My Egyptian Adventure: Casinos, Blackjack and Card Counting

by BJ Traveller (with Mark Dace)
(From Blackjack Forum XXIII #3, Fall 2003)
© Blackjack Forum 2003

I played blackjack in Cairo, Egypt several years ago in 1995. The games were mediocre, casinos small and the city dirty. My Egyptian guide asked when I would return? I replied perhaps in my next life!

However, recently, a professional gambler whom I know that is of Sri Lankan heritage, whom I will call Y, planned to go to Cairo where he had been several months prior. I desired to test my improved blackjack skills (improved relative to what they were on my previous Egypt trip of eight years ago) and decided to go with him. Y arranged our hotel accommodations at a Marriott for $120 a night. This hotel was selected as he won the most from there on his previous card counting trip. I also invited LG, an American card counter friend of mine, to join in on the trip.

After landing and checking in, my girlfriend and I headed straight to the casino in short order only to find Y already playing. Y has counted cards for only five years but with great success, winning approximately three quarters of a million US$, benefitting not only from the good rules he’s found but also from his persistence. He would try very hard to get even when losing and would sometimes play over 30 hours straight.

The Marriott game was not too attractive and LG and I quit rather quickly with a small loss. The rules included 6D, S17, D9, DAS, no surrender, ENHC (dealer takes all on splits and doubles with a blackjack) and 75% penetration. The persistent Y, however, called us half an hour later with news of winning $1,600. LG, my girlfriend and I went to check other casinos, finding early surrender against all dealer up cards everywhere.

Interestingly, there were only two casinos with early surrender in Cairo when Y had played several months prior. It appeared that most casinos, including the London Clubs (at the two Hiltons) and one Austrian Group (at Semiramis Intercontinental Hotel) yielded to the competition and started offering the good game and rules to attract and cultivate customers. Basic strategy players in Egypt have a small advantage over these casinos with their good rules. An additional reason as to why these favorable rules might have been put in place could have been that the casinos had suffered from the Middle Eastern tension and since locals are not allowed to gamble, the casinos needed to attract tourists.

We changed some money to Egyptian pounds to pay for the inexpensive taxis. We had to bargain every time but $1.50 could take us to most places within Cairo. However, being frugal with taxi fares for multiple passengers later proved to be a mistake because in scouting casinos together some casinos would later bar us based on the play of another in our group scouting party.

The Semiramis Intercontinental Casino offered the best rules on their six-deck game that included S17, ES, DAS and re-split Aces up to 4 hands. The maximums were $200 and $500 and were played in US dollars. Some tables had 9 playing spots and one can play them all, if desired. Wanting to stay closer to the better game, we moved to this hotel and got a $108 casino rate, which was more expensive than the locals paid. However, the rooms were of higher quality.

When LG and I arrived at the Semiramis Intercontinental Casino on the second morning of our stay there, we found Y already playing. He had lost $5,000 there on the previous evening and, as per his style, had returned early the next morning where he got some of his losses back.

LG and I won $1,000 each and left for other targets. We found that the Ramses Hilton Casino in Egypt was run by the London Club and offered a bigger table limit of $1,000 maximum as well as good rules. The smaller Nile Hilton was also nearby. We also discovered the largest table limit of $1,500 to be at the Conrad, another Hilton property. Both Hiltons had 9 playing spot tables. I believe that these types of tables were reflective of the “good old days” before the 9/11 incident and the Iraqi invasion when the casinos in Egypt were much more heavily populated with Western visitors.

Three of the four Sheraton hotels in Egypt have casinos. Of those three, one, the El Gezira, does not have early surrender. LG won $2,000 from there with his special counting system which exploits some card combinations. The Casino Sheraton offers early surrender but doubling on 9, 10, 11 only. The Heliopolis Sheraton offers early surrender and double on any two cards.

LG’s counting expertise failed him at Cairo Sheraton where he lost $3,000, although he would win back $5,000 later. Y wanted to settle in and did not want to play only a short session so I left them playing at the Cairo Sheraton and went scouting on my own. They ended up playing about 15 hours there, winning a net of $6,000. After that session, none of us, my girlfriend and I included, were allowed to enter the casino.

My girlfriend and I went to check the Four Seasons hotel but found that they did not have a casino. All of the casinos in Egypt were at the bigger hotels. We then went to the Mena House Oberoi Casino where I played on my previous trip eight years ago. The hotel was near the Great Pyramid. When we told the taxi driver where we wanted to go, he signed us in without discussing the fare. I suspected we would be charged a very high fare later. Most drivers would negotiate the fare with us without even knowing the whereabouts of the destination. This particular taxi took us to the Mena House Oberoi Hotel for one-third of the usual price. In order to find this hotel our driver drove us all over town, stopped and asked three people for directions, and after our one hour adventure, charged us a fare of less than $1. The cheap gas price, about half that of gas in the US, obviously helped.

