Big Teams

What is the largest amount of players on a bj team that anyone hear has ever heard of? Theoretically, it seems, if you assume a completely honest team of perfect counters (which likely doesn't exist), that the more people on the team the better, for the standard reasons of increased br with no decrease in ror, you'll get into the long run faster, etc. For instance, assume you had 100 people on a team, each with $100,000, for a team br of $10,000,000. If the teams worked in groups of 5 or 10 or whatever, and played perfectly with completely honest players, it seems they could quickly make incredible amounts of winning. Perhaps they could switch teammates often, to increase longevity. Has anyone heard of anything similar to this? Of course, to me it seems nearly impossible to achieve such a team, or anything comparable, in the real world, especially when considering all the horror stories about jacka*s, dishonest members, and also the fact that many counters are simply not good enough. I've never played on a team, and if I did would be completely paranoid about the above factors. It would have to be made up of people I know well and could trust absolutely, and they would also have to be darn good bj players. And the chances of finding 100 people like this seem close to winning the lottery. Any thoughts or stories of anybody trying to play with unusually large teams??

but like you said, 100 honest people would be impossible. Your lucky if you can find even a handfull of real stand-up people in a liftime. And even luckier if you can organize them.

The primary means of dealing with team theft is making sure only a core of trusted individuals can access the main bank. A team I played on had a very effective theft prevention system. Everyone but a nucleus of individuals at the centre of the team only had contact with his immediate superior and subordinate (if any) in the team hierachy. This tended to isolate the bad apples, and also prevented infiltration.
A group of "watchers" would run periodic spot-checks on team members at the tables to verify honesty and proficiency. The identity of the watchers was never known to the team members. Statistical tests were run on individual counters to make sure their results were normally distributed-this isn't a foolproof method by any means, but most thieves are too stupid and greedy to be subtle enough in their cheating to avoid detection in this manner.

This was the only team I ever played on whose results approached expected value. However, it sucked because I felt like I was working for a bank and I left after three months. Although successful, the team disintergrated after a few years, mainly because the institutionalized suspicion and paranoia engendered low morale.

5 guys, 500K/YR

convincing someone to fork up $100,000 for gambling would be a very difficult task,convincing 100 people to fork up $10,000,000 is a fantasy. The odds says play the lotto.

"For instance, assume you had 100 people on a team, each with $100,000, for a team br of $10,000,000. If the teams worked in groups of 5 or 10 or whatever..."

One problem is you are suggesting 10-20 groups of the team. There are simply not enough gaming venues big enough and with good games that will accommodate the size action you suggest to readily rotate 10-20 groups all playing continuously.

The other problem is that you want everyone playing to the total BR, but dividing it among 10-20 groups creates high trip ROR, and it is hard to keep the money moving in a timely fashion from the groups experiencing a pos flux to the groups experiencing a neg flux with so many groups scattered over so many venues.

You reach a point when you have enough people to get in enough annual team play hours to reasonably smooth out the short run swings fairly quickly that it doesn't make sense to add additional people. More people at that point becomes somewhat overkill on getting in the hours, and it's not worth the additional risks and hassles of managing the logistics, keeping everyone happy & motivated, and risk of theft that comes with a larger group.

The same goes with BR. You reach a ceiling where additional BR does little good. For example, suppose you had a BR in the zillions. What kind of bet size/spread do you think you could get away with? Table limits & heat will limit your action at some point even if you have a BR large enough to support higher play in theory.

A link below to an old post & thread on the subject available to greenchip members.

Like Southern Gent said, there aren't enough games. Much smaller teams have problems of running into each other constantly. This hypothetical team alone would increase the heat level everywhere by such a degree that it would be difficult for any blackchipper to get a game. Much smaller teams have burned out gaming areas in short periods of time. The world just isnt' big enough, even if you accomplished the impossible of raising the million dollar bank and getting together 100 accomplished, honest players who were capable of playing high stakes.

Now, a team of low rollers with a $100 max? That might workable. They could blend into the crowd.

just say this were possible (100 players)...

if you all went to the same casino (even at diff times of the day etc)...surely it would be likely that the casino will be unable to react to all of the players in time....id be sure that if the team could clear the casino for the night, and keep coming back until everyones caught...i could see the casino getting at least into a spot of bother, if not much more...

we should all get together and do this, take a few casinos out...

love to see the pit paranoia in every casino around the world after something like that....

id assume itd be more profitable for a team to build legitimate cover for a player, and go as a very high roller...sure get barred, but theres 100's of other casinos around the world...and if you get most of the team members having a go, itd make a fortune...

not just acting cover, but documents, accounts, many sorts of proof, background checks etc....

When a casino is under obvious attack there is not an emergency to find every guy. They just start dealing a totally unbeatable game until they think the heat is off. They will pref shuffle all bet jumps, give very poor pen, etc. I remember when a couple of guys backcounted and jumped into a couple of shoes at Harrahs, LV. They started dealing all the shoes face down. You are not going to take a casino down like this. Now, on very big action nights at some of the biggest casinos, like fight nights, new year's eve, etc, teams do make some handsome scores. There is so much big action around that they can blend in somewhat and their impact is somewhat diluted because of the big negative ev dollars going down at the same time. But these are the biggest casinos on the biggest nights... not an every day thing. It can't be. In fact, the world really isn't even big enough for MIT and the Greeks to both operate without getting in each other's way.