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The Hi-Lo Lite

All Those Index Numbers Never Mattered

by Arnold Snyder

(From Blackjack Forum Vol. XI #3, September 1991)
© 1991, 2005 Arnold Snyder

Last June, I started writing a monthly blackjack card counting column for Casino Player magazine, which comes out of Atlantic City. It’s a Q/A column.

One of the recent questions that Casino Player’s editors forwarded to me, which took me three issues to answer, has resulted in my development of a new approach to card counting—a system I call the Hi-Lo Lite. This system would be ideal for any player who feels the Red Seven Count is too simplified, with too much of a power loss in single and double-deck games.

In my Casino Player articles, I described my method of developing the Hi-Lo Lite system, so that a knowledgeable card counter could easily convert the Hi-Lo (or any balanced count) to a powerful “lite” version. And I compared the power of my multiple-deck lite indices with the power of Stanford Wong’s full set of indices (from Professional Blackjack).

But I didn’t publish the one-deck system, since Casino Player is aimed at more casual players, many of whom would require lengthy descriptions of the meaning of “strategy index numbers,” “true count,” etc.

Here in Blackjack Forum, for the first time ever, is my complete Hi-Lo Lite system. For those new to counting, the Hi-Lo Count card values are 2 to 6 = +1; 10,A = -1; and 7, 8, 9 = 0. In this article, I assume that you understand how to use strategy indices, convert running count to true count (per deck), etc.

Do You Lose Power with Simplified Indices? The Sims Say No.

First, some background information…

The initial question from the Casino Player reader that sparked the development of this new approach to card counting was: “Which Hi-Lo strategy indice tables are more accurate—Stanford Wong’s or Julian Braun’s?”

This was a question that I didn’t know the answer to, but which I felt would be fairly simple to answer. Using John Imming’s Universal Blackjack Engine software, I could simulate more than 100 million hands of blackjack per day in my basement.

So, I set up a test of three Hi-Lo variations—Wong’s, Braun’s, and my own (developed via the “Algebraic Approximation” method). I ran off 500 million hands of each strategy with a flat bet in single-deck games with Vegas Strip rules, using all indices between –15 and +15. This simulation comparison, which totaled 1.5 billion hands, may have been the lengthiest computer simulation of casino blackjack ever attempted for the purpose of answering a single question.

At the end of the test, to my surprise, there was no mathematically significant difference between any of the results.

These were the results:

Wong Hi-Lo: +0.477%
Snyder Hi-Lo: +0.462%
Braun Hi-Lo: +0.461%

The difference between the best win rate (Wong’s) and the worst (Braun’s) is about one sixtieth of one percent, which is not mathematically significant with only 500 million hands. It took my computer two weeks, running 24 hours per day, to run these 1.5 billion hands, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste any more computer time attempting to answer this question. There is virtually no dollar and cents difference to the player.

Because there are many differences among the recommended indices for these three systems, however, my simulation results led me to hypothesize that strategy index numbers may not be such precise indicators of when to alter basic strategy, or, at least, that the “borderline” for the coin-toss decisions may be a fairly wide line.

So I followed up that column, and this initial set of simulations, with another test to see just how wide that borderline might be.

I set up a 6-deck Atlantic City game and ran off 200-million hands using Wong’s Professional Blackjack indices for this game. I used the top 18 indices.

For the second simulation, I converted each of Wong’s indices to –1, +1, or +4. I did this systematically. If Wong’s index was –1 or –2, I made it –1. I his index was 0, +1, or +2, I made it +1. His +3, +4, and +5 indices all became +4. I then ran off another 200-million hands testing this simplified version of Wong’s strategy. In both simulations, I used a 1-to-8 spread, and I also tested the effect of not betting on negative counts.

These were the results:

Wong Play All: +0.50%
Simplified Play All: +0.51%

Wong No Neg.: +0.98%
Simplified No Neg.: +0.99%

The differences between Wong’s system and the simplified version are not mathematically significant. What is meaningful for players is that a highly simplified version of the Hi-Lo strategy index charts performs with equal power to the precise version. To the player who might find it difficult to memorize and utilize many different strategy indices, this opens the possibility of learning just three strategy indices, and learning the changes in blocks.

First you learn the few changes that occur at +1; then you learn to +5 block of changes; finally, the –1 changes. Forget the charts and flash cards with different numbers for each decision. They are a waste of time and effort.

But, how well would this approach work in single-deck games, where playing strategy is so much more important?

I set up a Reno one-deck simulation and used 60 indices from page 107 of Wong’s Professional Blackjack. I ran 100 million hands and tallied the results with both a flat bet and a 1-to-4 spread. The penetration was 75%.

I then tested two “lite” versions of the Hi-Lo. For the first lite version, I “widened the border,” converting Wong’s indices to either –5, -1, +1, +5 or +10. I ran off 100 million hands with this highly simplified strategy, keeping all other conditions identical.

Then, I removed 21 of the pair split indices (all but the ten splits), so that this lightest lite version not only had simplified strategy tables, but also used only 39 strategy indices as opposed to Wong’s 60.

These were my results:

Wong Flat Bet: -0.06%
Wong 1-to-4 Spread: +1.32%

Lite (60 Indices) Flat Bet: -0.05%
Lite (60 Indices) 1-to-4 Spread: +1.33%

Lite (39 Indices) Flat Bet: -0.08%
Lite (39 Indices) 1-to-4 Spread: +1.29%

The fact that the Hi-Lo Lite (60 Indices) system outperformed Wong’s by +0.01%, again, is not significant in a test of 100 million hands. The removal of the 21 pair split indices shows a bigger effect than just simplifying the indices, but even this difference is just barely on the edge of mathematical significance.

From the practical, dollars and cents perspective, it doesn’t matter which of these systems you use. These simulation results indicate that you may use a vastly simplified Hi-Lo Strategy and maintain full power, even in a one-deck game!

What does this discovery mean to card counters? It means that learning and utilizing strategy indices for any system need not be the chore that it has been. Instead of memorizing a different index number of each individual decision, you may simplify the indices using the same methodology that I did, and learn your changes in blocks.

How to Use the Hi-Lo Lite Card Counting System

Here’s how to do it:

1) Learn basic strategy.

2) Learn all of the strategy changes that occur at +1. Don’t learn any other changes until you’ve mastered this block.

3) Learn the block of changes that occur at +5. Ditto.

4) Learn the blocks of changes that occur at –1; then –5; then +10, as above.

At the blackjack tables, using this simplified strategy is a piece of cake in comparison to the traditional methods of strategy variation. It’s still not as simple as the Red Seven Count, but this “lite” (rounded) strategy retains full system power, which the Red Seven does not.

The true counts where each new block of changes kicks in are far apart. You don’t have to worry about whether the true count is +1 or +2 or +3, since you’re simply going to use your +1 block of changes until the true count gets all the way up to +5. All of the nitpicking and much of the brainwork is eliminated.

I would also again advise players, as I first advised back in 1980, to throw out your pair splitting indices.

The 0.03% (three hundredths of a percent) difference between the Hi-Lo Lite (39) and Wong’s Hi-Lo, using the 1-to-4 spread, even if real, would make very little practical dollar and cents difference to a player. Also, note that this difference is entirely due to eliminating the pair split indices, not the “lite” approach. A player who didn’t want to give up those few hundredths of a percent could simply add back in the Lite pair split indices.

Before you go to that trouble, however, consider exactly what an 0.03% difference will mean to your expectation. A card counter using Wong’s Hi-Lo, with the full set of pair split indices, and $50 average bets, with 100 hands per hour and a 1-to-4 spread, has an expectation of about $66 per hour. The High-Low Lite, with 21 of the pair split indices removed, has an expectation of about $64.50 per hour.

You may also use these same indices for multiple-deck games, though you may throw out the +10 block (since you’ll rarely encounter true counts this high); and throw out the –5 block if you’re table hopping to avoid negative decks.

Here’s the Hi-Lo Lite (39) strategy I used in my simulation. Alter basic on each decision as your true count hits each block.