The Mena casino opened at 3PM and closed at 7AM. Most other casinos in Egypt are open 24 hours a day. It offers good rules with a bad cut. On my last session of the day, I won $2,000 from one table. The casino then asked me to change tables. I didn’t know if this was out of superstition or for some other reason. I went to see an Egyptian Museum while my friends were busy playing. Ancient Egyptians greatly valued their afterlife. The Book of Death says a deceased person’s heart is weighed against a feather. A person with a heart lighter than a feather is received by the Ruler of the Underworld. On the other hand, Ammut—who is described as a monster with a hippopotamus head, leopard claws, and alligator feet—would eat sinners, those with heavy hearts.

Also within somewhat close proximity was the tomb of Tutenkaman, as well as some gaming opportunities in the same vicinity. By seeing the treasures of this intact tomb, one could only imagine the lost treasures of other bigger Pharaohs. Ultimately, most of my friends only saw the casinos on this trip. My girlfriend and I won $400 from the nearby Nile Hilton after our sightseeing tour, which was 80 times the museum entrance fee.

I found another casino listed in a guide book and went there. The Sofitel Casino, which didn’t open until 5 PM, offered low limits with a $200 maximum bet but had good rules. We won $300 at this stop. We then went to the Heliopolis Sheraton. The casino, called the Kings and Queens, might be run by the Starwood Group, Sheraton’s parent company, as its chips carried the Sheraton logo. The casino managers there were very nervous about our play and wore long faces during our session. Like many other Egyptian casinos, they offered good rules. We decided to leave after winning several hundred dollars for sympathetic and humanitarian purposes to prevent several of the managers having heart attacks.

The Conrad Casino was the only one in Cairo that issued VIP cards, and immediately at that. We went straight for its buffet, which apparently offended a young pit boss. He sent a waiter over to ask whether or not we intended to play. I immediately went back to the tables and bought in $2,000 on one of his tables to demonstrate to him our sincerity to play and to put into motion my desire to take their money.

Y started playing while we ate. I finished my soup and went to join him. He told me the running count was minus 2 so I started out playing only one hand. Small cards poured out like waves in the ocean. The running count ran wild to a plus 15. We piled the bets up until they reached $500 on three different hands. The count dropped back to minus 2 but I still lost $200 in the process. I returned to the buffet for another very tasty soup and when I arrived back at the table, I was pleased to be told that I was being greeted by another plus 15 count. I back-bet Y’s two hands. We pushed the bets to the table maximum of $1,000, losing $3,000 in the process and had to obtain money from our friends in order to continue. The results of the hands finally turned, making us $3,000 richer by the end of the session.

My next stop was an Internet cafe. A friend asked me about the games in Cairo. I told him about the good rules but requested that he not share the details with others. Many people have expressed a lack of comfort regarding my writing of good games. Many have questioned my motivations for being so forthcoming. This list, most notably, includes my girlfriend and my good friend and travel partner Mark Dace. For the record, let it be known that I choose to write about the less sensitive parts of my tales. The better and more lucrative games I now keep private, primarily at the insistence of the above two mentioned individuals.

LG had played mostly hit-and-run, mostly in Las Vegas, using a big spread that attracted a great deal of attention at the much smaller Egyptian casinos. Counters can profit with small spreads when playing games with good rules such as those in Cairo and Moscow. His style of play affected us since we would arrive together and were all of Oriental heritage. He would also wong in, opening new boxes, then, after enjoying some large card production, wong out, leaving the less attractive cards for us. I informed him that such conduct was impolite. He acknowledged my words and made some adjustments. LG lost his big win from Cairo Sheraton to Nile Hilton. This play was not only costly from a financial standpoint in the short term but in the long term as well as this casino eventually started cutting 4 decks out of 6 on us. At about the same time, the Ramses Hilton gave us only a half a shoe between shuffles.

We next went to play in a casino near the Cairo Sheraton. The first shoe was very positive but we I lost $2,000 and, in the process, attracted much attention. The casino manager told the dealer to ignore Y’s fake attempt at surrendering with three cards. Although the manager portrayed himself as knowledgeable and he was pointed in his comments, we didn’t take his hint and recovered our loss. He came to the table again and commented loudly that, “You lost on small bets but are winning on big ones.” He asked us semi-jokingly to play smaller. We ignored him again, won $2,000 and left. We later discovered he sent a blacklist about us all over Egypt including to the Sinai Grand, a casino on the Sinai Peninsula.

