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Roulette is one of the biggest casino games ever played and features in many smash hit films that show a hero spending his cash over at the casinos roulette table while speaking to a woman.

The glamour that seems to come with playing the game is a huge draw factor and because of this there are a large number of big money gamblers that head straight to the roulette tables once they enter a casino or sign into an online based client.

There are a couple of things that new and inexperienced players should know, helping to reduce the chances of you staking all of your cash and not hitting at least one win.

The first thing that you should be aware of is the number of online roulette scams that are operating, these are usually in the form of an ebook that claims to be able to give you the secrets to beating the game every time.

Believe me when i say, these are nothing that are going to improve your chances of winning, they are just a scam that has been created in order to draw money from people who are looking to make quick money through gambling. The majority of the information that you get within these ebooks is easily accessible online, it just needs to be searched for.

The second thing that you should be looking at before heading to the roulette table is that the odds are there for a reason. This means for example that all the numbers on the table pay out 35/1 odds, mainly because the possibility of you choosing the right number is very limited.

Ok you see these new television versions of the game and there are always people hitting the right numbers, you have to think on the larger scale here, it will seem that people are continuously winning but when you have 40 to 50 people all looking to place money onto numbers, there are going to be a couple of people who will guess correctly.

Thirdly and most importantly, manage your bankroll efficiently, assign what you would consider to be disposable funds and stake comfortably within that amount. This way should you have a rough time at the tables, you still have enough cash for other things. If you are looking to place a number of bets, make sure that you space them out, giving you a bigger winning area than if you were to place directly onto 3 numbers next to each other.

The best advice that could be given if you feel that you will get too caught up in the moment is to only have the cash that you are willing to wager on your person, that way should you run out of funds you have to move away from the table, giving you time to think about what to do next.

Approach the game with caution and you will have a good time, regardless of the result but step up to the table with the wanting for fast money and your bound to feel that you have been robbed by the casino.

Play smart and play responsibly.

I can well understand anyone who thinks that the dealer cannot control a roulette ball. After all, their views and opinions are backed up by scientific evidence and the “pro” brigade don’t have any proof.

It is the lack of proof that is so frustrating but no one will ever convince me that dealers cannot spin sections. I have heard the question asked so many times that if dealers could do this then why wouldn’t more of them work in collusion with punters or friends and associates?

Well I have a very simply answer to that, firstly how would anyone ever get to find out that dealers were doing this. The dealers and the accomplices certainly wouldn’t tell. Secondly in my experience only a very small percentage of croupiers ever have the ability. It takes considerable practice to build up this skill.

The staff turnover in casinos due to the conditions of the job and the fact that the working hours are not conducive to a social life means that many leave within a year or two. So most of the croupiers never get to acquire the skill. Even most of the longer term croupiers are simply not bothered by trying to win money.

But getting an edge is all a croupier can do. The house starts off with a 2.7% house edge, so the dealer needs to affect the result enough to offset this first. Even a very skilled dealer cannot guarantee success. So to make a considerable amount of money doing this would involve having a considerable bankroll and the confidence to be able to withstand losses that may have been far bigger than what you have ever experienced.

This is very difficult, but even if you are successful then the casino will not allow you to remain that way and will take countermeasures against you or any other winner.

See you soon

Carl

Several hundred years ago, the Caribbean was the centre for piracy on the high seas when people like Blackbeard was feared all around that area. The word “Caribbean” also applies to the casino version of poker as well where the players get dealt five cards that have to beat those of the dealer.

I explained a little about how this game worked yesterday but there are numerous poker cheating moves that are available on this game in live play. Of course if you read any poker material on cheating then a fair number of the moves would involve the dealer.

In the case of CSP then this does not apply obviously as the dealer is working for the casino and despite the thoughts of some, casinos do not cheat. They have no reason to in the overwhelming number of cases so lets put that particular view to bed right now and move on.

But……one such move that is cheating and that is for players to inform other players of their cards. This would certainly not be allowed in real poker but I have worked in several casinos where the players were allowed to blatantly look at each others cards.

Let us say that a table full of CSP players discussed their hands or had a series of hidden signals to determine certain cards. Each player gets dealt five cards and in those thirty five cards that were dealt to the players, all four kings were out and three of the aces.

The dealer had an ace showing, now not only do the players know that the dealer cannot make a qualifying A-K hand to beat their non-pair hands, they also know that the dealer cannot make a pair of aces. This then means that to qualify then they must make a pair out of their remaining unseen four cards and not five.

This is far more difficult to do so in this instance the players could play whatever hands they had. This is one form of cheating but I will be expanding on other forms in later posts.

