In blackjack, he plays
basic strategy and faces a one-half percent house
edge. He’s up over $40,000 in that game. He
shouldn’t be, but he is. In craps, he is ahead
a mere $4,000 but if you saw the crazy bets he makes,
you would wonder how he could win on a given night,
much less for twenty years!
If you take a look
at any kind of gambling graph, you will note that
90 percent of the long-term results fall within
a big bell-shaped area on the graph. This is the
amount of money players lose based on the probabilities
and house edges of the games they play. But out
on the fringes of probability -- on that five percent
on either side -- are the players who win more than
they should and players who lose more than they
should. And way, way out on the far end of the graph
are those little nano-percentages that are at the
end of the math universe -- meaning the twilight
zone of calculations. With the tens of millions
of people who gamble, there are bound to be some
few who have defied the odds and have actually won
large amounts over time. These are the damn lucky.
(There are also those who have lost huge amounts
out of all proportion to their betting -- these
are the just plain damned.)
It is not unheard of
for some games, at some times, to have bets that
favor the players. In blackjack, about 20 percent
of the hands are played in player-favorable situations.
If you knew that you were in such a player-favorable
moment, you would bet more to capitalize on it.
Well, card counters do just that. But the fact is,
everyone at the table at that time is in that player-favorable
moment -- but most players don’t usually know
it. Any bets placed during that time will not favor
the casino but will favor the player, assuming the
player is playing proper strategy, of course.
Most casino games have
some weaknesses that can be exploited by savvy players,
albeit such players are rare birds indeed. These
weaknesses might not be in the math of the games
but in the physical dimensions of the game. Roulette
wheels can be off; craps shooters might be changing
the odds based on their “rhythmic rolls,”
and baccarat players might be able to follow Bank-favorable,
Player-favorable, or Tie-favorable clumps of cards
through a shuffle. These players can get an edge
over the casino because of their skill in exploiting
the physical dimension of a game.
So what is the truth
about casino games then? It is this: most players
will lose in the long run on the game or games of
their choice because most of the bets do favor the
casino. And most players will lose at, or close
to, whatever the house edge is at that game on the
totality of all the money they bet. But some few
players, through skill or outrageous fortune, will
actually beat the casinos. The players who utilize
skill have the best chance of consistently doing
so. The players who utilize luck had better be damn
lucky. And, indeed, a few are just that.
Good
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