After I won $9,000 in five days the casinos turned their backs on us beginning on the sixth day, which was an eternity compared to a Hong Kong counter’s fate. He survived Cairo only hours. The Cairo Sheraton stopped us at their entrance after checking a blacklist and refused our entrance. Additionally, the Ramses Hilton half-shoed us, the Semiramis Intercontinental Casino stopped me after I played several shoes, asking me not to play blackjack. Y was simultaneously barred at the Conrad. We certainly had made a mistake by scouting the casinos together.

Having been barred by most big casinos, we went to play the Movenpick Heliopolis Casino which opened at 8PM. The casino had only one $3 to $50 table. It had the same good rules as most other Egyptian casinos. We were given four decks to play out of six initially. Suddenly, the dealer moved the shuffle point up to two decks without the pit boss’s instructions, following a shoe where we had jumped our bets. The pit boss noticed the bad cut, and asked the dealer to cut deeper for us. I tracked a shoe successfully only to lose hand after hand even while the large cards were produced. We won the last hand betting nine boxes of $50 which gave us a small win of $125, much to the disappointment of the casino staff as we were the only customers all night.

We discovered three casinos in Sharm El Sheik, a beach town on the Sinai peninsula, and decided to give them a try. It was easy arranging a ticket and we made a decision to go there in the morning and flew there that evening. The 500 kilometer flight cost us $181 round trip. The town is on the shore of the Red Sea. We choose to stay at the Movenpick as it had a casino. A twin room cost us $110 although locals paid only $67. The casinos opened at 9 pm.

The Movenpick’s Royale Casino was affiliated with an Austrian Gaming Group. We were a little nervous about entering the casino given our experience from the Austrian-backed Semiramis Intercontinental Casino in Cairo. Nobody seemed to care about us. While we were entering, LG was on his way out. The game was poor with bad rules that included no surrender and only 66% penetration. I, however, found the game playable. I played one shoe then went to check other places.

We were stopped at entrance of the Sinai Grand Casino. Y went and chatted with the pit bosses, discovering that the casino received a flyer from Pyramisa on us. Accordingly, no play was available to us there. The last casino in the city was Sharm, an independent casino that was not tipped off as to our expertise. It sported bad rules and low limits with a $100 maximum wager versus the Royale’s $200 maximum. I left with small win from this trackable game for the higher limit at the Royale.

We were lucky at Royale, winning three rounds during which we wagered an aggregate of $500 (5 boxes of $100 each, having jumped from $20 on each hand). We quit after the win. It was 2:30 AM but the streets were lively with many tourists sipping water pipes at roadside cafes. I could even check the Internet at this hour.

The Vacation Village had a good buffet breakfast, which pleasantly interrupted our intended sleep time. The village was big. It provided carts that took guests to restaurants and the beach, a semi-necessity considering the 37 degree centigrade (99° F) heat. In view of the poor games, I tried to arrange for a flight to the Luxor through the nearby mall. A merchant invited me to his new shops that had opened that Friday, the Muslim weekend. The merchant lied shamelessly claiming that he painted the papyrus himself. I inquired about a glass perfume bottle. He asked for $25, claiming it to be crystal. I had bought the same one in Cairo for $2.

We went for a glass bottom boat ride. There are coral reefs very close to the shore. Swimmers could enjoy watching colorful fish easily. Amongst the travelers on the boat was a large Egyptian family who danced joyfully during the boat ride. Y and LG regretted wasting time here and leaving the big city in light of Cairo’s good games.

We went together to check the last local casino, Casino Aladdin at Domina Coral Bay Resort. We were pleased to find the casino offering ES10 and re-splitting of aces. Penetration was also acceptable at 75%. The table was in Euros, $5 to $200. We bought Euros from the MISR Banks counter in the casino at very bad rate (6% below the market rate). The bank clerk said we could buy our dollars back at a 2% fee. LG didn’t want to play but jumped in opening new boxes when the count shot up. We won close to $1,000 Euros in one shoe. The casino sent in an eagle-eyed manager. We used fake names entering the casino and weren’t looking for longevity so played aggressively. My partner and I moved to another table, thereby avoiding jumping bets in unison with Y and LG. I lost back most of my win rather quickly. Y won 900 Euros and quit. LG won 1,300. We borrowed their Euros before they left. The casino was not happy with their winning and instructed the dealer to half-shoe us. We still won 1,100 Euros with shuffle tracking.

On returning to exchange the Euros back, the bank clerk asked for a higher than the originally quoted 2% fee. I guessed that he might make more than his bank’s president with his powerful laundering position, since he gave no receipts for our transactions. On exiting this “chamber of cons,” we declined the taxi standing by at the casino exit that was asking three times that of the meter. At least the Egyptian people were consistent with their attempts to rip us off in all facets of their business dealings. On a more positive note, the resort was very romantic under moonlight.

