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This is a question that thousands of punters have asked down the years and in my mind many of the people who give the answers are doing so from a position of ignorance. Now before we continue, I have been a croupier and was one for nearly ten years and so I know a little about the subject. But that knowledge came from a combination of actually doing the job and doing in depth studies years later. So it needs pointing out right now that in no way does being a croupier automatically qualify you to be able to control a ball.

There are several reasons behind why this is so. Firstly your average croupier simply doesn’t care enough to want to put in the necessary practice, they just go onto a table and spin the ball in any fashion…..these are not the croupiers to be talking to as they will paint a distorted picture. Likewise with croupiers who simply refuse to even believe in the idea. Then we have croupiers who have tried and failed and so this only leaves a very small percentage of croupiers who were successful in this skill.

However in my experience it is only possible to control a ball when certain conditions are present. I for example could only do it on a right handed wheel as I simply did not have the same feel with my left hand. Also the wheel had to be travelling at a relatively slow speed which isn’t always possible when Inspectors and Pit Bosses are constantly telling you to speed your wheel up. So the reality is that SOME croupiers can indeed control the ball SOME of the time.

Back when I worked in gaming then the best roulette players that I experienced all waited until the dealer had spun the ball. Elsewhere on this blog you will be able to read about “The Salmon” and how successful he was. There is no doubt that roulette under certain conditions is not only vulnerable but beatable. Anyone who says otherwise is speaking out of ignorance. I am not a mathematician or an expert in physics but I do know that when a punter plays for several hours a day, every day and makes around £20,000 over the course of a year then they must be doing something.

How do I know that one punter made £20k? Because I personally recorded his results along with a colleague but there were still times due to holidays when we probably didn’t clock him and so that figure could have been higher. But in all cases then the player concerned waited until the dealer had spun the ball and had identified what is known as the dealer’s signature. The mechanics of roulette dictate that if a dealer spins the ball from the same point at the same speed that the drop off point should be the same.

However the number dividers and canoes should in theory lead to random results. Well in my experience then this wasn’t the case and certainly up until 1998 with the wheels that were in use then. Skilful dealers can and did repeatedly spin away from blocks that were laden with chips but only a tiny percentage of dealers either had the inclination, the desire or the knowledge to be able to do that.

The bigger the blackjack team then the more problems that you are going to encounter! I found this out to my cost back in 1999 when my first team kind of reached a situation that I found difficult to handle. It is hard in many ways to make people do certain teams that they do not want to do. During bad runs then morale can get low and in some instances very low. This is where managing is a test and probably it needs motivational speeches and I was never big on that.

But then you have the problem of players being dishonest. When you have to rely on people being honest with the amount of their winnings then you are always in a dodgy situation. You try to alleviate this by choosing players that you can trust or feel that you can trust but you are always hoping and praying that you will be right about certain people. At the end of the day though there will always be risk but it was my dream to emulate Ken Uston but that certainly never happened neither in the amounts that we won nor in the success.

Sometimes things simply do not gel for numerous reasons but I also felt that it needed a stronger person than me to make the entire thing work. So in my opinion I would advise any blackjack player to play as an individual or certainly no more than a two man team if you are thinking of playing blackjack seriously.

Back in around 2000 when I formed my second and final blackjack team then I became friends with the best card counter that I have ever met. I called him “Maverick” because it was always difficult to control him and getting him doing the right things but he had more natural talent as a blackjack player than anyone who I had ever met. He could count faster than me (and I was really fast) and he could shuffle track better than I could and his cover plays were really inventive and creative.

He could have played for 20 years and never been suspected. I called him “Maverick” after the 1986 movie “Top Gun” where the lead character played by Tom Cruise was the most talented pilot of the group but yet was volatile and unpredictable and something of a loose cannon. This was exactly the same as my “Maverick” who I will not name for obvious reasons.

But Maverick would often not turn up for sessions which left us a man short and because he was our best player then this placed pressure on the team. But he often wouldn’t even turn up without warning and this was not only showing a lack of respect for the team but it was hurting his own bottom line as well as ours. But this is the situation with all great players and you often have to put up with their other flaws to compensate for their sublime skill.

Today is 2011 but I always think back to the year that was 1998 with fond memories. I never realised it at the time but leaving gaming was going to lead to a life of playing poker, writing and sports betting. However though it was a great wrench to leave gaming because I was leaving to go into a career in which I was only going to be paid a basic for the first two months and after that I would be well and truly on my own. This made me very nervous as I had never had a situation where my income wasn’t guaranteed before.

That job was being a financial consultant and although I have it to thank for steering me away from gaming, it was job that I never at any stage enjoyed doing and just wanted out after a while. I was only in that job for four months if you discount the three week training course that I went on. But it did teach me a lot of things and I would never have met my backer for my blackjack team had I not done that job! When blackjack started to become more serious then I simply dropped the career which did have the potential to become something but there were experienced guys in that branch who were not making more than 25k so what chance did I have?

But suddenly I was thrust into playing blackjack and earning some money from small poker games to get by but get by I did but I had absolutely no intention of ever going back to gaming although I did seriously consider it once or twice when money got a bit tight. But I toughed it out and when I started to play poker online seriously in 2002 then I knew that I would never be going back again.

