Winners are cause for multitudes of losers?

My theory: With respect to blackjack, if there were more winners, there would be respectively a multitude of additional losers. Hmmmmm ?????

I think we all agree that every casino needs the perfect balance of its percentage of winners to losers in order to achieve its highest and best return of profit. The big question is however; how many of each, in terms of a percentage? I think the percentage of winners needs to be higher than what typical casino staffs assume. I believe, more winners equates to many more losers. The end result for the casinos is more profit.

It is my personal contention most likely that; lucky player returns along with AP proper EV returns are essential to the ultimate bottom line profits for casinos.

How many of you reading this believe as I do that this may be more probable than we are being manipulated to think?

In summary, the casinos staffs of the world should probably not be so concerned with winners. They are just plain good for business in the long run, regardless of the quality of the player that the wins are coming from.

I agree that the single counter or even small team play can be good for the casino. But you get to major well run, well bankrolled team and I do believe that hurts casino bottom lines. Now with that said, I do not think even that hurts casino bottom line as much as casino's think. Now in some few cases I have heard about it did, but it was not card counting or Shuffle-Tracking.

Aces & Faces to Ya.
K-O Joe

<< My theory: With respect to blackjack, if there were more winners, there would be respectively a multitude of additional losers. ...I think we all agree that every casino needs the perfect balance of its percentage of winners to losers in order to achieve its highest and best return of profit. ...I think the percentage of winners needs to be higher than what typical casino staffs assume. ...It is my personal contention most likely that; lucky player returns along with AP proper EV returns are essential to the ultimate bottom line profits for casinos. >>

Yes, there clearly have to be winners if people are going to be enticed to come into the casino and lose. But we're talking short-term winners, almost entirely due to random variance. All casino games are set up with relatively high variance, because that way they give the player a significant chance of walking away a substantial winner after one session or one trip. Hardly anyone would play a game at which your results were always the same as your negative EV. People gamble because they see others hitting jackpots, or having a good run at the craps table, and think, hey, that could be me.

And the huge publicity given the fact that blackjack is theoretically beatable in the long run has undoubtedly been a big reason for the game's success. There are hoards of players who now think they can win with voodoo strategies or with inadequate study of counting techniques. But for players to be attracted to the game in this way, there doesn't have to be any particular number of winning players. There don't have to be any actual winning APs at all. It's the HYPOTHETICAL winners that bring in players, not the actual winners. If new legions of counters were rigorously trained and let loose on the casinos, and the number of winning blackjack players went up by 100%, WHO WOULD KNOW? So I'm afraid that the casinos are correct in making efforts to frustrate players who actually have an edge, although they probably put more money into it than it's worth and are so clumsy in how they go about it that they alienate a lot of "good customers" in the process.

Every time the casino bars somebody for advantage play, their profits go up a little in the long run. Now, it's slightly better for them if they bar actual APs, as opposed to imaginary APs, and they would really rather not bar any whalish suckers. But if they can't find any legitimate APs, after a time the smart casino will find a basic strategist to kick out in very public fashion.

Here's how it works. Civilian sees somebody getting barred for using their brain. They think "Hmmm! There must really be something to this card counting cult." They decide to try it for themselves. But they read the wrong book, or else they figure they have enough card sense to go by the seat of their pants. Civilian now emplys a "spread" and loses his instinctive caution, hence he loses at two or three times his previous rate.

The rare individual who reads a half dozen books, and practices for hours at home, is, of course, a prime candidate for the next barring. And so it goes, on and on and ...

The casinos stumbled upon this modus operandi, simply because it's an economic model that works. Casinos that never bar APs wind up losing money at blackjack, and thus offer it less and less (unless they cheat). Some casino execs understand the model; some don't. It only makes a marginal difference to the efficiency of their operation. The important thing is they all have roughly comparable procedures.

The reason some casinos try to bar people very quietly and tactfully, far from the tables, is those casinos don't fully understand the hypocracy built in to offering a beatable game. But the model still works in their favor, because word of mouth is impossible to stifle.

ETF

Casinos that never bar APs wind up losing money at blackjack...

I don't believe this is true.

I have seen so often after winning a max bet when I split a pair of tens and maybe split again, someone at the table is just so impressed and says something like, "I just want to feel what it's like to do that".