We went to the Aladdin early on our last evening in the country. The eagle-eyed manager was waiting for us, and informed us that we were on Austria Casino Group’s blacklist and were no longer welcome. Aladdin had gotten the list from the Royale, obviously, as we were not allowed to enter that location. We went to the last playable joint, Sharm, and, with aggressive betting won $100. Then the casino half-shoed me. We left.

We headed back to Cairo for the last 10 hours before leaving the country. My partner had hidden some chips from the Hiltons, so we went chip cashing. We were barred there but able to cash the chips. I exchanged some money at the National Bank of Egypt. The clerk used 5.69 as the exchange rate instead of the posted 5.96 for me. On purpose? When I pointed this out to him, he said “Oops.”

That aside, I won $9,870, Y won $12,000, and LG $7,000 from casinos in Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt in 10 days. I am sure I will not play blackjack at casinos in Egypt again unless my heart is lighter than a feather! ♠

Exploiting Dealer Error

by ETFan
[From Blackjack Forum Vol. XXVI #2, Summer 2007]
© 2007 ETFan

Counting cards at blackjack is a fun, simple way to get an advantage over the house. But counting cards for a living is a tough row to hoe and for one simple reason—the casinos are fully aware of this technique and allow it to continue for their own selfish reasons.

They enjoy the word-of-mouth advertising that goes along with the “counter culture” but they don’t want serious winners taking up space at their tables. With the heat that inevitably results, if all you do is count, you’ll just b-a-a-a-r-e-l-y eke out a profit after expenses. You need more. You deserve more. You can get more by exploiting dealer error (DE).

However, some people in the “counter culture” object to accepting any of the fruits of dealer error. They take the position that this is akin to accepting change for a twenty at the supermarket when you handed the cashier a ten.

I feel this is a misguided analogy for several reasons, though I can respect that point of view. But these people must recognize they are relegating their play to amateur standing. Every advantage play in blackjack beyond simple card counting, from holecarding to steering to shuffle tracking, involves exploiting dealer or house error in one form or another.

Professional advantage players have few qualms about exploiting dealer error; it’s the part-timers that seem to object. Professionals seem to agree with Stanford Wong who wrote in Basic Blackjack: “When a dealer makes an error in the casino’s favor, speak up and get it corrected… When the dealer makes an error in your favor, overlook the error and forgive the dealer.”

In fact, most pros have a trick or two up their sleeves to unsteady the hand of the dealers they face on a daily basis. This can be quite lucrative for an alert player, and will be the subject of this article.

To Find Dealer Error, Pick Your Casino

The casino gets to choose their opponents. If they don’t think they can beat you, they’ll show you the door. When possible, you should exercise the same discretion. Here are some desireable traits in a casino:

• Any casino less than a year old still has a few dealers in diapers.
• Any casino that has recently undergone expansion in size, hours of operation, or number of table games will have more than its share of error-prone newbies.
• Any casino that supports many different table games, and rotates dealers amongst the games—well, you have to feel sorry for those crazy, mixed-up nerf herders.
• Any casino on the weekend or a holiday will have some part-time dealers working the extra tables.
• In particular, a casino that stays open all night, just on the weekends, will have some tired unhappy dealers working those shifts. (How well do you function at 3:00 in the morning?)

Desireable Traits in a Dealer if You Want to Exploit Dealer Error

Once you’ve chosen your casino, and enter the belly of the beast, you still have several choices to make. You get to pick out your table, your seat, and your dealer. Perhaps 90% of dealer error earnings comes from choosing the right dealer. Try to choose a dealer with one or more of the following characteristics:

• Dealers who seem unhappy in their work.
• Unkempt or harried looking dealers.
• Dealers who seem to be “steaming” after a confrontation with a supervisor.
• Very young or very elderly dealers.
• Dealers with hands that literally shake.
• Very fast dealers.
• Dealers who seem to be on autopilot. No “pace in the face.”
• Dealers who seem pleased with big player wins (subconscious bias).
• Dealers who are “yucking it up,” and having a lot of fun with the players.
• Very attractive female dealers. (They may be extremely competent, but there’s also a chance they landed their positions for reasons other than skill on the job.)
• Dealers who like you, personally.
• Just plain crazy dealers.
• Dealers with less than six months of blackjack dealing experience.
• And (most important) dealers you’ve observed making errors in the past.

A word about fast dealers: Inexperienced counters may find rapid-fire dealing unsettling, but as you gain experience, you will find this a lucrative source of revenue. These people deal fast to escape from boredom, and often they are bored because the possibility that they could be making blunders right and left has never occurred to them. Here is my favorite story about a fast dealer:

Somehow, I found myself in this real dump of a casino. They have opaque covers over the shoes and the discard trays just to thwart card counters. They truly deserved this high and mighty dealer who pumped out about 700 hands a minute and honest-to-god believed she never made a mistake in her life.