+1 Block:
Insurance
16 v. 10
12 v. 3 and 4

+5 Block:
16 v. 9 and A
15 v. 10 and A
12 v. 2
10 v. 10 and A
A-9 v. 5 and 6
X-X v. 5 and 6

-1 Block:
13 v. 2 and 3
12 v. 5
11 v. A
10 v. 9

-5 Block:
17 v. A
15 v. 2
14 v. 2 and 3
13 v. 4 and 5
12 v. 6
11 v. 8, 9, and 10
10 v. 8

+10 Block:
16 v. 8
15 v. 9
14 v. A
A-9 v. 2, 3, and 4
X-X v. 3 and 4

The Hi-Lo Lite Strategy
 23456789XA
17         -5
16      10515
15-2      1055
14-5-5       10
13-1-1-5-5      
12511-1-5     
11      -5-5-5-1
10      -5-155
A910101055     
XX 101055    -5
Ins: 1          

For an expanded, updated version of the Hi-Lo Lite Card Counting System, as well as the Zen count and information on how professional gamblers win at blackjack without card counting, see Blackbelt in Blackjack by Arnold Snyder. For the original Hi-Lo count, see Stanford Wong’s Professional Blackjack. ♠

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Watch Out for Rolex Hookers

A High Roller Gets Rolled

by Raymond X.
(From Blackjack Forum Volume VII #3, September 1987)
© Blackjack Forum 1987

[Editor’s note: On July 18, 1987, the San Francisco Chronicle carried a short item about “Rolex Hookers”—women who pose as prostitutes, then rob their “customers” after drugging them. They frequently seek out men wearing Rolex watches because the watches are usually worth thousands of dollars by themselves.

According to the Chronicle, one woman alone is wanted in several states for nine homicides that resulted from overdoses of the various “knockout” drugs employed. These women frequently work in airport bars, but this crime is becoming more and more common in major casino hotels. In Las Vegas casinos, these women do not need to look for Rolex watches, what with so much visible cash. Likewise, in casinos, they often do not pose as prostitutes, but simply as other guests of the hotel.

Raymond X., a professional blackjack player, was the victim of this crime, one lucky enough to live to tell his story. Some details have been changed to protect his identity, but otherwise this is his story in his own words. – Arnold Snyder]

Rolex Hookers in Las Vegas

I was in town for two nights. There was this woman who kept popping up in different places—all around the casino I would see her, whether I was playing blackjack, craps, or whatever.

I was just there to gamble. She was never on a game, to begin with. She would kind of be in the background watching. But a lot of people were watching because I was betting blacks the whole time. At times, when I would get up, I had stacks of chips. I just had large stacks of blacks—20, 30, 40 of them. And so people were stopping and watching. I didn’t really attribute seeing her to anything else other than that she was just kind of interested.

Later, as I would go to the bathroom or something, I’d see her coming the other way. She’d kind of smile, almost like trying to get me so I would know who she was. I’d go listen to the music for awhile, take a break, I’d see her around the other end of the bar.

That night, the first night, as I was going up to my room, I was waiting at the elevator. She came up and got up right next to me and punched another elevator to go up, looked at me and just smiled, said, “Hi.” And that’s it. That was the end of it. Never saw her again that night. I went up and went to bed.

Next day, I would start playing again, and all of a sudden, there she is again. It dawned on me, this girl might be a prostitute. She’s probably a prostitute or something, because I I keep seeing her around.

Finally, near the end of the night she comes on my table. I’m getting ready to leave. I’m getting to the point where I’m getting tired. Again, I had a good night. I was lucky. I’d won about $5000 or so. She gets on the table and starts playing, but never talks to me, never says a word. Again, just casually looks over and smiles, just like anybody would, just about. Finally, when she’s getting ready to leave, she says something like, “Good luck,” and she’s gone again. I’m wondering what’s going on here. Is this girl doing anything? Has she got something on her mind? I’m not sure.

Anyway, I quit playing. I’ve got about a $5000 win. And I’m feeling pretty good about it. I’m walking around the casino just looking at other games. I’m by myself. I’m walking around and she’s playing at another table, sees me coming and says something to me like, “How’d you do over there?” I stop and chat with her a little bit at her table. So we get familiar, sort of. And she seems like a real nice girl, kind of soft-spoken and that type of thing.

I go to the bar. I’ll be honest with you, I was at the bar wondering if this girl is going to come by the bar. I’m figuring she is and I’m going to find out. If it seems like she’s a prostitute or something of that nature, I’m going to decline and I’m going to go to bed. She comes over and sits down at the bar. I invite her to come over and sit down. I’ll buy her a drink.

From that point I fully expect something from this girl. I expect some sort of a proposition or something. But she doesn’t come through with it. We talk casually. First thing she says, she walks up and says, “So, are you a professional? Do you do this for a living?”

And the first thing that pops into my mind is, maybe she’s with the casino. Maybe it’s her job to get close to me and talk to me and find out if I’m a professional card counter or blackjack player or something. But that doesn’t make sense. They can just watch me and figure out if I’m good. And I don’t want to give her a line, so I just tell her: “Oh no, no, no. I’m a businessman. I just like to come up and play.”

She goes, “Well, you play awfully well.” Which, even if I do, how could she tell from what she saw, which was not very much. Anyway, really, I was just having a lucky night. She starts discussing blackjack. She likes blackjack too and she plays often and she thinks a lot of the typical things about it—“I like to play with good players on my table” and all that kind of stuff. So, I get into a discussion with her about that.

She told me that she was on vacation with two girlfriends, and her friends had picked up some guys and they were with these guys, and she was reluctant to go back to her hotel room that she was sharing with her friends. She didn’t know what the situation would be with the guys that they went with. So I said, “What are you going to do?” She says, “No problem. I’m going to stay out and gamble. My plane leaves tomorrow. I’m going home tomorrow. I’m going to stay out all night and just gamble.”

Again, she doesn’t make any blatant overture or anything. She just leaves it open for me to say, “That’s convenient.” Then I won’t sound so stupid if I end up asking her to stay with me. I won’t sound so dumb. So the real clincher was, I’m still worried about her, but the clincher was I ask her where she’s from. She says, “I’m from New York State,” which by pure luck and happenstance is where I’m from.

And not only is she from New York, she’s from an area upstate where my folks have lived for a long time. And she knows the area and right there I start talking about old home week, like “Is this place still there? Did you ever go to this place? Did you eat dinner at this place?” Whatever. And I’m starting to like this girl. We’re kind of having a good time talking about this. All my fears start to just completely go right out the window. She’s smooth. Really smooth. Talking just like another tourist, and she’s lucky that she hit on the place where I’m from, otherwise I don’t think my guard would have been down so much.

Anyway, one thing leads to another. We have drinks. I buy her a drink. She’s playing Keno. She hits a Keno ticket. And she goes to cash the Keno ticket. At this time I start saying to myself, “I have to decide what I want to do now because it’s about 6 o’clock in the morning and I’m getting tired. I’m not going to sit here and drink with this girl. I’m going to do one thing or the other. I’m either going to tell her goodnight, I’m going to bed, or I’m going to invite her to go with me. Do I want to do it or don’t I?”

So I start weighing the good and the bad about the whole thing. I think: Is there any chance that this girl could be a prostitute or something? And I think about it and I go, “No, she’s not good looking enough,” which is really tough for me. That’s one of the tough things about this whole thing. If this girl had been a goddess or something, I would probably have had more of an excuse for doing what I did. But as it turns out, it works in her favor that she’s not beautiful, because you don’t have all those thoughts of “This girl is a professional and somehow she’s a danger.” That’s not the case. I think she’s probably not a hooker because she’s not very good looking and I don’t think she’d make a very good living at it.

I know it doesn’t sound very good to say this, but it goes to show how good her act was—I really thought that if I asked her to come to my room, I’d be doing her a favor. I thought, here she was with her girlfriends. They’d come to see the big town, and go out gambling and drinking and maybe have some crazy fling, you know, pick up some guys—which was what her friends did.

But she was by herself. I looked at her and thought she’s on the homely side, and she’s all alone and she’s not going to find anyone. So I thought, this would be a nice thing to do. Honest to God. Not that I’m anybody’s gift to women or anything, but I thought that if this girl really likes me, then this could be a nice thing to do for her. I’m being candid. That’s really what went through my mind. That was probably the deciding factor.

