Eric Bruce
18 May 2015
Prof. Nayanda Moore
Engl 11000
The House Advantage
Blackjack is the name of the game. Beat the casino and the dealer at their own game and you might possibly go home with a nice profit. The house, as the casino is known to be called always has the advantage. Basically, the odds are against you the moment you walk through the door. There's a chance to even the score and decrease that house advantage. To the blackjack player, it is a tool of their craft to better their chances. To the casino, it is an illegal nuisance that can't seem to go away. It is called card counting and has been around for as long as the game of blackjack has been. It became especially popular in the 1960s when Ed Thorp wrote his book Beat the Dealer in which he details how to count cards to defeat the dealer at their own game. Since then, there have been many ways that blackjack players have invented in order to beat the system. However, casinos have been very proactive in trying to prevent the amount of card counters in their establishments.
Terms to know as a blackjack beginner is hit, stand, double, and split. Hit is when you tell the dealer to give you another card. Stand means that you do not want anymore cards. Double is when you add an extra bet to your cards up to twice your original bet. To split is when you have two cards of the same value such as two aces and separate the two and play them as two different hands. An additional term is surrender is when you decide to forfeit your hand and the dealer take half of your bet, returning the other half to you giving you a chance to walk away from the current round.
Blackjack is a game to twenty-one. It is played by one to six players not including the dealer in which the goal is twenty one or the player with the highest number. Number cards 2-10 hold the same numerical value. Face cards jack, queen, and king have a numerical value of 10 and aces can either be 1 or 11. Players must place their bets before cards are dealt and if they win they receive an amount that is equal to their original bet. A natural is a face card and an ace. If the dealer has a natural and the player does not, then the dealer wins. If the player does have a natural and the dealer does not then the player wins one and a half times their original bet. If both have naturals then neither dealer nor player wins any amount. One contingency on the dealer's side of the game is that if the dealer is holding any cards that have a value of 16 or less then he must hit but if he has 17 or more he must stand. The rules are simple but the methods to cheating are a little bit more complicated. There are many different methods to card counting but in this paper only four will be discussed.
The most famously used method is the Hi-Lo Method. This method uses a system in which the numbers 2-6 have a value of +1, 7-9 have a value of 0, and 10-Ace have a value of -1. If counted correctly, a single deck of cards should add all the way back to 0. The trick is to be able to know the count by a single glance. So if the player sees a jack and a 2 they should not be adding up -1 + 1 = 0. They should only be thinking 0. With this method the ideal time to bet big is when the count is +2 or higher.
The next method is called the KO count, or "Knock Out Count". This method is much like the Hi-Lo method however, the 7s are counted as +1 instead of 0. That means that rifling through a single deck will get you a value of +4 at the end compared to 0 with the Hi-Lo method. Like the Hi-Lo method, a card count of +2 is an indicator to bet high for a higher chance of winning big.
The third method is the Omega II system which is one of the more difficult card counting systems to learn. In this system, the cards, 2, 3, and 7 have a value of +1, 4, 5, and 6 have a value of +2. 9s hold a value of -1, 10 - kings have a value of -2, and aces and 8s have a value of 0. At first glance this method does seem to be the more complicated system; however, it is shown to be the most rewarding. When the positive count is above +3 is the best chance to bet and when it reaches +1 and 0 that means that the odds favor the house. Unlike the KO Count, this a balanced system like the Hi-Lo method which means that counting the cards all the way through will get you to 0.
The fourth and final method that will be discussed in this paper is the Red Seven method which is exactly identical to the Hi-Lo method; however, the red sevens are counted as +1 while the black sevens are counted as 0. This like the KO count is an unbalanced system. In this system, if you are using a single deck the count should start at -2 to better show the odds of winning at the game.
That is the trick to card counting systems, there is no definite to know exactly what card will be dealt next. The movies for dramatic effect detail that by card counting, the player will know exactly which card will pop up next in the deck. This myth has deterred many potential card counters from learning the trade because they believe they have to be an idiot savant or an MIT student to count cards successfully. The truth is that blackjack is a game of mostly luck; card counting only betters your chances of having good luck. One thing to know about card counting is that a player will have as many winning streaks as they do losing streaks. It is all about being smart and taking some chances.
"The science of card counting is knowing how to do it; the art is being able to get away with it". This quote is by a famous blackjack player, author and owner of the Las Vegas Advisor, which is a newsletter about deals in Las Vegas. This quote is the key to successful card counting. Not only must you strategically play but you must also do so without getting caught by the house's security. The house hates to lose money and the card counters are one of the obstacles to getting as much money as possible from these players. Not for lack of trying, but casinos have been trying for decades to ban card counting because they claim that it is cheating. However, courts have deemed card counting legal but has given casinos discretion as to how to handle the problem of card counting.