The guy sitting next to me hits hard 13 and gets a 9. He waits for dealer to sweep up the cards, but instead he hears, “Sir, you have to make a hand signal.” The guy just replies “Look at the cards!” Dealer says “Yes, I know sir, but you have to give a signal.” … “What signal? Just add up the cards!” … “Sir, if you don’t give me a hand signal, I’ll have to call over the pit boss.” … At this point, I’m getting ticked off, because this is holding up the game. In unison, he and I together practically screamed “LOOK AT THE CARDS!!”

You guessed it—she didn’t look. She was sure it was 21. Instead, she called over her boss. I swear on a stack of bibles, neither pit boss nor dealer ever once looked down to add up the man’s hand. Boss looks this guy straight in the eye and intones: “Sir, the dealer can not move on until you give a clear hand signal.” He shook his head while making frustrated waves in the air, which they took to mean stand.

The dealer eventually broke and payed off the 22. Man said: “I don’t want this. I don’t deserve it.” They practically crammed that $20 down the poor man’s throat.

But whatever dealer you choose, if you sit there for thirty minutes and don’t observe a single error in any player’s favor, you’re at the wrong table. Professorial types may be surprised to learn this factor is even more important than penetration.

If you’re in an unfamiliar casino, you may be wondering just how to tell whether a dealer has been working there for three months or three years. There’s a less obvious way to ask besides just coming out with “How long have you worked here?” (although there’s no law against asking it like that). However, it involves telling a little white lie. I’ll leave it to you to figure out, and to decide whether white lies fall within your moral calculus.

While you’re picking out a dealer, you also get to:

Choose Your Table

• Choose a table in the region of noisy slot machines and distracting sirens, or where the dealer must stare right across at blinking neon lights. Anything to distract her! You may be distracted as well, but remember—her job is much more difficult than yours.
• Choose a table where the players themselves are distracting.
  1. Attractive, scantily clad female players, with a male dealer.
  2. Drunk players who are giving the dealer a hard time.
  3. Players just generally raising a ruckus. Balloons, crazy hats, noise makers, the more the merrier.
  4. One player who chatters constantly about everything under the sun except blackjack. You know the type—borderline schizophrenic. It’s best if this sad case talks in a loud voice and insists on engaging the dealer in dialogue. No normal dealer can maintain his equilibrium in this situation. If the guy starts talking to you, offer him five dollars to talk to the dealer. Explain that the dealer is having personal problems and “really needs to talk.” In fact, it might pay you to find such a person and pay him minimum wage to travel from casino to casino with you. (Untested by the author.

Choose Your Seat

The ideal seat is to the right of an attractive player, and to the left of an obnoxious player, or that flashing neon sign I mentioned before. You want the dealer to rush past you to attend to the hottie sitting next to you.

All else being equal, it’s generally best to sit at first base or third. It’s an uncomfortable viewing angle for the dealer, and he may be distracted by action at an adjoining table. Also, several DE ploys depend on sitting at first or third.

At The Table

Once seated, the general idea is to tally all your totals, plus every dealer total, and watch every payoff like a hawk to make sure no errors work against you. If you are very quick at this, you may save the dealer the embarrassment of calling over her boss to fix the goof. (A grateful dealer may be subconsciously motivated to make future errors in your favor. She may even relax a bit, if she has the impression you’re watching out for her.)

But just staying on your toes is only the tip of the iceberg. In Cheating at Blackjack, Dustin D. Marks (you gotta love that handle) describes a few “OEMs,” which stands for “Oh, excuse me.” He claims there are hundreds of them.

Now, being a crook, Marks has a guilty conscience and instictively gravitates to the illegal types of OEMs. He describes them as “a con game” where you “play the part of a beginner.” But for most OEM, there is a perfectly legal, moral variation (advantage ploy?), assuming you agree with the court rulings that say it’s legal to take advantage of dealer error.

I don’t have a guilty conscience. I never say “Oh, excuse me.” I say “Oh, I noticed the dealer made a mistake, but I didn’t want to embarrass him.” For example, Marks describes a con where he places a large bet half-in/half-out of the first base betting circle. Then, if the dealer mistakes this for a bet and the first card isn’t to his liking, he claims he “asked for change.”

There’s no need for that. What you do (while sitting at first base) is wait until the dealer seems distracted, then place the large bet clearly outside the circle, but also outside her viewing angle. Then when you get a bad card, you’re clearly entitled to bow out of the hand completely (though it would be a courtesy to place a minimum bet, so the next player isn’t stuck with your bad card). And if you get an ace or ten, there’s a chance your dealer will call over her boss. But whether she does or she doesn’t, there’s an excellent chance you’ll be able to bet whatever you like—even more than the change amount—on that hand.

