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. ♠

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. . . .)  ♠

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. ♠

Fast Action Jackson’s Distractions

by Arnold Snyder

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

Blackjack Rules: Every Rule Option is Good

by Arnold Snyder

(First published in Avery Cardoza’s Player Magazine)
© 2005 Arnold Snyder

A player recently emailed me asking if it was better if a casino allowed players to surrender, or if it was better if this was not allowed. He wrote: “Every blackjack player I know thinks this a great rule. But it seems to me that I give up a lot of hands I would have won. Now, I hardly ever surrender unless the cards are running really bad for me in a shoe. Why would casinos allow players to surrender if the house didn’t make money on it?”

Here’s something to remember: Every time a casino gives you an option, no matter what that option is, it can’t hurt your chances of winning unless you misplay the option. Let me give you a radical example. Every blackjack player has the option to hit a total of 20. Not that any of us would hit a 20, but we all have the option. Because we don’t hit our 20s, the option has no effect on us. We know how to play this option. We stand. If a casino suddenly posted signs that said, “Hitting 20s is not allowed,” no player would care.

So, hitting a 20 is an option that would hurt us if we exercised the option, since we’d bust 92% of the time, but in reality it doesn’t hurt anyone because no one exercises the right. If a casino posted a sign that said, “All players are now allowed to double down on 3-card hard 16s,” it wouldn’t matter. All intelligent players would recognize the option as an option that would be foolish to exercise. So an option can’t possibly hurt us unless we exercise it incorrectly. By definition, an option means we have the right to not exercise it.

Surrender, A Blackjack Rule with Great Value

Surrender is an option that, in fact, has real value when exercised correctly, and you don’t have to be a card counter to take advantage of it. Unfortunately for most players, it probably does hurt them more than it helps. In fact, I suspect from the email I got from the reader above that he was correct in his conclusion that he would have done better if he just didn’t surrender at all. His statement that he now only surrenders when the “cards are running really bad” is worrisome.

Surrender decisions have nothing to do with how the cards are running. The decision to play a hand or give it up, along with half the bet on it, should be based purely on math. And the major problem that many players have with this option is that they surrender way too frequently.

Some players will give up on almost any stiff total against any dealer high card. That has a huge cost to the player. Purely based on the math, do you know how often you should surrender any total of 12, 13, or 14?

Never.

It doesn’t matter if the dealer has a ten, an Ace, or any other upcard. And it doesn’t matter how the cards have been running. Purely based on the math, you will lose more money surrendering any of these hands than you’ll save by giving up half your bets.

The only hands you should ever surrender are hard 15 against a ten, or hard 16 against a ten or Ace. That’s it, as far as the math goes.

One player tried to argue with me once that if he had a hard 15, basic strategy was to hit it against any dealer 7 or higher. Since seven of the thirteen possible hit cards he could get (any 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, or K) would bust him, he’d be better off surrendering 15 against any dealer 7 upcard or higher. His argument: “If I’m going to bust more than half the time, then I save money by just giving the dealer half of my bet.”

That sounds logical, but it’s a twist of logic. Let me explain…

If I were to flip a coin with the understanding that if it comes up heads, I win, and if it comes up tails, I lose, this is a dead even bet. Since I know that the odds are that I’m going to lose this bet half the time, would I have the same result if I just surrendered half of my money on every bet?

No way. Without surrendering, I’ll break even on a coin-flip in the long run. If I surrender half my money on every bet, I’m losing at a 50% rate for all the money I bet! Surrender doesn’t become a break-even bet until I know I’m going to lose twice as often as I’m going to win. It takes two half-losses to make up for one win. A total of 15 against a dealer 7, 8, or 9 may be a pretty bad hand, but believe it or not, it doesn’t lose twice as often as it wins.

Good Blackjack Rules Sometimes Entice Players to Make Bad Blackjack Plays

Some years ago, a mathematician did a study of the general public’s play at casino blackjack. He literally watched players in Las Vegas and Reno and kept a record of how they played their hands.

One of his more interesting findings was that players in Reno made fewer errors than players in Las Vegas. Why was this? Because players in Las Vegas had more options.

In Reno, blackjack players were only allowed to double down on 10 or 11, while in Las Vegas they were allowed to double down on any two cards, including doubling after splits. If you are only allowed to double down on 10 or 11, you will very rarely make a double-down error, since it’s almost always correct to double down on 10 or 11. But there are lots of errors you can make if you are allowed to double down on any two cards.

In fact, the options to double down on any two cards, and to double down after splits—just like the option to surrender—are player-favorable options. If you know when to exercise the options, and when not to, these options will make money for you in the long run. But if you do not exercise the options correctly, then you’re making the options work for the house.

Surrender is one of those options that almost always makes money for the house because most players give up too many “bad” hands too often. The fact is, if it ain’t a 15 or 16, and if the dealer doesn’t have a ten or Ace showing, it just ain’t that bad. You’ve just got to be brave and hit that sucker! ♠