players. Unfortunately, one-deckers also attract card counters, who strike fear into the hearts of casino managers.

What most upsets the pit personnel about one-deck blackjack games is that a card counter might beat these games with a flat bet. Generally, casinos identify card counters by watching for their betting spread. If a player continually ups his bet only after a lot of low cards come out of the deck, he’s told to take a hike. But what if the player is flat betting and winning? Is he a counter or just a lucky punter?

Some years ago, a mathematically inclined gaming equipment supplier realized that if a blackjack table had only six spots instead of seven, then the house would be dealing out 5% fewer cards in a typical full-table, two-rounds-and-shuffle one-deck game. This diminished penetration would cost any card counter at the table a few tenths of a percent in potential advantage. A few tenths of a percent represents a significant reduction in profit potential.

To illustrate this point, I’ve run two separate computer simulations of 20+ million hands each. Both simulate single-deck games with Vegas Strip rules and full tables. The only difference between these simulations is that in one the blackjack table had seven spots, while in the other, the table had six. All of the players are counting cards using the Zen Count (from Blackbelt in Blackjack), and flat-betting one unit on each hand. There are two rounds between shuffles.

So with a full table of flat-betting card counters, the house loses at a rate of about 0.3 percent less with six players at the table than with seven. The third-base player (Player 7 in the 7-spot game, but Player 6 in the 6-spot game), who gets to see the most cards before making his strategy decisions, is taxed one-half percent by the elimination of just one playing spot. Hey, this six-spot table isn’t such a bad idea for casinos after all, is it? I suppose this is what the gaming table supplier argued when he was hustling these new layouts.

But, let’s consider a few side effects of this brilliant new table design. Let’s say a casino has 20 blackjack tables and they switch from seven spots to six spots. At peak business hours, they can now accommodate only 120 customers, instead of the previous 140. Same amount of floor space, same number of tables, pit bosses, dealers, but they’ve lost 20 customers. This effect asserts itself around the clock, even when the house isn’t full — it now requires seven dealers to accommodate 42 customers instead of the previous six. They have effectively cut their operational efficiency by more than 14 percent.

On top of this, every dealer in the house will be dealing a slower game. Why? Because he’ll be spending a greater proportion of his time shuffling. Regardless of whether he’s dealing to six or seven spots, the dealer takes the same amount of time to shuffle the cards. The only difference is that with seven spots, there are 14 player hands between shuffles; with six spots, only 12 hands. That’s 14 percent less action between shuffles.

By installing six-spot tables, a casino is electing to serve significantly fewer customers, with significantly more employees, at a significantly slower rate. Still, you might argue that this drastic reduction in operational efficiency will save money because there are so many card counters these days.

That’s baloney. If you stick a card counter in that cherished third base seat at every table in the house and assume that the other players at the table are your “average” gamblers who lose at the rate of 1.5 percent, the house would still be realizing more profits with seven spots than with six. You have to bear in mind that although the six spot table reduces the card counters’ potential gains by a few tenths of a percent, it does not have any effect on the non-counters. The house will not win a few tenths of a percent more from each of the non-counters. This countermeasure, which only affects the few card counters that may be playing in the casino at any given time, is heavily taxing the casino’s efficiency at generating action with every other blackjack customer who plays there—around the clock, 365 days a year.

The six-spot blackjack table is one of the most costly countermeasures a casino can impose. If you get your kicks from laughing at ignorant house policies, look for casinos that put six-spot tables on multiple-deck games. [Since this article was written, the MGM Grand in Las Vegas has taken top stupidity honors!] Since shoe games are dealt to a cut card, and not any specified number of rounds, the number of spots at the table has no effect whatsoever on card counters. Casinos with multiple-deck six-spot tables are simply engaging in financial masochism.

And there are the casinos with single-deck, seven-spot tables whose dealers only deal one round between shuffles These casinos ought to conduct a survey with a stopwatch and calculator to estimate how much action is lost per table per hour because the dealers are spending twice as much time per player hand shuffling the cards. They should then figure out how many card counters would have to be feasting on those tables, if two rounds were dealt, before the house approached a break-even point from their loss of action with one round between shuffles. Unfortunately, casinos never conduct time and motion studies.

Send the meaning of life (and fast, before I conclude that my nightmare vision of reality is true) to: The Bishop c/o Blackjack Forum.   ♠

Beware of the Sega Robo-Dealers: Non-Random Video Blackjack

by Joel H. Friedman
(From Blackjack Forum Vol. XII #4, December 1992)
© 1992 Blackjack Forum

The March issue of Blackjack Forum (Volume XII #1) contained an interesting article by Allan Pell concerning a variety of robo-blackjack machines (i.e., computerized simulations of blackjack encased in slot machines). At the recent World Gaming Congress in Las Vegas, the Sega booth at the Expo had on display a version of their multiplayer blackjack machine very similar to the Sega BlackJack Super Magic Vision machine discussed by Pell. This machine has some “features” that I personally find very disturbing.