See you soon

Carl

Back when I worked in gaming, one of the weakest spots or the most vulnerable when it came to cheating was Casino Stud Poker or to call it by its other name…..Caribbean Stud Poker.

In this game the players are dealt five cards and so is the dealer. You have already placed what is called an “ante”. If you have placed say $5 on the ante box and you look at your hand, you then have to decide if you want to play the hand or not.

If you do then you must place double the ante on the “bet” box behind it and so you would have to place $10 in this example. If you don’t want to play the hand then you must concede the $5 ante and lose it.

The kicker behind this is in the odds that you get paid for the hands that you make. But in a real live casino setting, there are several players sitting within a very close proximity to each other.

This presents the casino with several security issues and the main one is in not letting players have the opportunity to take cards out of play. This is easily checked simply by the dealer checking the number of cards that are remaining.

But there are far weightier problems as well and I have seen players actually place stronger hands on the boxes of players to their left or right who had bet more money. This can be difficult to spot when done quickly and using mis-direction.

Also card marking has been a problem as well in recent years although casinos tend to try to combat this problem by checking the cards every hour. This though presents the problem of them having to wait a full hour before the pit boss or manager can inspect the cards.

In my opinion though, many of the card marking techniques that are in operation today would get by an average pit boss and I will be looking at some of these in further posts.

See you soon

Carl

You recall me talking about “The Salmon”…..if anyone does not understand what I am talking about here then see my previous post. The next instance of me seeing him on roulette occurred a few days later.

I recognised him instantly because of his looks and also because of what he had done on roulette a few days earlier. This time I was watching him like a hawk but I was more concerned in allowing him the opportunity to bet so I could observe him more.

What I didn’t want to do was to blow him away from the table by dealing aggressively and also speeding up the wheel to a ridiculous level. So I kept the wheel at the same speed which was quite slow and before long he was buying in for a £5 stack of colour chips.

He watched my spin for a few minutes and then started to bet. His first few spins missed but each of them was not far away and he was unfortunate enough to have three spins where the ball landed next to his number.

He lost his initial £5 but he then bought some more colour chips and started to spread his bets more. Within thirty minutes he proceeded to win back the money that he had lost and about another £50 on top.

I also noticed that when I left the table for a break……so did he. This got me thinking that there was obviously something about my spin that he liked. I became intensely fascinated by what he was doing and he almost seemed unbeatable. It could just have all been luck so I then decided to track the amount of money that he was winning.

I already knew that he was about £650 ahead over the two sessions that I had seen him. Over the next few months, I managed to watch him an awful lot without him knowing both when he was on my table and also adjoining tables that I could observe clearly.

I kept a running total of bets that I could see. I expanded this by bringing in someone else to help me watch him. We both had a keen interest in controlling a roulette ball and visual prediction. The following three months was alarming, out of a total of 44 sessions, “The Salmon” lost just 7 times and each loss was only in the region of about £20-£50 but when he won he would win anywhere from £50-£150.

These were figures which the casino never bothered to clock but his total over that period was that he was ahead in the region of about £2500……now I was really taking notice.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Experience the thrill and Play Roulette online at bwin

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

Over the years, I have encountered more than my fair share of roulette wheels. From the older high profile wheels to the new John Huxley “Saturn” design with built in bias detection software and electronic readouts.

In my experience, whilst every possible precaution is made by the actual manufacturers themselves to make the wheels unbiased, bias is actually inevitable. Some years ago I was exploring the possibility of bias appearing intermittently and then disappearing again.

I felt that certain atmospheric conditions could contribute towards bias in some instances but I have never been able to properly fathom why this could be the case. Wheels are moved frequently so in the process of moving them then bias can appear.

On several wheels that I have worked on in the past, the diamond shaped canoes have become loose or in some instances the metal pocket dividers that separate the actual numbers have become loose. What happens in these instances is that when the roulette ball makes contact with metal that is loose then the movement of the metal absorbs the energy of the moving roulette ball.

What this means is that the ball is then attracted to a certain area of the wheel and is less likely to be thrown into another area. This type of reaction may seem trivial but when you consider that the house edge at single zero roulette is a mere 1.35% then you can see the effect of a bias and how that can possibly lead to advantages being secured in certain types of situation where you can perhaps ascertain that certain numbers will not arrive on a certain spin.

Think about this for a moment because if you know for instance that given the dynamics of the situation that two numbers will not arrive during this spin then what this means in essence is that you could in theory back all the other 35 numbers where the pay-off is 35-1.

This means that you would return 36 chips and win 1 chip at whatever the chip denomination was. It gets a little more technical than this but this is how you can manufacture an edge at roulette and take advantage of it.