There’s no need to lie; no need for a guilty conscience. Merely placing the bet outside the circle constitutes a request for change in every casino I’ve played. It certainly doesn’t constitute a bet. If asked, you honestly, legitimately reply that you never intended to bet that amount.

I’m not sure there are “hundreds” of ways to encourage dealer error, but I have have dozens on file in my computer. I will only list those executed successfully by myself or other advantage players I know.

Dealer Error and Getting the Dealer on YOUR Side

• Give the dealer an extravagent compliment after you play for a few minutes. Make her blush!
• When it fits into the conversation, stress that everyone makes mistakes, and how we all hate people who claim to be perfect. (Give the dealer a subconscious excuse to screw up—but don’t buy your own spiel.) This comment isn’t about this dealer in particular, of course.
• Ask the dealer how he can work when it’s so hot/cold/dry/humid/nice outside—whatever! Anything to give the dealer an excuse for lapses.
• Assure the pit boss that this dealer is quite efficient. (Reduce perceived or real pressure on the poor girl to perfect her skills.)
• React with anger toward the pit boss if you witness a dealer reprimand. “Who does he think he is, yelling at you like that? How do you get to be a pit boss, anyway??”
• If there is no job-related acrimony, it might pay to create a little. Mention you heard about the personnel cutbacks. “How can they cut five dealers, like so-and-so said, and still keep all their tables open??”
• Ask about work rules for dealers. “You mean you’re not allowed to have a drink at the table?” (Subtle message: dealers are good; the house deserves little consideration.)
• On the other hand, if the dealer seems like a total house lackey, mention what a great place this is, what a nice guy the pit boss is, etc. Obscure the line between the cowboys and the Indians.
• It helps if others at the table mention that you deserve a break, with all the bad luck you’ve been having. To say it yourself out loud draws too much attention.
• It’s ok to say “now be good to me!” once per dealer.
• There are recent experiments from Princeton, Edinburgh and elsewhere that suggest there may be an unexplained form of communication between humans. Here is a fairly thorough popular exposition: http://www.dichotomistic.com/mind_readings_psi%20ganzfeld.html

It may simply be poor test design, but in any event it can’t hurt to project the thought, the image if you will, that you deserve the benefit of dealer error.

Blend In

Although you’re a nice guy(irl), you’re not so obviously great that the dealer wants to spend all his(er) time on you. You don’t need the attention.

• Don’t be loud or abrasive. Elicit sympathy when you lose, but don’t swear. Give off good, friendly vibes when you win.
• Don’t let the dealer add for you. Release the dealer from this “obligation” by intoning “I know” if she announces your total.
• Avoid heat like the plague. Even before getting “the word” from the boss, your dealer will sense heat and tighten up.
• You don’t need to telegraph the fact you’re a big winner with huge mounds of chips. Color up often. Keep blacks and above in your pocket. Everyone knows they can be snatched right off the table.
• Sit at a high rolling table with slightly higher limits than you’re accustomed to.
  1. You can afford to bet a little more when the dealer is a dufus.
  2. Your bets will seem small to the dealer, not worth special attention.
• If a player points out an error by the dealer to your spot, it’s probably time to move on to another table.
• On the other hand, if a dealer catches her own error to any spot, stick around! You know she’s prone, but she’ll be giving herself big strokes for catching the goof.