A quick glance at the rules of the game leads one to the conclusion that this is a game that is “too good to be true.” The handout sheet at the Sega booth describes a 2-deck game with shuffling after each round. Insurance, pair splitting and doubling down on 2-card hands are allowed. Pushes are returned to the player. Blackjacks pay two to one!! On top of this, there are significant bonus awards for special player hands:

• 5 cards under 21 returns 3 units
• 6 cards under 21 returns 10
• 7 cards under 21 returns 20
• 8 cards under 21 returns 50
• Ace-jack suited returns 5 units
• Ace-jack of spades 15
• Three 7s returns 10 plus a free play
• Three 7s of the same color returns 15 units plus a free play
• 21 made with 6,7,8 returns 10 units if suited, 5 units if unsuited

Finally, there is a random jackpot for A,2,3,4,5,6, plus a payoff of 10, 20, or 50 units depending upon whether your cards are mixed colors, all of the same color, or all of the same suit. An honest blackjack game with these rules would result in a huge player advantage (>5%).

Video Blackjack with an Adjustable House Edge

So how can casinos make money with a game that has such favorable rules? The Sega handout lists as a feature of their machine, “Operator selected percentages from 84% to 99% in one percent increments.” In other words, it seems that the blackjack rules are fixed, but the house edge is adjustable.

When I questioned the Sega representatives about this, I was given the following information. The Sega blackjack machines do not meet the regulatory requirements of Nevada or New Jersey. This was attributed to their software, which was developed for Sega by an outside vendor. The Sega representatives did not seem to know why the software caused a problem. Their view was that their machine was designed for entertainment as opposed to serious gambling. Their customers (i.e. casinos) seemed very pleased with the fact that the hold on their machines varied only a little from the selected percentage.

So, those are the facts that I have about the Sega blackjack machines. We now enter the realm of speculation. My understanding is that Nevada and New Jersey regulations require that machine implementations of card games deal in a manner such that the next card to be dealt must be selected at random from the undealt cards, each of which is equally likely to be chosen. I suspect that the reason Sega blackjack machines don’t meet Nevada and New Jersey requirements is that this randomness requirement is being violated. A discussion with someone who had played a Sega blackjack machine in a foreign casino suggested that Sega blackjacks occur far less frequently than blackjacks in the normal game.

Non-Random Video Poker from the Same People Who Brought You Non-Random Video Blackjack

Some of the readers of Blackjack Forum may be video poker enthusiasts as well as blackjack players. Yes, there are also video poker machines out there in foreign casinos which do not meet the regulatory requirements of Nevada and New Jersey.

Sega indicated that their blackjack machines can be found on cruise ships as well as in casinos in Europe, Asia, and in the Caribbean. The presence of a Sega blackjack machine in a casino should be viewed as an indication that you are in a jurisdiction that permits machines that do not meet the regulatory standards of Nevada or New Jersey. If you see an interesting looking machine, I suggest that you proceed with extreme caution, or play solely for entertainment.

[Arnold Snyder comments: Joel Friedman’s alarming discovery that a video blackjack machine being marketed in the U.S. allows the casino operator to preset the payback percentage—without altering the rules or the declared payout schedule—was news to me. I did not know such machines were being sold in this country.

I was not, however, unaware of the existence of these machines. In fact, during the summer of 1991, Blackjack Forum contributing writer, Allan Pell, had supplied me with brochures from many of the Japanese distributors of both video blackjack and video poker machines, which described how the casino operator could internally change the hold percentage with no apparent alteration of rules or payout schedules.

Pell, at the time, was working in Japan in the electronics industry. He had access to these materials through his employers and clients.

The Oakland firestorm, regrettably, destroyed all of the literature he had collected and sent to me. Up until that time, we had been planning a joint project to research the disturbing possibility of these machines making it into U.S. casinos. Further stifling this venture, Pell decided he’d had enough of Japan, and relocated to California.

When I received Joel Friedman’s article about the Sega machines being hawked at the ’92 Gaming Congress, I faxed a copy to Pell for any additional comments he had to make, as the importance of this story to casino players demands that it be published at this time, without all of the details and documentation. Allan faxed me an article titled “Rip-Off Robo-Dealers” that you will find in this same issue of Blackjack Forum.]   ♠