Casinos have found many ways to prevent card counting. The most important one is the use of multiple decks. One blackjack table uses anywhere between four to six decks which messes up the running count of the card counter. The solution the card counter found was to divide the running count by the number of decks in play. The only problem with that is the card counter would have to peek at what the dealer is doing which will raise flags to the people watching in the camera room. More tricks include shuffling sporadically along with switching dealers throughout the course of a night or shift. This makes it difficult to get a read of the count because every person shuffles differently and the unknown amount of decks in the show will mess up the running count which will ruin the strategy in place.
That is why blackjack soon became a team effort. Famous card counters were known to use spotters and other covert ways to find out the number of decks in play, the running count, and the best time to bet. The movie 21, which is based on the real MIT Blackjack Team that used to float from casino to casino in the late 1970s- early 1980s to the early 2000s, showcases the teamwork required to beat the house advantage. They had people that would figure out the running count at tables and signal when the running count is beneficial, people to place bets at separate tables under the radar. This team was notorious for taking millions away from casinos all over the United States. It was so bad at one point that casinos recognized the team by faces and follow them around the casino.
This form of harassment is another way in which the house subtly tries to prevent card counting. It is not common for casinos to do that because it is bad for business, but in extreme cases such as the MIT Blackjack team, it was necessary. Card counters have even been known to file lawsuits against casinos for kicking them out for card counting and harassing them as well. The law seems to be in the card counters favor most of the time. The argument is that there is no real science to card counting. This is true. Card counting is essentially a probability equation in which a card is likely to appear but sometimes never does. The myths on the other hand have fueled the casino business but has also burdened them. More revenue is produced when a movie comes out saying that you can beat the system but the backlash is when some people actually do beat the system and take home the casino's money.
Card counting is not a foolproof method to winning but it is better than going in blind at the bat. It provides players with an advantage that is usually leaning in the house's favor. These methods show only odds game. A player is at no better chance at winning than if he carried a rabbit's foot in his pocket. But, with the proper strategy and a little bit of risk a player can come out on top in a game that usually only favors the house.
Annotated Bibliography
scholar.google.com
This database was not very helpful. Searches for card counting and methods of card counting turned up fruitless. The most that showed up were patents for card counting machines for casinos.. Although this might be a part of the card counting method, I look to inform from the perspective of the card counter trying to cheat a rigged system. It might still be worth looking into as I go about my research.
This website was the first one I saw that caught my attention. It details the Hi-Lo method of card counting which seems pretty basic and easy to learn. This is the method I will be using in my presentation; however, My paper will detail more than just this method of card counting.
This website shows all aspects of blackjack: how to count cards, how to bet, how to not get caught, etc. It is lacking some information, or rather a lot but it is a start considering that I am struggling to find proper and informed peer review articles. Whatever the case may be there are more sources out there.
This article from the LA Times is an example of the fact that even celebrities count cards. This further shows that the house advantage in casino games is unfair and unjust. It also provided me with a great quote that I will definitely be using in my paper. The quote goes, "The science of card counting is knowing how to do it; the art is being able to get away with it". This quote is from Anthony Curtis who is a fellow blackjack player. I will be using some examples from this article and others that I can find pertaining to card counters and legislation for or against card counting.
This website is helping me with my presentation. It details how you can practice counting cards as well as know what the next card will be if you practice this certain method. The method is to count all the cards in the deck using the Hi-Lo method and if you get back to zero that means you counted correctly. Also, that you must practice this until you can do it in 25 seconds or less. It is a struggle but so far I got it down to 60 seconds after taking me two minutes the first time.
Works Cited
Baldwin, Roger R. "The Optimum Strategy in Blackjack." Journal of the American Statistical Association 51.275 (1956): 429-39. JSTOR. Web. 18 May 2015.
"Blackjack Tips, Advice and Strategies for Beginners to Experts. | BlackJack Age." Blackjack Tips, Advice and Strategies for Beginners to Experts. | BlackJack Age. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 May 2015.
Blascovich, Jim. "Blackjack and the Risky Shift." Sociometry 36.1 (1973): 42-55. JSTOR. Web. 18 May 2015.
Gottlieb, Gary. "An Analytic Derivation of Blackjack Win Rates." Operations Research 33.5 (1985): 971-88. JSTOR. Web. 18 May 2015.
"How To Play Blackjack : Online Blackjack Guide." N.p., n.d. Web. 18 May 2015.
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