Some years ago I read about a character in Edward Thorp’s class book on blackjack called “Beat the Dealer” about a blackjack card counter who the casinos called “The Salmon”. This name was given to him because of how he managed to successfully win when all of the other players were losing. This reminded me of a roulette player back in the days when I was a croupier. He often would win when starting with very small amounts of money. I actually kept a personal log of this player as best as I possibly could and I estimated that he was ahead by as much as £20,000 during one particular year.

The thing was that the casino never clocked this guy because he never bought in for more than £100 and even then this was only in increments of £10 and £20 at a time. But he was a classic wheel reader and was also very good at it as well. This just basically blows out of the water the theory that roulette cannot be beaten. Roulette wheel reading is a very practiced skill but it is also very difficult to execute. The composition of the roulette balls that we used made his task easier because they had less bounce than traditional roulette balls. It would be interesting to know if my own “Salmon” was still beating the game but the arrival of electronic roulette would not have done him any favours for sure. But roulette can be beaten and this was living proof.

I remember clearly the first time that I ever made a non conventional blackjack move. I was scouting a casino in the north of England and was playing table minimums. I did not have too much money on me as counting and playing was not on my agenda. I did not want to ruin my chances with the team before we even started.

So what happened during the course of the evening was a little amazing if not stupid. The dealer was a nice girl and the inspector was also a nice guy and we had been making polite conversation for about thirty minutes or so.

There were a couple of other players on the table apart from me and she pulled an ace to her own hand when she already had seventeen. The rules state that the card must then be the next card out of the shoe and on this instance, the card happened to be an ace.

Without any conscious thought, I reached into my pocket and took most of the money that I had and placed a maximum bet on the first box of £200. The hush and silence became deafening as the inspector and dealer exchanged glances with each other as if to say “can he do that”.

Well of course I can and I wasn’t breaking any rules, just taking advantage of a dealer mistake. It was a bad thing to do but this is money when all said and done and the edge for the player when you know that your first card is an ace is over 50%. I won the hand although not with a natural and the mood on the table changed.

But I knew that this wouldn’t get reported because what dealer or inspector would want their superiors to know that they were not doing their jobs properly?

That really was a defining day and I made that same move numerous times although not always with an ace as it was often with a ten value card.

See you soon

Carl
Play at one of the best casinos online

I had someone e-mail me a few days ago who wanted to ask me about becoming a croupier and how easy it was. They had read my blackjack book which kind of painted a somewhat negative picture of life as a croupier.

Despite what I said in that book, there are many advantages to becoming a croupier. Firstly it is something where a person can create a very respectable career without having loads of qualifications. Anyone can be a croupier almost, as long as you don’t have a criminal record or maybe visible tattoos then you should be able to train as a croupier.

There are probably other factors that prohibit someone from becoming a croupier as well but not having qualifications isn’t one of them. The natural career path in the UK used to be a six week training course followed by doing the actual job for real.

Then anyone with at least 18 months experience as a dealer would be considered for promotion to Inspector. Then there were further career advancements to Pit Boss and then Manager followed by General Manager.

So a person could end up with a very good job if they showed the proper initiative and attitude. The money at that time wasn’t great but then again I am referring to the area where I worked and I am going back to 1998.

There is always the possibility for croupiers to work abroad and many follow that option and see exotic places whilst getting paid to do so. I never personally had that option because I had a family at the time but it can be a far better career for single people in many aspects.

Working night shifts isn’t for everyone but I didn’t mind it as I always liked to get out of bed whenever I wanted rather than having to be forced to get out of bed first thing in a morning. So all I can say is that the career has different appeal to different people depending on individual circumstances so do not be put off or swayed by anything that I have said either in this post or in the past.

see you soon

Carl
Play blackjack online at bwin

My first ever encounter with “The Salmon” was memorable. Actually I really ought to point out here that the use of the term “Salmon” has been taken from a blackjack card counter back in the sixties who was dubbed the “Salmon” by casino staff because he was winning and not losing consistently like everyone else. The name came about because Salmon swim up stream against the flow of the water.

This term was in the classic blackjack book “Beat the Dealer” by Ed Thorp and I figured that this name would suit my own version of the “Salmon” on roulette. I recall one early evening at about 7pm, I was dealing on American Roulette 1 when a guy walked up to my table with a couple of his friends. He looked something of a nerd and was about 5ft 9in tall, slightly overweight with a terrible hair style.

He watched the game for a while whilst talking to his associates and he sort of sounded quite irritating. After about fifteen minutes of watching me spin the ball, he then proceeded to place 50p which is £0.50 on number 17. I had no reason to suspect that this wouldn’t be anything more than a losing bet but a few seconds later I was placing the dolly on number 17 and paying him £17.50. He took his chips and put them into his pocket but left the original £0.50p bet on the number.

I gave the ball a big spin and then he appeared to think for a couple of seconds and proceeded to take the cash chips back out of his pocket and place them all back on to number 17. This gave him £18 on the number and this time my eyes were glancing at the wheel as the ball began to slow. With the final half revolution, I knew that it would be close and it was. It bounced around 17 for a second or two until finally coming to rest right in the middle of number 17.

His friends couldn’t believe it and neither could I, this guy had just won £630 from 50p in the space of two spins. A 1260 return on investment but there was nothing to suggest at this stage that this was nothing more than luck and I was sure that it was no more than that…..time would prove me very wrong.

look out for more on “The Salmon”

Carl