Then I think, as a matter of fact, if I have a couple of more drinks this is all going to go a lot smoother, it’s going to be easier on me. I really wasn’t that attracted to her. So, she goes to cash a Keno ticket and I order a shot of Jack Daniels and a drink for her. And I drink the shot and her drink and I just about guzzle mine. I’m trying to get drunk enough to ask this girl to spend the remainder of the night with me. So I do. She comes back and I say, “I’m going to be going up to bed. Do you want to go with me? You’re welcome to stay with me tonight if you’d like.” She says, “Well, I’ve been thinking about it. I’d consider it. You’re a cute guy. I’ve been considering it.”

I said, “Well, it’s up to you. You’re welcome if you want to.” She says, “Okay.” So I say to her, “Why don’t we take our drinks with us?” She doesn’t have to say or do anything. She goes, “Okay.”

So, we go up. The whole time in the back of my mind, I still think there is a possibility that this girl is a prostitute. Either she’s going to solicit me for money and tell me that if I want to go through with it, it’s going to cost, or she’s just some sort of a money grubber and one way or another she’s going to put a hard luck story on me and try to get some money out of me, not as a blatant sex-for-money or prostitution thing, but “how about you take care of me a little bit.” In which case I’ll tell her I’m just not going to or I’m not in a position to do something. Or, maybe all she wants is she’s going to expect me to buy her a nice dinner or something tomorrow.

That’s in the back of my mind. But one thing that’s not ever anywhere in any part of my consciousness is that this girl is somehow going to subdue me and take the money from me. There’s where ego comes in. You just don’t ever think, “What can this girl do to me?” This girl can’t do anything to me. All she can do is ask for money and I can turn her down. She can’t take the money from me.

By the way, I didn’t put my money in the safe deposit box, a) because I’m stupid, b) because I think the money’s safe with me. There’s no problem. There’s a little less than $10,000.

So, we get up to my room and I go to the bathroom. Again, perfect. I spend a lot of time in the bathroom because I’m trying to think of a place to hide the money. That’s when she must have put the stuff, whatever she put, into the drink that I had.

So, I take the money and flatten it out, and it’s a wad because it’s all in $100 bills. I’ve got a hundred $100 bills basically, and I put the whole wad underneath the bath mat that’s draped over the side of the tub. And it’s a pretty good hiding place really. It doesn’t show or anything. But I think to myself, “At some point this girl is going to be in this bathroom by herself and if she stumbles upon this, she might take $100.” So I don’t do that. I come out and she goes into the bathroom and I put the money on a drapery cord behind the drapes. I kind of latch it onto that.

Later, when I try to reenact what happened, I figure she slaps me. “All right, he’s asleep. Now I’ve got to find the money. I need some light.” So she goes to the drapery and opens it. And there it is on the cord. Really good place to hide the money!

Anyway, she comes out of the bathroom. I take one drink. She doesn’t even prod me to do it. Then we go right to bed. While we were having sex I found out she was wearing a wig. It came off accidentally. And, she said, “Well, now we know that.” I realize now she must have been trying to disguise herself. I didn’t think much about it at the time. Afterwards, I fell asleep right away.

I was effectively out for two days. I could not talk or function the whole next day and I slept a total of 20 some hours before I was finally back to normal. The police say it typically takes anywhere from 12 minutes to about 20 minutes for the drug to take some sort of effect.

It was about eight or nine hours later, anyway, when I first awakened. Actually, I found out later, my friend, Ralph, who was staying at a hotel across the street, called my room about 45 minutes after we got there, and she answered the phone. This was around 7 am. We had gone up to my room about 6:15. So at 7 o’clock, Ralph calls to see if I’d called it a night yet. He was still playing.

She answers the phone and he says, “Is this Ray’s room?” I was already out at this point. I had felt just a sweeping tiredness, but not that I said, “I’m in trouble, I’m drugged.” I said, “I’m tired. It’s been a long night. I’ve been doing a lot of drinking,” which was true. I drank a lot at the end of my work at the tables. I always drink a lot after I play. So, alcohol mixed with the drug doesn’t do me any good, obviously. But all of a sudden I just went goodnight. And I just went to sleep. Bang, I’m out.

One thing I remembered later. As I was losing consciousness, she made all kinds of little remarks. She was making fun of me. She knew she had me and she was making comments like, “We’ll see who gets the last laugh here.” At the time I didn’t know what she meant.

Anyway, the phone rings. I’m so out it doesn’t wake me. She picks it up and answers it. Ralph asks for me. She says, “You’ve got the wrong room. It’s the wrong number.” He says, “Sorry.” He hangs up and calls again. It’s busy. She had taken the phone off the hook.

But Ralph’s call may have saved me from her getting into my credit cards and things. She might have thought, “I’d better get out of here.” She had the money and she probably didn’t go any further looking for anything else. The only other thing she took was my pants. There was no reason for her to take them. She was just adding insult to injury. Maybe she hangs them up as a trophy.

So, she leaves the phone off the hook. Ralph told me later he was calling me all day, for hours, and the phone is busy, busy. He didn’t know what to do. Finally, he said, “Forget it. Something could be wrong.” And he called security and told them, “Look, I have a friend up there. I know the guy’s in there. His phone’s been off the hook for seven hours now. You’d better go in.”

Ralph comes to my room with the security guard. The next thing I know is I hear the guard yelling my name asking me if I’m all right. He wouldn’t come into the room. It’s their policy that they don’t go into the room. They’ll only go to the door, open it, and yell in. I wake up to this. And he says, “This is security. Are you alright?” I go, “Yeah, I’m all right.” And immediately I swivel around.

Now, it dawns on me. I look and she’s gone. I thought, Oh God. It falls into place now. For some reason, though I was really drugged and out of it, I still knew that there was a problem.

It turns out that the guard yelled at me for about two minutes before I woke up. He stood there yelling at the doorway for two minutes, I was told by Ralph. Ralph didn’t want to come in either for some reason. The guard probably wouldn’t let him. This is all goofy. I don’t know why. I never did ask him. But he said that it took the guard about two minutes to wake me. I said, “I’m all right, I’m fine, go ahead.”

He said, “Your phone’s off the hook.” I said, “Okay.” I put it on the hook. They closed the door and left. I got up and walked over to where the money was. I looked and it was gone. I knew that she had taken it. I was so goofed up I just went, “Gee, this is bad.” I walked back to the bed and I fell asleep.

Ralph comes back, I guess about an hour later. He wakes me up by pounding on my door and yelling at me. He says, “Jesus, Ray, we got things to do. You’ve got to stay in touch.”

I look at him and his words were, “Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with you?” I guess my eyes were glazed. He thought I’d been out all night and had just gotten in. At that time it was about 2 o’clock in the afternoon. He thought I’d stayed up through the night getting drunk at the bar. He says, “What’s wrong with you?”

I said, “Ralph, I got trouble.”

He says, “What? Tell me.”

I said, “My money’s stolen. I brought a girl in here and she stole my money.” And then I went to sleep again.

He knew I was drugged. He woke me up again. I insisted I wasn’t.

He says, “Are you alright? You look terrible.”

I said, “I’m just tired.”

He goes, “You’re not tired. She did something to you.”

I said, “No, I’m fine.” Then I went out again.

He got the house detective up there. As I was being talked to by the house detective, I kept going out. I kept insisting that I wasn’t drugged. Ralph told me a couple of days later, “One time you kept insisting you weren’t drugged. I told you, I said, ‘Ray, you’re drugged.’ And you looked at me and said, ‘I’m not drugged. Watch me dance.’” And I got up and started dancing. And I said, “See.” And I went to the bed and went out again.

I remember that my speech was slurred. I remember having trouble talking. I couldn’t get my words. I was taking big giant steps trying to keep my balance. And I was incredibly sleepy. As the security man talked to me, I remember I’d say something and my head would droop over the bed and I’d go out again. And I’d remember hearing—I was half awake and half asleep—I remember hearing Ralph say, “See, there he goes again.” Ralph was getting mad. “There, he’s out again.”

