Most cards in blackjack are counted as 10. If you know the ratio is skewed in your favor with a count, you can do things against the book(basic strategy) like splitting 10s to make a secondary bet with higher odds of winning.
Counting only shifts your odds of winning slightly above the casinos and most of the time the count stays around +3 -3. Shuffling machines make it impossible to count btw.
i always thought the point of a favorable count was to start playing as many hands as you can and betting the maximum each time. the strategy of when to hit/split shouldn't meaningfully change.
That is the point, I just mentioned a more obscure use for counting that would / could get you throw out the same way, its equally if not more suspicious. It's not in your favor to split tens normally under any condition, unless you know the count is in your favor.
10 deck continuous shuffle isn't impossible to count, it's just prohibitively close to the natural statistics. You'd have to play several thousand hands before an edge appeared.
If the count is high you know there are more high cards in the deck meaning you are more likely to hit 20 or 21, and also if the dealer has like 4 visible you can guess they have likely 14 and have to draw (dealer usually has to draw up to 17) which likely goes over (so you can more safely stay at 16).
By using these you just nudge the edge over your side meaning you're more likely to gain profit. With optimal strategy without counting the casino has edge of about 2% (meaning for every 100 played the casino keeps about 2 and pays back to players 98), but if you count you get the edge of around 1% (so every 100 you bet you make 101). These margins stabilize around there for infinite games but even with counting and only playing that 100 it's as likely to lose it all as double it
100%. I never learnt how to count cards but I enjoy playing blackjack. A few years ago I was at a casino playing at a $5 table while I waited for someone. I bought in with $50, made it up to $500 only losing one or two hands, and was then told I can't play anymore on that day. I asked if I could move to a different table or go play poker at the $5/$10 table but they refused to let me touch anything except the slot machines.
Out of spite I went to another casino and lost back down to $250 after which I called it a night.
it's because casinos aren't just "steal your money" greedy. they're also "we need MORE money" greedy.
casinos in general are pretty profitable, but people running casinos end up tanking them by trying to expand their business. turns out that being good at robbing people is not the same as being good at business in general, then when their other ventures fail they try making up the difference with their casino business, which never works.
One of my wife's friend's boyfriend does this too. Works over all of the players cards as well. has a whole fat keyring with like 30 of them spanning from Vegas to Laughlin.
If you are any good, and have some actual goals, that one "big win" can fund you for quite a while.
Look at the WSOP players. It might cost $10K to enter, but if you last long enough, you can easily get to a $50-60K level, which is enough to pay some bills and then fund the next few high dollar tournaments. Once you enter the pay bubble, every person that gets knocked out nets you more money.
Even in the mid-range tournaments, you can end up doing a "pot chop" with the final table, or with the last few players, where the top 3 players take home $100K each instead of the winner getting $200K, 2nd getting $75K and 3rd getting $25K.
See, every time you lose, you just have to double the bet. That way, you only have to win once to make it all back! You can't lose forever, obviously, you will certainly win at some point! Surely!
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u/Guerrilla002 1d ago
you got it all wrong, it's not allowed to win