Increase Your Chances of Valuable Dealer Error

• Play toward the beginnings and ends of shifts (but not through a shift change), when dealers are likely to be fresh, or tired.
• In head-to-head play, try to quicken the pace to increase DE (but maintain your own accuracy).
• Sit at a table where the cards are “sticking”. This can disrupt a dealer’s natural rhythm and enhance DE.
• Playing on humid days enhances the sticking possibility. (It’s especially nice if the air conditioning is on the fritz.)
• Every dealer has a certain amount of time/energy she habitually devotes to mental arithmetic. Get the dealer busy calculating anything other than your total. Eg. ask how much profit the average blackjack table pulls in for the house per month. Or how much she made in tips last week.
• At the end of a hand with many hits, as dealer is making payoffs and before hands have been collected, point at another player and say “Wait, she has X, doesn’t she?” (where X would win), forcing the dealer to add up that total a second time. Time/energy again. In my experience, the time/energy factor outweighs the extra attention you receive—as long as the dealer continues to like you. Don’t do this when the total is really wrong. That can slow down the dealer and make her more cautious.
• Cap your bets with two reds or a red and a green, so you need to color-up often. The red on top makes your spot look less important, at first glance. And more color-ups means more chances for DE on color-ups. The impact on time/energy is inexorable. Most dealers are under pressure to deal a certain number of hands per hour.
• Every time the dealer’s total comes within one point—plus or minus—of your 4 or more card hand, quietly express satisfaction (smile and exhale). The idea is to get the dealer to have faith in your reaction, on the minus hands, so she pays off pushes, or pushes one-point losers, on the plus hands.
• At a loose, happy table, try adding the dealer’s total for her. Announce her first hit correctly, but one point low thereafter. This technique can draw the wrong kind of attention, so discontinue immediately when it fails (and it usually will fail).
• On a round where there’s a fair chance for DE in your favor, look like a winner—subtly smug, and pleased with yourself. Whatever you do, don’t look chagrined when you lose by one point.
• One $1 tip, along with the question “is there any way I can give this to you, personally?” will have more positive effect than two $2 tips. It’s usually not advisable to place bets for the dealer. It draws extra attention to your hand.
• After one or two hits, ask for a card that would make 22. If you actually get that card, the dealer may think you have 21.
• With three or more cards that add up to 12 vs. a 2 or 3 upcard, jokingly ask for a ten without giving a hand signal. If the dealer gives you a ten, truthfully explain it was a joke. After all, the dealer is supposed to wait for a hand signal. For any card other than a ten, ignore the dealer’s error, unless you happen to be sitting at third base, and the card would make the dealer bust.
• When dealer is making payoffs, and you think she might push your one point loser, stare intently at the hand to your left. Deepen the impression your own hand holds little interest.
• If you think dealer may push your one point loser, act like the winner you normally are. For example, stretch out your hand as if you’re getting ready to pull back those chips!
• When you do get payed on a push, or push a loser, always withdraw your money immediately after the dealer passes you—especially if some do-gooder is pointing out dealer error that hurts the house. Save the dealer some embarrassment; remove the evidence.
• Many people realize that odd sized bets can increase the chance of certain payoff errors, but it’s also true this can decrease your odds of getting paid on pushes. Adjust your approach to the dealer before you.
• Strategy indices should be adjusted with an error-prone dealer. Doubling and splitting numbers can be lowered two points or even more versus a 2 through 5 (more likely to force multi-card arithmetic) and especially versus an ace. Double that hard eleven!
• When the dealer makes an error in favor of the house, do NOT touch your chips. Speak up immediately. If you wait two seconds too long, you may wind up waiting a half hour for them to rewind the tape.
• Any subtle odor the dealer doesn’t care for may cause her to move her nose (which happens to be a fixed distance from her eyes) quickly past your position, increasing the error rate. There are several possibilities … a touch of garlic … a hint of musk. I don’t suggest you take up smoking for DE sake. This is a game—not life and death.
• If you get the cut card deep in a juicy shoe, cover it up with your hand or some chips. (Hey, you have to put your chips in neat stacks, don’t you?) Dealers seem to use the cut card as a visual cue to remember to shuffle, but that’s not your fault! I’ve seen dealers go all the way to the end of the shoe.
• DE deja vu: If the dealer makes a mistake on a particular color-up, wait until you have that exact combination of chips, and color it up again! If the dealer pays too much on a natural with a $40 bet, bet $40 all the time, or if you have a strong count, try $140! If the dealer paid off once on your 3-4-5-T, you should be hitting your three and four card twelves vs. 4, 5 or maybe even a 6. You get the idea.
• Some people consider this to be cheating. I don’t do it, but it’s between you and your conscience: In a pitch game, don’t throw in your four or more cards totaling 22. Especially if the dealer busts, there’s a fair chance he’ll just scoop up your hand netting you a 200% profit.
• This one is even closer to the edge. I call it “Surrender for less.” If you decide to use it, use it only on your last day in a given casino for several months. With an even sized bet out, if you would normally surrender, remove half the bet while the dealer is occupied with players to your right. When it’s your turn say “surrender” and if the dealer only takes half the remaining chips, according to one guy I know, proper etiquette is never to point out an error unless it hurts you personally. (Any lawyers in the house?)

Types of Dealer Error: Misdeals

Any time the dealer deals an extra hand, or misses a hand, or any of a number of other things, the pit boss will be called over, and generally you will have the option to play your hand, or call it dead. Over half the time, your hand will be a net loser, so you should drop out.

This is like surrender without having to surrender anything. Many people are surprised to learn any hard 17 is a loser, even against a 5 or 6 (so toss it in!). Any 18 should be abandoned vs. a 9, T or A, and soft hands below 18 should generally be dropped unless basic says to double down. And other than T-T and 5-5, pairs that aren’t supposed to be split should be abandoned. Also abandon 8-8 vs. 8, 9 T and A. The precise strategy for handling the dead hand decision is given in Basic Blackjack.

Exposed Cards

Any cards exposed during the shuffle, the cut, or the play of the hands other than player hands and the upcard is a dealer error. There are strategies for playing exposed cards in several places, such as Basic Blackjack by Wong, Beat the Dealer by Thorp, and Beyond Counting by Grosjean. It’s possible to get an edge over 10% with optimal hole card play.