They took me to the police station. The police have their own hospital. They took blood and urine samples to test for the drug. That’s another thing. They couldn’t just analyze my drink. The glasses were washed out and tipped over to dry in the bathroom.

“Didn’t she give you the line about the back rub?” one of the cops asked me.

I said, “She did ask me if I wanted a back rub. I told her no. I was so tired, I was afraid if she did it I’d fall asleep before we got to the sex.”

They thought that was very funny. Apparently, these girls never actually have sex with their victims. You’re supposed to lose consciousness during the back rub. Actually, she asked me if I could give her a back rub first. I told her I wasn’t any good at giving back rubs. She really wanted it all—the money and a massage. Then I turned down her offer to rub my back.

So they not only had to test for the drug, I had to get VD tests, too.

In other ways, according to the police, she was very typical. They told me these girls make it easy for you to invite them to stay with you. Some examples they were giving me: “I’m out of money,” or “I lost my room,” or “They’re booked up and I haven’t been able to get a room.”

As it turns out, in the final analysis, in talking with the police, they said that these women work on the premise that most of the men they rob can’t take the embarrassment of it, so they’re not going to go to the police. They’ve got wives, girlfriends—that type of thing. Even if they do go to the police, the next morning after they think it over, they decide it’s not worth it to pursue it because of the embarrassment or whatever, so that this type of crime is getting more and more prevalent.

The information they gave me was that two guys had already died from overdoses in casino hotel rooms. These girls are not pharmacists. They don’t know what they’re doing, and they’re going to make sure they give you enough to put you out if you don’t drink much, which is what I did. I had one slug, one good drink of this drink. I didn’t finish it. And it effectively put me out for two days. I don’t know what would have happened if I drank it all. I could be dead. The cops said it’s very dangerous and it’s a growing problem, not just in casinos, although it’s very prevalent in casinos now.

That’s the whole story from beginning to end. And the main ingredient of it is that when you meet a girl like this, it’s not what you would expect. You would expect a beautiful woman, someone really good looking who’s going to entice you. But your fears are put aside because this is not that kind of a girl. This is the kind of girl that you think, “This girl is a tourist. She’s a simple, everyday, middle-America type girl.” And that’s exactly what she was going for. That’s exactly the role she played. She didn’t try to come off as some glamorous thing that was going to seduce me in that way. She came off as, “I’m on vacation, you’re on vacation. We’re on vacation. Let’s have fun.” She let me do it all. And she scored.

I’m telling you this because I think people can die from it. Not only can they lose a lot of money. $10,000 is a lot of money to me and it would be to other people and I’m sure that others would be in danger of losing that much. But, this girl is a pro. This is her business. I met her head-on and she beat me.

She just outsmarted me, outfoxed me. I was no match for her. I was no match and I was even trying to look out for trouble because I was worried about all that cash. I was looking out, and still, I was putty to her. She used me so easily. That’s why it’s dangerous. That’s what’s scary about the whole situation. The glasses are all turned over. Everything was out of the glasses, cleaned.

I just don’t want it to happen to anybody else because it’s horrible. I would have never known how good this girl was. At nights, when I think about this, I almost admire her for her skill. I think about how smooth she was. Her story was beautiful and the way she presented herself. She reeled me in like a fish. She just had me for dinner. And the worst part of it was she stole my pants. Insult to injury all the way. ♠

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Las Vegas — Carnival of Carnivals!

Hey Rube! Las Vegas Welcomes You!

by Arnold Snyder
(From Blackjack Forum XXII #3, Fall 2002)
© Blackjack Forum 2002

Before the age of TV, multiplex theaters, and Game Boys, there were traveling carnivals. The carnies would rent a lot on the outskirts of town, set up their tents and portable stages, poster the lamp posts and trees all week, then skin the rubes for all they could get before packing up and moving on to the next sign of civilization, the next vacant lot, the next herd of rubes. Carnies categorized all of humanity into two distinct groups—carnies and rubes. If you weren’t a carny, you were a mark, ripe for the picking.

Many books have been written about the carny life, most from the exposé perspective, revealing how the games were rigged and how the rubes were lured in, then cleaned out. Some have been written by carnies themselves, describing the hardships of the life and the us-versus-them mentality that pervaded their world. Whether you were running a ring-toss game, selling tickets to the freak show, hawking beer and ice cream, or belly dancing in the “For Men Only” tent, if you were with the carnival, you were “in the life,” and carnies were your only family. It was all of you together against the rubes of the world.

Because of my lifelong interest in tricks, scams, games, and cons, I’ve read a lot about carnies. For most of my life, I’ve thought of the carny lifestyle in a sort of nostalgic way. I say “sort of nostalgic” because it wasn’t my personal nostalgia—I wasn’t there. It was a world and a lifestyle that existed for the most part before my time. Or so I thought…

Then I moved to Las Vegas.

I’ve been here for a year now, and it has slowly dawned on me that the entire state of Nevada is the Carnival of Carnivals. Everyone who lives here is a carny! We’re all here to rip off the rubes. It doesn’t matter if you’re working a casino game, dancing in the Vegas strip clubs, selling show tickets, food, gasoline, or t-shirts, we’re all one big family with one common goal: get the rubes’ money, or help someone else get it, and then get your cut.

Nevada has taken a lot of the hardship out of the carny life. We don’t have to pull up stakes every Monday and caravan to the next town. We’ve got the rubes coming to us!

This whole state was once one big empty lot on the outskirts of America. So, we set up our tents here, and we’re not moving. Why should we? Vacant lots this size are hard to come by. This is not your standard carny operation of half a century ago. We can’t just fold up and fit the whole kit and caboodle into half a dozen panel trucks. That Mirage volcano just doesn’t break down and squeeze into a few cardboard boxes so easily.

Every resident of this state is part of this carny life, and we all know it. We all understand that it’s us against the rubes, and we’ve got to keep the rubes coming, or we starve. We’re pretending to be a state of the union, just another one of the fifty united states, but we’re not really a state, and we all know that too.

We’re just a big scam operation. Our politicians aren’t really politicians. Our judges and lawyers and police aren’t really judges and lawyers and police. Those who hold such positions in this Carnival of Carnivals operate on the nudge-nudge-wink-wink system, and everyone who lives here knows that too. Just bring in the rubes!

You want to gamble? We got gambling! More gambling than you’ll find in the rest of the world combined! You can win millions! Come on in!

You want naked girls? We got more show girls and strip clubs per square mile than any six big cities combined! We’re just dripping with hot nubile flesh! Come on in!

You want to get laid? We got legal whorehouses all over the damn place! Our girls are tested weekly for VD, and there’s no pimp with a switchblade lurking around the corner, not to mention vice cops to bust you! There ain’t no vice in this state, so come on in!

You want to get wasted? Hey, this ain’t California where the bars all close at two a.m. There ain’t no clocks in Nevada, and we don’t prosecute drunk drivers! The whole damn state is shit-faced, so come on in!

Carnies always take care of their own. Many of the Vegas night clubs allow locals in for free, and most of the strip clubs have regular “Service Industry Nights,” when the card-carrying carnies can come in cheap, get free drinks, and half-price table dances.

You think all those coupon books with show tickets, $1.99 buffets, and 99¢ shrimp cocktails are for the tourists? Think again. Half the people who live in Vegas have never even been to a grocery store. Carnies feed their own. Every casino has a break room where the dealers, waitresses, keno girls, and pit folk can all eat for free. The rubes pay the bills in this town!

And there ain’t no state income tax in Nevada. Our highways are maintained by the millions of bucks the rubes drop in our con games daily. People who move to Nevada from real states soon discover the benefits of being a carny. Free food. Free shows. No taxes. And a never-ending supply of suckers with loose money.

In Michigan, there’s the auto industry. In Florida, oranges. Washington: apples, fish, lumber. Texas: oil, cattle ranches. Wisconsin: cheese. Pennsylvania: steel. California: produce, motion pictures, pornography. New York: banking, publishing.

But Nevada? What’s our industry?

We empty the wallets of everyone who visits here from all those other states. So, come on in!

Now, where do card counters fit into this picture?