When a casino with decent rules and pen has a policy of not barring APs, pros from all over the country descend on the joint and kill the game. You also get the strange spectacle of people talking openly about counting at the tables. Knowledgeable players will actually refer noobies to Snyder, Wong, et al. People learn basic strategy just to avoid getting laughed at. And when somebody gets known as a counter, the others constantly look to him to see when they should raise their bets.

I actually saw conditions like this for about six months up in northern Wisconsin. Then one of the casinos started barring people, and I now believe the other casino started cheating. Those casinos were really losing a lot of money! There were no other casinos near by from which to draw talent, so when they opened up, all the dealers were green. I was averaging over one bet per hour in my favor from dealer mistakes. If I hadn't been equally green, I would have been betting a whole hell of a lot more. (Violin music, here.)

I remember a lot of "deaf people" playing every time I went up there. I mean like two or three high stakes tables with only deaf people! They had ear pieces and used sign language to one another. I figured out years later what all that was about. (Think "no device law.") To this day, they have signs in northern WI that say "no language at the tables other than English." Sign language is verboten!

People who knew their stuff stopped talking about it to avoid getting barred, and maybe also to avoid getting those dealers who practiced in their spare time at home.

ETF

ETF: Casinos that never bar APs wind up losing money at blackjack...

SB: I don't believe this is true.

I have seen so often after winning a max bet when I split a pair of tens and maybe split again, someone at the table is just so impressed and says something like, "I just want to feel what it's like to do that".

When a casino with decent rules and pen has a policy of not barring APs, pros from all over the country descend on the joint and kill the game. You also get the strange spectacle of people talking openly about counting at the tables. Knowledgeable players will actually refer noobies to Snyder, Wong, et al. People learn basic strategy just to avoid getting laughed at. And when somebody gets known as a counter, the others constantly look to him to see when they should raise their bets.

I just wonder if it is different in CA and northern NV than elsewhere. I see a counter on average only about once every 18 months. It doesn't take long either for me to catch one at a table I'm on.

If a casino is going to offer good games in order to maximize game speed and customer satisfaction they have to protect them.

There is, however, another school of thought where the game protection is passive and most players are allowed to play. In this case the casino offers games with generally good rules but a penetration level that makes the game a real challenge. Surveillance can spend more time looking for actual cheating and theft as AP's who are aggressive enough to actually have a chance to win have to completely expose themselves with their betting.

Obviously, being allowed to play is not an absolute. A passively protected casino still must decide when to pull the plug on it's customers. But by forcing an obvious massive spread coupled with not taking action until a cumulative win is achieved you are assured of almost always making the correct decision regarding player skill.

Casinos with aggressive game protection must, by their very nature, make mistakes and occasionally bar players that are good customers.

Agreed. Same thing happened in AC. Killed some pretty good 6 deck games.

I just wonder if it is different in CA and northern NV than elsewhere. I see a counter on average only about once every 18 months. It doesn't take long either for me to catch one at a table I'm on.

The point is, when a casino doesn't play the normal cat and mouse game, the situation CHANGES. All of a sudden you will see counters. They will travel from all round the country to get to the candy store. They will no longer use cover. The locals will see them winning and they will change also. Non-counters will become counters.

I used to see a counter maybe once a month, when I played ten times a month. But then, I really wasn't looking that hard. It's not exactly rocket science, you know. Surely, at least one player in a hundred plays well enough to have a positive EV. (No, I'm not saying one in a hundred is a pro, or anything like that.)

But that is under normal conditions. You're talking about changing all that. Furthermore, if all casinos changed, you'd still see a vast change among the players, even without the candy store factor. Barring has a profound effect on free speech, and hence on the education of civilians.

Players in CA don't talk about counting at the tables because they are competing for the same pot. Why would you want to educate the enemy?

ETF

...it appears the other players don't have a clue as to why. Or maybe they just think I was cheating some how and I got caught. Although, in remembering about 6 years ago near Reno, I got zapped and when I was told no more play, another player got really pissed off about it got really irate with the Pit Boss that caused it. He asked them why they would not let me play and was it because I was beating them. I thought he was going to get violent with the PB and eventually left the joint even before I got my checks cashed in.