The recent QOD about Thorp on "I've Got a Secret" jogged my memory about an infomercial in the mid-1980s about card counting by Bobby Singer. Any stories about him or background? Was his counting method correct? Any praise or criticism of him or the infomercial?
Yes, Bobby Singer was a blackjack player, instructor, author, and card-counting promoter active in the 1980s. He was known for his comprehensive team-oriented approach to card counting in the 1980s. He made blackjack training videos, infomercials, and many personal appearances in the 1980s and into later years. He produced a course and video titled Winning at Blackjack with Bobby Singer — essentially a training and sales-pitch video teaching blackjack strategy and card counting.
You can see one of his fast-talking presentations here on YouTube.
Singer, who billed himself as a major casino winner, taught a five-step method covering basic strategy, card counting, money management, casino awareness, and team play to gain a 50% advantage over the house, which as you might imagine, was highly exaggerated. His critics called him potentially useful for beginners, of whom way back in those days most casino gamblers were; he wasn't regarded as a high-level advantage player by the pros.
His system involved the standard HiLo count, while his money-management and betting-progression ideas differentiated his training materials from more mathematical approaches.
Thus, in the context of real advantage play, Singer’s system wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t completely wrong either. It was basic and not competitive with serious strategies. The effectiveness would have varied based on the player’s discipline and how closely they stuck to true counts and proper bet spreads.
There’s no public record of Bobby Singer’s later life. He doesn’t appear to have maintained his gambling celebrity status after the 1980s and into the early 1990s. It seems like he simply faded out of the spotlight. Training products like his often recede from public view unless the presenter becomes a major figure — and that didn’t happen here.