The games are all set up as cons—simple ruses to separate the fools from their money. The card counter doesn’t fit the purpose of the game. What’s he doing here?

To put it simply, the counter is running his own con game, conning the cons! Some of the carnies may not like it, but most of them understand, because down deep, if carnies have any respect for anyone, it’s for a really good con artist. And if you can con a con, you’ve earned instant respect. The carny that you’ve conned may be personally upset that he was made into a mark—after all, nothing is more embarrassing to a carny than to be taken for a rube. Still, all of the other carnies enjoy these tales of cons being conned. As a result, there’s a whole subculture of cons who specialize in conning the cons—us!

And, although most casino personnel may be pretty dim when it comes to advantage play, every casino has a handful of employees—dealers, pit personnel, even surveillance guys—who count cards, or play video poker, or milk slot club promotions at other casinos when they’re not working.

Which raises the question: In this Carnival of Carnivals, how do you tell the carnies from the rubes?

To answer that question, we must address the two problems faced by Nevada—this carnival in state’s clothing—that were never problems in the old days of the traveling carnivals.

1. Most of the carnies here don’t know the games.

In the old days, the guy running the milk bottle scam knew the gaff and how it worked. Many dealers and bosses today, on the other hand, though they know the games are rigged, don’t understand how. They can’t protect the games. In other words, the casinos have made the mistake of hiring rubes to run the scams, which is fine, assuming the scams are self-working. But if a carny-in-rube’s-clothing shows up knowing how to beat the scam, the rube-in-carny’s-clothing who is running the game will never know it!

2. There are too many carnies in too small an area.

Nevada may be big, but Las Vegas alone has a million residents—too many con artists in too small a space. Even with all those rubes coming into town every day, the temptation to con some of the other cons is just too great, since the real carnies know about the first problem described above—that most of the carnies running the games are fake carnies who don’t know how the scams work.

The solution? At this point, Nevada sees only one solution: surveillance, surveillance, and more surveillance. In other words, let’s hire carnies to spy on the rubes, and see if any of the rubes are really carnies pretending to be rubes! Sounds like a plan, but…

Is it working?

Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no. The major problem with this solution is that the ignorance of how the scams work has risen to the highest levels of carny management. This situation is a result of the corporatization of the industry, with many corporations believing it is not in their public image to be running scams on their customers. So, there are now rubes who own and manage the carny operations, and they hire other rubes to work in security and surveillance!

This is not so much a case of hiring a fox to guard the hen house, as of hiring a chicken to guard the fox den!

In any case, this is one screwball excuse for a state I now find myself residing in. But I’m not complaining. I get a lot of free food, free shows, free money, and no state income taxes.

So, hey, Rube!

Come on in! ♠

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Lady Luck: Ain’t She a Bitch!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun: Those Losing Streaks That Never End

by Arnold Snyder
(From Blackjack Forum , Vol. XXII #1, Spring 2002)
© Blackjack Forum 2002

In the decades I have been writing about blackjack, I have heard many players’ horror stories of bad fluctuations — losing streaks that seemed as if they would never end. There have been pros who lost most of their savings over months of play, blackjack teams that took years to make a bank. Every experienced player has his story of the impossible losing streak. Two standard deviations. Three standard deviations. Four. I’ve also heard a few stories that went the other way.

Some years ago, Bill Zender told me about a truck driver who blew into Vegas with a few hundred bucks, and went on a winning streak that seemed without end. Over a period of months, he won more than a million bucks at the blackjack tables.

The casinos courted him like a king for awhile, waiting for him to fall. But he just kept winning. Despite no evidence that he was anything but lucky, one by one many of the Strip casinos stopped dealing to him because they couldn’t take the wins any more. The winning streak didn’t make sense to the pencil pushers and number crunchers; they felt he had to be doing something.

But he wasn’t. The casinos that had lost bundles to him, then refused to deal to him anymore — and these were some of the biggest properties in Vegas — came to regret it. The lucky trucker gave it all back even faster than he made it to the one joint that had the wisdom and patience to wait for his luck to turn.

After a few months of living the Vegas high life, he left town pretty much the way he came in, with a few hundred bucks in his jeans, and some tall tales to tell his buddies that none of them would ever believe.

Every religion has a unique vision of God, and that includes the First Church of Blackjack. All gamblers, from the most sophisticated and savvy advantage players to the hapless compulsives on tilt with their rent money, place their offerings at the Altar of Flux.

Our Supreme Deity is known by many names: Standard Deviation, Variance, Fluctuation, Luck, Fortune, Chance. Regardless of name, all gamblers know that Luck is a Lady. With the fickle heart of a vamp, she delights in toying with men’s lives and dreams. Many gamblers offer heartfelt prayers to Dame Fortune, but the sad fact is: the Goddess of Flux is stone deaf. Neither prayers of thanks, nor pleas for mercy, are ever heard.

We humans are so arrogant. If a man wins ten times his net worth in a weekend, he boasts of his skill, his daring, his timing, his intelligence. If, on the other hand, he loses his life savings, he jumps to blame the Goddess of Flux. Do not ask how she can be so cold-hearted, she who never gets the credit, but always the blame.

But this myopia of man does not anger her; for unlike the male God of the Christians, the Jews, and the Muslims, the Goddess of Flux doesn’t really give a damn.

Our Goddess is not a Fair Provider, but a wild and crazy Party Girl. She lets the good players go unrewarded, and the bad go unpunished. Good and bad mean nothing to the Goddess of Flux.

Many who have lost their fortunes to the whims of the Goddess ask how she can allow such catastrophes to occur. The Goddess of Flux never explains herself. She tempts, she teases, she lures, but she never explains. Cursing the Goddess of Flux has the same effect as pleading for her mercy, which is to say, no effect whatsoever.

Because we humans are logical and rational creatures, we long to believe that the Goddess of Flux shares these admirable attributes. When, alas, men see neither rhyme nor reason to her treatment of them, some fall into a state of deep despair. These lost souls turn away from the Goddess, and deny her existence. Like all atheists, they make Logic their new God, and they seek rational explanations for the wild and crazy results the Goddess puts before their eyes.

Should one of these infidels lose eight sessions in a row, he’ll say: “I must have been cheated. They must have been using altered decks. The running count was +20, I had three max bets on the table, and when I was dealt all babies against a dealer five up, the count jumped to +27! I had three double down hands, and every one of them caught a 4, 5 or 6; then the dealer hits to a six-card 21. It had to be a rigged shoe!”

But it wasn’t a rigged shoe, nor was it an altered deck; just the Goddess of Flux having her fun at the expense of a puny mortal.

Other atheists might blame different factors: “This system doesn’t work. I win when the count is negative, and lose when it’s positive. So, either the system sucks, or card counting is just a myth made up to sell books; it has no validity in the real world.”

Meanwhile, the atheist who has just won on eight consecutive sessions, is singing a different tune: “I’ve finally gotten my skills sharpened to perfection. I’m as close to invincible as a player can be. I do have to give credit to the side count of aces which has really made my bet-sizing pinpoint accurate. The casinos don’t stand much of a chance against me anymore. I’ve got to play all short sessions these days just to keep their suspicions down.”

But neither this player’s skill, nor his system, is any better than that of his counterpart who has just lost eight consecutive sessions. Both are merely playthings of the Drunken Mistress of Inexplicable Results.

Many intelligent and educated men claim to have a deep and intimate understanding of the Goddess of Flux. They devise charts and tables and graphs and spreadsheets to describe her crazy twists and turns. To these men, it is a mortal sin to call the Goddess by her common nickname, “Luck.” They speak of her in authoritative tones as “Variance,” or “Standard Deviation,” as if by changing her name they have reined her in, corralled her, broken her, dominated her.

But as with all men, she neither serves them, nor obeys them. They serve her, and she treats them as she pleases.

“There’s something wrong, Charlie. The team is four standard deviations below EV. That’s impossible!”

But to the Goddess of Flux, nothing is impossible. And she specializes in the highly improbable.

Most of those who believe in the Goddess of Flux regularly curse her existence. Likewise, those who have forsaken their belief in the Goddess would agree with the believers that if the Goddess did exist, then she is the enemy of men.

