G
r
e
a t
G
a
m
b
l
i
n
g
M
Now, there are perfectly legitimate reasons to change seats. If you’re playing at home and a seat opens that is closer to the refrigerator, by all means, grab it. If you’re next to a smoker and see clearer air across the table, go for it. There are legitimate poker reasons, too. If you see a player at the table whom you think you can take advantage of from a different betting position, that’s a move-worthy reason. If you’re on the other end of the stick, and a player betting before you has you on edge, change seats. But if you think another seat will bring better cards, well there’s as much chance your old seat will get better cards as that your new one will. Past deals have no effect on those in the future.
8
Another Blackjack Myth: Rain Man Rhapsody?
It’s impossible to count cards in a six-deck game; you’d have to be Rain Man. When I was hosting a radio talk show a few years ago, I had a caller tell me he thought it was impossible to count cards. That showed mostly that he misunderstood what card counters do. Counting cards does not mean memorizing every card in the deck that’s played. It’s keeping track of the balance of high cards vs. low cards remaining to be played. In a balanced count such as the common Hi-Lo, if you see a 10 and a 6 come out, you’ve seen a high card and a low card. They cancel each other out, you add nothing to your count, and you move on. You don’t have to remember the specific cards that have been played. Using a plus-and-minus system, it’s not difficult to count cards, no matter how many decks are in play. Applying the count to your bet size, estimating the number of decks remaining to be played, making the changes to basic strategy dictated by the count, keeping your bets appropriate to the size of your bankroll, coping with the distractions in a casino environment—that can be difficult. Few would-be counters can keep all that under control. But just counting the cards—is that impossible? No.
9
Money Management Myth: Let’s be Logical
Money management systems can overcome the house’s mathematical edge. A reader once sent me a system that he swore would beat craps. It involved managing his money by increasing and decreasing his bets according to previous results. Nothing as drastic as a double-your-bet Martingale, but still calling for larger bets in losing streaks. He provided a chart that showed a profit over a million trials on the computer. He said his minimum bet was $1, and he tried to keep his maximum to $10,000. Where he planned to find a real casino that would let you spread bets from $1 to $10,000, I don’t know. What he tried to downplay was that he exceeded his $10,000 “limit” four times, and outside those four trials, his system lost money.
32
Southern G aming an d De s t in a t io n s
y
t
h
s
Leaving aside the table minimums and maximums, money management systems fail to beat the casino because the house edge is the same on every roll of the dice, every spin of the roulette wheel. That you’re betting more money on this roll than the last makes no difference to the dice or the wheel. They have no memory and don’t know whether you’ve won or lost. Money management systems can be useful ways to discipline yourself to stay within your bankroll. But to change the edge that is as solid as math can be? That’s just a myth.
Video Poker
10
A Myth for Any Game
The longer you’ve gone without something happening, the more likely it is to happen. This is one roulette players love. If black numbers have come up six times in a row, then the next one has to be red, doesn’t it? If it’s been 100 spins since the last time the ball landed in 00, isn’t it time to start betting on 00? No. In almost all cases, such results are just coincidences. Of the 38 numbers on a double-zero wheel, 18 are red, 18 are black, and two are green. The chances of the ball landing on a red number are 18 in 38—on every spin of the wheel. The chances of 00 or any other single number turning up are 1 in 38—on every spin of the wheel there is an outside chance that there is something wrong with the wheel, that it’s out of balance or the frets aren’t right, and that’s the reason certain numbers haven’t hit in a while. Such situations are rare, but if there’s a physical reason a number isn’t turning up, then it won’t start hitting now just because it seems to be due. No matter whether you’re playing roulette, craps, slots, video poker, the Big Six wheel or nearly any other game, past results make no difference. And that’s no myth. John Grochowski has been writing about casinos and casino games since 1994. He blogs regularly for the Tunica Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, downtheroad.tunicatravel.com. He is the author of six books on gaming, including “The Slot Machine Answer Book” and “The Video Poker Answer Book.” You can find him online at casinoanswerman. com, and on Facebook and Twitter.