Carl

I must confess that before I started working with bwin, I was unaware as to how big and just how varied their markets really were. Coming to the site is worth it just for the extensive football betting and bwin live betting and streaming service by itself. If all that doesn’t grab your attention then you can get yourself across to their poker room which is one of the best on the net and with some great bonuses to boot.

You can also get access to some great poker material as well on the poker blog section with some great features and news. I think for me personally one of the outstanding features that any gambling site can have is variety and daily content. But there are millions of people who are turning to the online casino experience these days.

In fact I was only having this exact same conversation with a professional colleague of mine the other day. We discussed how land based casinos were starting to veer down the electronic gaming avenue. This is certainly the case in the UK. We have electronic blackjack, electronic roulette and all the rest of the electronic games that are sprouting up like mushrooms.

They are entering dangerous ground in my opinion because what they are starting to offer in a gaming sense is starting to merge with what online casinos offer. So in future, where will the incentive be for punters to leave their own home to gamble on blackjack or roulette etc when everything can all be got from their very own computer? There are always those who fear cyber crime of course by these days sites like bwin employ some of the best experts in the world to thwart these people.

In my mind the threat is no more real than getting mugged outside a casino (which almost happened to me once). I can also say that numerous people have had their cars broken in to whilst being inside a land based casino and I have even heard of big winners being followed home and then robbed at home. Land based casinos are also a haven for thieves and pick pockets so if you think by avoiding online casinos that you are safer then you had better think again.

I really do think that you are safer both physically and financially playing online casino gambling and this is from someone who has done both on numerous occasions.

see you soon

Carl

Many people are put off by the sight of roulette and its apparent complexity. But yet this is far from the truth and to be honest, I find this game to be easier to learn than blackjack. Although it has to be said that if you know how to play Pontoon then you are well on your way to knowing how to play blackjack anyway although in some instances then it can be a handicap.

Everyone knows that you can bet on a number on roulette and that bet pays 35/1. But in most areas where there is a line amongst the numbers or a cross section then you can place a bet there. These bets all pay varying odds and on single zero wheels, there are thirty seven numbers which are 1-36 and zero. The house should pay 36/1 if it was a fair bet but they obviously need an edge to be able to make some money so they only pay 35/1 instead.

Now this edge is very small and is only 1.35%, all those of you who are alert and have already figured out that 100% divided by 37 equals 2.7% have overlooked one tiny thing, the house only takes 50% of even money wagers when zero comes in. The average punter though by bad betting increases this edge quite substantially to a stage where they can easily be conceding around 3% to the house.

This is precisely why very good roulette systems can do so well and why some casinos don’t like them. When you only have a 1.35% edge (assuming single zero wheel) against you and that edge is the number zero for the house (once again assuming that you bet on even chances) then you can go for very long periods of time winning money with roulette systems. The ones that are not doubling up type systems that prohibit reaching the table maximum are perfect and when the online casino in question gives you money to begin with then the dynamic can shift alarmingly.

see you soon

Carl

It is common knowledge that roulette systems fail because of house limits. In fact the great gambling figure of the seventies and eighties John Scarne once remarked how casinos should protect themselves from system players by reducing their maximums and their minimum to maximum ratios.

In theory of course, a casino with no or very high limits and a punter with a massive bankroll could ensure profits. But in reality this simply isn’t the case. The overwhelming majority of system players do not have adequate bankrolls so they stop doubling up before they reach the maximum anyway or they are fearful of losing more money.

The trouble with roulette system players isn’t in the house maximums but in how roulette systems are applied. If you asked any person to describe a roulette betting system then they would undoubtedly talk about the classic doubling system. They may not even know it by name as the “Martingale” but they would be aware of this way of betting.

They could either be unaware of the chances of reaching maximums after a number of losses or they may be thinking along the lines of the house maximums being a deterrent to roulette systems. These are myths and faulty knowledge for the simple reason being that there are many roulette systems that prohibit reaching the table maximum or the chances of it being highly unlikely. They also don’t need a massive bankroll like the Martingale does as many of them are not doubling up systems.

In fact why people persist in the Martingale is beyond me, a sequence of losers with a $5 minimum and a $1000 maximum would go like this….$5, $10, $20, $40, $80, $160, $320, $640. The next bet takes them over the maximum. But a total of $1275 has been lost already, how many players have this sort of money on them and how many would be prepared to take it this far?

What would be the point in risking all this money to win one measly dollar? What would be the point in making yourself incredibly tense and nervous for a dollar in profit? In all my years in gaming I only ever saw one system player reach the maximum who was prepared to bet it on roulette. I saw something similar on blackjack with a player who used basic strategy and a progressive betting system.

But the trouble with roulette systems isn’t the house maximum but the ignorance of the player using the system.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson   www.bwin.com