There is but a handful of men who worship the Goddess tirelessly, and always thank her for her attentions, whichever direction they take. Among those few who sing her praises are those who own the casinos, the race tracks, the lotteries. These faithful know that were it not for Lady Luck, they would have no customers.

She is the foundation of their business. And each time she dips into their coffers to rain fortune down upon some undeserving rube, a glimmer of hope is ignited among the masses of losers, a glimmer that keeps their fantasies alive, and their dollars flowing out of their pockets.

Likewise, the Goddess of Flux is not the enemy, but the friend, of all professional gamblers. This is why she is worshiped by the faithful followers of the First Church of Blackjack. Were it not for our Goddess, we card counters would extract our small percentage from the tables each and every time we played, and soon our action would be welcome nowhere.

The Goddess of Flux has but one objective: to skew the path of man. Because of her, at the blackjack tables the shortest distance from Point A to Point B is never a straight line. There are always mountains to climb, valleys to negotiate, and so many bends and forks in the road, it seems at times the dizzy path leads nowhere but in circles.

But for all her wild and crazy spirals, there is an equalizer to her whims that man has at his disposal – Persistence. For all her power to steer man’s destiny, the Goddess of Flux has no follow through. Like so many in today’s world, the Goddess suffers from ADD. Just when you’re sure she has her heart set on crushing you, she turns around and goes the other way.

Persistence is the only tool man has to overcome her folly. It’s a secret that every professional gambler learns, and it’s the knowledge that separates the pros from the wannabes. Time and work, work and time – the players’ only hope. How ironic that most of the people who attempt to enter the profession do so because they don’t want to work, and they don’t want to wait. They want easy money, and they want it now. Gambling is a magnet for those who lack discipline and patience; yet it is precisely these virtues that are required to succeed at this vice.

The fact is, if a man is determined to arrive at Point B from Point A, he will get there in the long run. Because of the machinations of the Goddess of Flux, no man may ever know how long that run will be. No formula, no spreadsheet, no graph can predict how long the Goddess will have her fun at our expense. But if we keep Point B in our sights, we will eventually arrive.

So, the next time Dame Fortune toys with your heart, your soul and your wallet, raise your glass and praise her thus: “Thanks for nothing, you cold-hearted, evil, damnable, nefarious, low-life, malicious monster from Hell!”

She is, after all, stone deaf. ♠

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Review of Richard W. Munchkin’s Gambling Wizards

Conversations with the World’s Greatest Gamblers

by Arnold Snyder

I will state without any reservations that Gambling Wizards: Conversations with the World’s Greatest Gamblers is one of the best books on professional gambling I have ever read. Rather than seek out the “big names” in gambling—the most well-known authors—Munchkin chose his interviewees purely on the basis of their accomplishments (read winnings) in the gambling world. Every one of these “Wizards” is worthy of the label. These are all players with 20+ years of success, who bet on a level that most of us don’t dare to even fantasize about.

There’s the legendary Billy Walters, one of the founders and driving forces behind “The Computer Group,” a sports betting phenomenon that crushed the casino sports books throughout the 80s. At their prime, they were betting $3-$5 million per weekend on football games. Walters, who now owns nine golf courses, is also notable as the high roller who beat the Golden Nugget in Atlantic City for $3.8 million at roulette after discovering that one of their wheels was biased.

There’s Chip Reese, who blew into Las Vegas shortly after finishing college, and happened upon a high-low split poker game with the biggest players in town. After watching the game for a short while, he realized that these poker legends, including Johnny Moss, Doyle Brunson, and Puggy Pearson, among others, didn’t really know how to play this game! As Reese had played a lot of high-low split in college, he bravely bought into the game and systematically beat his idols out of $350,000!

And there’s Mike Svobodny, who at the age of 48, has never been married, has no home (not even an apartment), no car, lives day-to-day in hotels, and never stops traveling. Sounds like your typical hobo, except that Svobodny plays backgammon for hundreds of thousands of dollars, earns millions per year, hobnobs with princes and Arab sheiks, and has more money than he knows what to do with.

Cathy Hulbert started out playing blackjack with some of the biggest teams in the 70s and 80s, traveled the world as a card counter until she got tired of the never-ending harassment, moved to Las Vegas were she started a team of geriatric slot players to milk the big progressive jackpots (she required her players to be 70+ years of age to avert casino suspicions that they might be pros!), and finally landed in Southern California where she now makes her living as a professional poker player.

Alan Woods plays the horses on a level that would shame most of the big name authors and experts in this field into admitting they are low-stakes grinders in comparison. He has been winning more than $100 million per year using the computer handicapping system he devised with some fellow ex-card counters.

This book will open your eyes to the way the top pros think, the way they look at opportunities, and the way they look at the world. I cannot recommend any book more highly for an aspiring professional player. The stories these Wizards tell are funny, crazy, incredible, and true. ♠

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Four Simultaneous Blackjacks

What Are the Odds?

by Arnold Snyder
(From Casino Player, July 1995)
© Arnold Snyder 1995

Question from a Blackjack Player:  What are the odds against three players and the dealer all getting a blackjack on the same round? This actually happened to me on my last trip to Las Vegas. The dealer was so amazed, she called the pit boss over to see it, and he said he’d never seen anything like it before. As a side note, I was the only player who took even money when the dealer asked us if we wanted to take insurance. (She had the ace up.) Both the other players declined because they thought it would be impossible for the dealer to also have a blackjack. I figured if the dealer had just dealt three naturals, she most likely dealt a fourth! I was right! Have you ever heard of anything like this?

Answer:  There are a couple of pieces of information lacking from your description of this event that are crucial to analyzing the exact probability of occurrence. First, you don’t say specifically whether or not any other players, who did not receive blackjacks, were playing hands at the same table, or if any of the three of you who received blackjacks were playing more than one hand (one of which was not a blackjack). I’m going to assume that only three players were at the table and that each player was playing only one hand.

Obviously, if four out of seven or eight hands dealt were blackjacks, it would be far less unusual than if four out of four hands dealt were blackjacks. (Or, at least, this would be obvious to anyone who’d taken an introductory course in probability and statistics. It may not be obvious to you, but take my word for it.) I’ll make the assumption that there were only four total hands in play — three players and the dealer — because you relate that the dealer was “amazed” and the pit boss stated he had “never seen anything like it before.” I’m sure most dealers and pit bosses of any experience have seen four simultaneous blackjacks dealt at a full table of players, in which three or four non-blackjack hands were also dealt, rare as even this would be.

The other pertinent fact you fail to mention is how many decks were in play. This is a crucial detail if you want to figure out the precise likelihood of occurrence. In a single-deck game, where there are only four aces in play, it would be far less likely for one of each of these aces to be dealt to each of four players than it would be in an eight-deck game where four aces represent only 12.5% of the total number of available aces in the shoe.

Technically, this is a fairly simple blackjack math problem to figure out, and you can easily do it on any pocket calculator, though it is a bit tedious. You simply calculate how many total possible ways four simultaneous blackjacks can be dealt, out of all the possible four-hand two-card combinations, and you get the odds against it occurring. Of course, it could take you a month of Sundays if you’re going to sit there and actually run through every possible two-card combination, four hands at a time, then count the totals of those which are four blackjacks vs. those which are not; and to do this for an eight-deck game, would take you multiple lifetimes. Fortunately, there are easy shortcut methods for figuring out problems like these.

In a single-deck game, the odds against being dealt four blackjacks out of four hands are about 1.8 million to 1. Most of us are unlikely to ever see such an event. A dealer who deals only single-deck games, 40 hours per week, always to three players at a time, at the average rate of 400 hands per hour, would likely see this about once every 112 weeks. Since dealers actually have constantly varying numbers of players when they deal, it’s probable that many full-time dealers would not actually experience such an occurrence as you witnessed in their careers.

In an eight-deck game, the odds against this are only about 237,000 to 1. For any number of decks between one and eight, the odds against this occurring will fall somewhere between these extremes, the fewer the number of decks in play, the greater the odds against it occurring. In any case, it’s not something that happens frequently by any means.