One card that’s often neglected is the bottom card after the shuffle and just before the cut. For example, if you know the bottom card is a ten, in a 1d game, and you can cut exactly in the middle, you know the 26th card dealt will be a ten — and that can be very precious knowledge. Even if you can only cut to within one or two cards of center, you could profit handsomely.

Occasionally, the dealer will expose the hole card in plain view for all to see. In this case, don’t be shy about hitting your hard 19 vs. the dealer’s 20! If the dealer’s two-card total is eleven or less, you should follow basic strategy for the corresponding upcard. Eg. if the dealer has 2-3, then you should play as if he has a 5 up. And if the dealer is stiff (total hard 12 – 16) you have only yourself to blame if you bust.

Much has been written about hole card play. James Grosjean has determined that perfect hole card play can net you +13% against the house, but that assumes you have perfect knowledge of the hole card 100% of the time, and you never make cover plays. If you forego the obvious giveaways, like hitting hard 17 or higher, you should net around 10% with perfect play.

If you know the top card of the deck or shoe you also have extremely valuable information. For example, if you’re sitting at third base, and you know the next card is a ten, there are many counter-intuitive situations where you should stand, rather than hit.

Broken Equipment

Any faulty equipment can put the dealer off kilter and increase errors. My favorite is a broken card reader—often advertized by tape over the hole. You may have thought the information in Read The Dealer by Forte was obsolete, but the first thing I look for as I case a casino is that tape.

You have a dealer with zero experience in hiding her reactions, manually peeking at hole cards. They won’t know the procedures, so you can be quite brazen. If you have a questionable play after a peek, look them straight in the eye and say “what do YOU think?” They won’t tell you, but if they like you and their hand is poor, they will look pleased. More likely they will hate you, since you’re a counter, so if they think you’re in a spot, they won’t be able to supress a slight grin.

Competent Dealer Incompetence

There are many players with a good knowledge of basic strategy who aren’t professional card counters. The dealer begins fitting you into one of her pigeon holes the minute you sit down to play. But you are going to be a square peg. Once the dealer has you down as a nice guy … knows his way around the table … unlikely to cause any problems … she will relax.

Here are some plays you should try only after the dealer has you categorized. They involve a higher level of deception than previous ploys, and may have more serious legal and moral implications. We list them for purely educational purposes without recommending them. They can work only once per dealer.

• The ambiguous hit: While playing two hands, or with split hands, when you are done hitting the first one—or even if it’s stiff with a high upcard—don’t wave it off. Instead, wait half a second after the dealer gets distracted then make your next hit signal exactly in the middle between the two spots. If it looks good for hand #1, claim it was intended for hand #1. If it’s good for hand #2 … get the picture?
• The hit/stand: To perfect this move you need to imagine what it looks like to the eye in the sky. It should clearly look like a hit to the camera, but like a probable stand to the dealer. You’re on third base. The dealer knows you. She knows you’re going to stand on that hand, and barely looks at you. She’s still talking to somebody on first base about that thing that happened day before yesterday. She hits her hand and it’s the seven that would have turned your 14 into 21. “Hey wait! I signaled for a hit!!”
• The double/hit: This is a dealer on speed. He hits your hand the instant you give a signal. You have a few chips in the palm of your hand equal to the bet in the circle. You signal for a hit and simultaneously let go of the palmed chips, which fall in the vicinity of the circle. The instant you see the hit, if it’s no good you say “Oops!” If it’s a nice one, shout “Double!”
• The quadruple down: All chips in the betting circle are the same color. You plan to double down. While the dealer is preoccupied with players on your right, add your doubling amount to the top of your bet. When it’s your turn, incompetent little you asks “how much more do I need to bet to double down?”. If the dealer says anything other than “zero,” you follow his instructions. He is, after all, the boss. [There are specific laws against “capping your bet” in many jurisdictions, so this play is included only for completeness. Not recommended.]

Summary

In general, every picayune procedure, every little nit you observe in the most paranoid of casinos, has a reason borne out of experience with the small con artist. If you think about those reasons, you will know what to do when you encounter a dealer who takes short cuts.

There’s not much in the literature on DE because mathematically it’s, well frankly it’s uninteresting. It’s also uninteresting if someone just hands you $25 an hour because you look pretty, but that’s no reason to turn it down. Nor is it a reason to stop shaving.

Over time, maximizing dealer error can have quite a salutary effect on your bankroll. In general, the win rate is increased with little negative consequence in the variance column. In fact, if you know for sure the dealer is a klutz, you may be justified in increasing your bets by 20 – 50% across the board.

Christmas comes early when the dealer is on your side. Always remember: “If the boss didn’t see it—it didn’t happen.” ♠

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.  ♠