Regardless of the number of decks in play, if you were not counting cards, and you had not been keeping track of the ratio of tens to non-tens which had been dealt at the time these four simultaneous blackjacks had been dealt (and I assume you had not), you made a mistake when you took insurance. I realize you were the only player who made money on the hand, and that you “can’t lose” whenever you insure a natural, but the fact is, purely from the perspective of the statistician, the odds were strongly against the dealer having a ten in the hole. So, remember that the next time this happens to you! Don’t fall for that sucker insurance bet. (For some reason I feel you’re not going to take my advice on this one. . . .)  ♠

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Endorsement Retracted

Letter from Steve Forte Re: Blackjack Ace Prediction

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

Some months back I was asked to endorse a new book on Ace Prediction by David McDowell.

Not being an active player, I first declined and suggested that the book was better reviewed by professional players. I was asked again. Given a minor business relationship with Michael Dalton (he sells my video series), and some limited, albeit enjoyable correspondence with the author, I acquiesced.

I flipped through the book quickly, noting a lengthy history of the strategy and what appeared to be an exhaustive mathematical/computer analysis. My first impressions were good. I then randomly arrived on a photo of a sorted deck with a reference to me and a related strategy. Having never talked with the author about this reference, I read this section quickly, and to be perfectly honest, the reference was taken completely out of context and I was puzzled by the author’s application.

So I then flipped to some of the endorsements and noticed a list of icons in the blackjack world. Since I really didn’t have the time to read the book carefully, I blindly jumped to the conclusion that, after 20 plus years, someone had finally written a dedicated, quality book on ace tracking.

Now, after looking over some of the analysis and comments submitted by Arnold Snyder, and going back to the book to review some of the material, I suspect that I may be guilty of (a) trying to be a nice guy and (b) falling into a common trap often seen in gambling literature: that of endorsing a product not read carefully by the endorser, or endorsing a product more strongly than it truly deserves.

Aside from my personal feelings that the author’s intentions are good, Arnold Snyder’s position is very strong. It’s also very compelling as he backs up his opinion with substance. A careful reread of Ace Prediction does reveal some oddities regarding the fundamentals of applying the strategy, some overly optimistic bet expectations, and win rates where none appear to exist. To over-rate the profit potential of a strategy or system can, of course, be very dangerous and costly to the typical player.

It’s for all of these reasons that it makes perfect sense to challenge the viability of the strategy as presented. It’s good for everyone: authors, experts, mathematicians and, most importantly, the players. After all, with any book written for the player, ultimately, only one criteria really matters: Does the strategy win?

How this notably different view of this work plays out in the blackjack community should prove to be a valuable lesson to us all. It will be especially interesting to see if any other endorsers “step up to the plate” after taking a closer look at the research. ♠

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Telephone Gambling Scams

Reach Out and Fleece Someone

by Arnold Snyder
(From Blackjack Forum XII #4, December 1992)
© 1992 Blackjack Forum

Technology continues to oblige our laziness. The latest gambling craze to sweep the country is betting over the telephone lines. Short on cash? No problem. You don’t even need a credit card. A functioning telephone will do. Just pour yourself a tall, cool one, sit back in your robe and slippers, and dial 1-900-SWINDLE.

Most states have strict laws against telephone “book-making.” The penalties for operating a betting service by phone are stiff, and often include various charges of conspiracy and racketeering. Interstate bookmaking will bring in the Feds. Anyone taking phone wagers on horse races or sporting events had better be ready to fly by night if necessary.

A better idea, however, born of modern technology, would be to take bets via the new, legal, electronic method. This allows you to run your gambling operation with impunity, advertise on TV, and even hire celebrities to promote your business. No one is using this methodology yet to book sports or horse races, but it may be only a matter of time.

I don’t know how long these legitimate(?) telephone gambling lines have been in operation because I don’t watch TV much. Until Alison and I moved into this apartment building, as temporary living quarters while our home is being rebuilt, we never had cable TV. The first ad I saw for one of these operations was on a cable station; it was called “Spelling Bee,” or something like that.

Here’s how it worked, as well as I can remember: You dial the 900 number advertised and you will be given a spelling test over the phone. If you can spell 21 words correctly in 6 minutes, you win $1000. The fine print at the bottom of the screen informs you that you will be charged a few bucks per minute for the call. So, in effect, you are wagering $20 or so (depending on how much talking before and after your spelling test is necessary to transfer name\address\etc.) for the chance to win $1000.

Are you a good speller? How fast can you correctly spell on a touchtone keypad?

Ha!

I’m willing to bet I could get out my Webster’s Unabridged and easily find hundreds of words in the English language that would rarely all be spelled correctly by anyone: kilooersted, ouananiche, stannary, craquelure, thremmatology, uintaite, vitelline, miscible, pentaerythritol, narghile, yttrotantalite, zinziberaceous, zygapophysis, quinquereme, phthalocyanine, fissiparous, lophodont, gneissoid, xenodochium, tshernosem, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. That’s 21 words from my Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language. Try them on your touchtone keypad. Six minutes.

To run an operation like this for maximum profit, however, the trick would be to keep players on the line for the full 6 minutes. You want to start with easy words, but long ones, so that callers stay in the game while charges are mounting. I suspect many players never even get to the truly difficult words. No mistakes. They just run out of time.

It’s hard for me to view an operation like this as anything but a scam. Players may think they’re wagering $20 to win $1000, but anyone dumb enough to think he can spell every word in the English language is more akin to a mark in a carny game than a gambler.

One of the most sophisticated telephone gambling operations currently running is Monte Hall’s “Let’s Make A Deal.” Yes, that’s the Monty Hall of TV fame. If you haven’t seen the now white-haired Monte on TV lately, you must not be flipping through all 438 cable stations at 3 a.m. looking for hot TV gambles.

Here’s how it works:

You call up Monte’s 900 number, at a cost of $2.95 per minute, in an effort to win the $2000 grand prize. (The fine print on the TV ad informs you that the “average” call lasts 6 minutes.) Gee, thought I, for only $2.95 a minute I can play Let’s Make A Deal with Monte Hall. A dream come true! I don’t even have to dress like a gorilla in a tutu!

I couldn’t resist. As soon as the ad ended, I reached for the cordless phone.

Alison tried to hold me back. “Arnold,” she said, “Think of your reputation. You’re a respected authority on gambling. If word gets around that you’re playing Let’s Make A Deal by telephone, you’ll be ruined. This has got to be worse than keno, and it’s probably worse than the California Lottery.”

“It’s all research and development,” I defended myself, dialing 1-900-420-4544. (Yes, that’s the real number. Try it!)

I was greeted by Monte Hall’s recorded voice. There was a band playing. He was excited. It was just like TV! My first $2.95 was wasted answering personal questions – phone number, age, sex, and listening to various announcements, such as the Beverly Hills address where I could obtain a written copy of the rules of the game.

Then Monte Hall’s recorded voice came on to get down to business. First, I had to correctly answer a question: “Which president was the Lincoln Memorial named after?” Monte quizzed me. I’m not going to tell you the correct answer, only that I answered correctly. (Okay, here’s a hint: It’s not Jimmy Carter. And, yes, he was one of the choices.)

Monte then informed me that because I had answered the question correctly, I could now choose between Door Number One, Door Number Two, and Door Number Three. Wow! Just like on TV! Using the touch tone pad as directed (all questions are entered via touch tone), I chose a door… Big fanfare!

I won!

“Yes,” said Monte, “You’ve won a $15 bag of nickels, which we’ll send to you in the form of a check! Or, you can trade in that bag of nickels for a chance to win $25 by choosing what’s behind Door Number One, Door Number Two, or Door Number Three!” (Not verbatim, but you get the idea….)

I looked at my watch. I’d been on the line less than four minutes which meant that I was about three bucks to the good after subtracting my phone charges. I was tempted to quit while ahead. (I’m no gambler!) But I didn’t yet know how to collect my prize. I figured by the time I got this information, I’d just be breaking even. I chose another door…

Another big fanfare!

I’d won again!

“Yes,” said Monte, “You now have $25! Do you want to keep that $25 or go to Level Three, where behind Door Number One, Door Number Two, or Door Number Three there is $35?” He also reminded me again that if I made it all the way to Level Six, the Grand Prize would be $2000.

I looked at my watch.

Under five minutes.

I’m outta here.

As expected, another minute was wasted supplying me with my “Prize Code #” and the address where I was instructed to send a 3<$E1/2> x 5 inch postcard with my name, address, phone number, age and social security number, in order to claim my prize, which, I was informed, would take 8 to 10 weeks for delivery. Now, I must assume this operation is 100% legit, and that I will receive a check for $25 from Monte Hall in 8 to 10 weeks. This modest win, of course, will be offset by about $18 added to my phone bill.

But, let’s analyze this game mathematically, assuming it’s 100% legit. There are six levels of play, i.e., you must choose the correct door (one of three) six times in a row to win the $2000 grand prize. On the average, you will therefore win the grand prize once out of every 729 times you play (that’s 36), assuming you don’t quit early like I did.

Since the “average” call lasts 6 minutes, the cost of the average call is 6 x $2.95 = $17.70. 729 calls times $17.70 each = $12,903.30. So, in the long run you will win $2,000 for every $13,000(more or less) you spend in phone charges.

Alison was right. This is far worse than keno, and far worse than the California Lottery. Monte Hall’s “house” has about an 85% advantage (a sizeable portion of which is shared with the phone company).

It’s illegal to call a bookie and tell him you want to place a $10 bet on the 49’ers, yet it’s 100% legal for you to call up Monte Hall (or the “Spelling Bee,” or numerous other 900 number “games”) and bet your money (disguised as telephone charges) on far riskier propositions. Nor would your bookie take 8 – 10 weeks to pay you!

I asked Nelson Rose (author of Gambling and the Law) how this type of gambling operation could be legal in California. He explained to me that the operator must either offer an alternative method of playing which does not require any 900-line charges, or the game must have a “skill factor” – such as requiring the player to answer a question. Hmmm… I wonder how many contestants were stumped by that Lincoln Memorial brainteaser?

Now, I’m not opposed to legalizing phone betting, but somehow the current regulations strike me as less than fair to the player. The funny thing is that it would probably be possible to set up a sports betting or other traditional type of book-making operation if it were operated as a 900-line game with “prizes.”

In other words, if you cut the phone company in on your vigorish, then pass this charge on to your customers as part of the cost per minute for the call, and don’t forget to come up with a “skill” question to legitimize the payoff, then you’re a legal bookie! No illegal “bets” are made so long as it’s all just telephone charges!

Your customers, naturally, won’t like the lousy odds you’ll be forced to give, and many will abandon you for illegitimate bookies who offer fairer odds. But paying off the phone company is simply the price of legitimacy in today’s high-tech gambling world.

What I haven’t been able to figure out, unfortunately, is a way to offer electronic blackjack games over the phone. As soon as I iron out the bugs in this brainstorm, however, I intend to give Monte Hall a run for the money. ♠

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Blackjack Team Proposal

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. ♠

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The Low-stakes Professional Card Counter

Fast Action Jackson’s Distractions

by Arnold Snyder

(From Blackjack Forum Volume X #4, December 1990)
© Blackjack Forum 1990

A fixture at the blackjack tables of Las Vegas for almost a decade, Fast Action Jackson has never had much of a bankroll. Standing 5-foot-3 in his Western boots, what’s left of his hair slicked back over his tanned pate, like so many card counters I’ve met, overeducated and undercapitalized, he holds a masters degree in philosophy from some obscure east coast college. I don’t know if he’s ever been married. Every time I visit Vegas, he’s living with a different woman, always at her place. He’s not an easy guy to track down.

“I’m living proof, Bish,” he says, “that you can play your system perfectly, study your ass off, know more about fluctuations and standard deviation than most statisticians, have the persistence of Sisyphus, and still never make it into the big leagues. If you can’t take the flux, you can’t make the bucks. It’s that simple.”

I had asked him to write an article for Blackjack Forum on how a player with a small to moderate bankroll goes about surviving as a professional blackjack player.

“You don’t want that article,” he insisted. “It’s too depressing. I once went ten weeks sleeping in my car so I wouldn’t have to use my precious bankroll on such a luxury as rent money. I’ve lost two girlfriends who believed in me enough to invest in me at the wrong time. I don’t know what it is about women, Bish, but they get very irritable if you lose their paycheck a few times. Even when you finally pay ‘em back, it’s all over.”You alienate your friends. You take chances with advances on your credit cards. It’s a rotten life. Right now, I don’t owe anybody anything. The past two months have been great. I’ve dug out of yet another hole, saved my credit rating again. My bankroll is back up to six thou. Unfortunately, in this game, six thou is nothing. I could be flat broke two weeks from now.”

“The fact remains, Fast,” said I, “that you’ve been doing this for ten years. It may be a tough grind, but you’re making it. You make your living playing blackjack, and you’re not rich. My readers want to know how you do it.”Most of them aren’t wealthy, but they say they’re willing to work. What most often happens is they learn a system at home, build up their fantasies, then find out they can’t hack it in the casinos. The table conditions are lousy. They get heat when they start to win. And the casino environment is nerve-wracking—the noise, the smoke, the constant interruptions. I always tell them to play during off hours—weekdays, early mornings—in order to minimize the distractions. Am I right?”

“Wrong,” says Fast. “Casinos are designed for distraction. That’s their game. As soon as you take away the noise and the crowds and the booze, you’re not playing their game anymore, you’re letting them watch your game. You’ve got to keep in mind that what distracts you distracts them. As long as I’ve been playing in this town, my action is still welcome everywhere. That’s because I follow the crowds. That’s the only way to survive, to have staying power. But, Bish, it’s a rotten life. Believe me.”

I asked him if he had any favorite casinos. “My favorite casinos are always the busiest casinos,” he said. “Right now, in Vegas, the new stores are great. The Mirage. The Excalibur. The Rio. These places are attracting crowds. I used to like Caesars because that’s where the big money played. Money is a great distraction. Who’s going to look at my $50 bets when the george sitting next to me is betting table limit? It’s all over for Caesars now, what with the Mirage next door. Even the over/under won’t save them. Caesars is empty. You can’t play there anymore. They’re dying a slow death.

“The Rio may be off the strip, out there next to the Gold Coast, and they canned the liberal rules they opened up with. But they’ve still got good games and great crowds on the weekends. Plus they’ve got that hot double exposure.”

“Double exposure?” I asked. “At the Rio?”

“Not on the tables,” he explained. “I’m talking about the cocktail waitresses. You see, Bish, I’m a connoisseur of distractions. Just check ‘em out sometime. You’ll see what I mean. I order a lot of drinks when I play, and I spend a lot of time looking for the waitresses. It’s all part of the strategy. Drinking a lot of booze is very distracting. Counters don’t drink.”

“But doesn’t that affect your accuracy?” I asked.

“Not if you do it right,” he said. “There’s a trick to it. Always order a drink that comes with cream. Kahlua and cream. A toasted almond. You just never swizzle it. You can be damn sure the bartender doesn’t have time to stir it. The booze sits in the bottom of the glass. You drink the milk off the top. By the time you finish the milk, the waitress is bringing you a fresh drink. I’ll tell you my health has improved significantly since I started ordering so many drinks. Lots of calcium.”

“So, Fast,” says I, “Your advice to my readers who really want to enjoy that wonderfully romantic life of the professional card counter, where you lose your girlfriend only after you lose her paycheck, ever rejoicing that if you jeopardize your Diner’s Club membership, the collection agency probably won’t be able to find you since you’re sleeping in your car, all you have to do is play in the noisiest, most crowded casinos, order lots of drinks, and ogle the waitresses while playing?”

“That’s my secret,” he says. “And except for the double exposure, there’s not much fun in it.”

“Hmm…,” says I. “Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe the reason you haven’t made the big leagues is because the distractions are killing your game?”

He shrugged. “I know what I know,” he said. “And any big time pro would tell you the same thing I’m telling you. Maybe you should stop to consider that I’ve been making my living at this game for ten years, while you’ve been writing about it.”

Point well taken.

Advantage Jackson. ♠