bwin – the world's biggest online gaming platform

Yesterday I looked at gambling theory in general and how important that is with regards trying to make money from casino games. Now obviously you are not supposed to be able to make money long term from casino games but that is not the objective for most people. Casino action gives people the opportunity to experience the thrill of casino game play while presenting the opportunity for short term success.

If you go into the venture with that in mind then you will be fine. Try to forget everything else that I have talked about on this blog because that stems from me having an awful lot of experience and inside knowledge that you simply will not have.

As an ex gaming employee then it is far easier for me to get away with certain things although even then, the average croupier is far more knowledgeable these days and the average casino manager is certainly so since I left gaming for good back in 1998. Theory is very powerful if you want to reduce the house edge to a very tiny percentage on all casino games and especially blackjack and roulette. Knowing basic strategy will not get you an edge at blackjack but it would almost certainly almost eliminate the house edge…….almost!

With sign up bonuses and loyalty bonuses that online casinos offer then you could find yourself almost breaking even or even better. Theory must be approached with caution because knowledge as they say is power but knowledge in the wrong hands or misinterpreted in the wrong way and used wrongly can be very damaging.

Give a reckless maniac the knowledge of how to drive a car and he could kill himself and others so knowledge isn’t always good. The bottom line is though that theory is important but it simply isn’t the be all and end all and success cannot be automatic as a result of knowing something…….it depends on what that something actually is.

Just how good is theory from books when it comes to winning money from casinos? Well I wouldn’t go as far as to call it useless because in any field you need a good and proper grounding in theory. Usually the process entails learning what not to do rather than learning what to do.

If you learn conventional theory then basically what you are becoming aware of is information that is widely available to everyone. The blackjack knowledge that I had back in 1994 for instance was very rare in the UK. This was why card counting was still very profitable despite it seemingly being labelled as old hat by many people.

But often you have to think outside the box so to speak and this means that much of the conventional theory is wrong. Well actually it isn’t so much that it is wrong but it is more to do with too many people knowing it. It is a bit like the theory behind how to win at the game of Tic-Tac-Toe or noughts and crosses as it is also known. If you know the theory behind how to win then you will win many games against players who do not know the system.

But once other players in large quantities know the same theory then there is no edge any longer but yet that still does not make the theory poor. In this instance the theory of how to win at noughts and crosses isn’t poor but merely ineffective. This is the situation with regards gambling and casino theory books. The theory isn’t bad, it is largely ineffective. So you then have to look for effective theory and knowing what your opponents know is a great step forward.

Come and play casino games at bwin.

I had my first real casino trip in ages last night and it felt strangely good to be playing real casino blackjack again. Even though the game was a six deck game and the penetration was marginal, the excitement level was pretty high even though the game wasn’t serious. The only way that blackjack can ever be serious for me is if I were playing full-time again and seeing as that is basically impossible now then these little entertainment trips are all that they ever will be.

I did try to card count but I didn’t really see the point of it all. I only had around £500 on me so even if the deck went highly positive, I couldn’t really take much advantage as the money that I had on me was basically my bankroll.

Fluctuation is very high in blackjack so anything could have basically happened during the course of one session. So instead I was looking for dealer errors as usual and I managed to find myself on first base hoping to get a dealer who exposes cards. However after nearly three hours of having no luck whatsoever I decided to call it a night. The fact that I was £50 ahead was nothing but luck although I did offer some friendly advice for a guy who was playing table maximums who seemed to think that I was an expert on the game and keep asking my advice on what to do.

I hate giving advice on other peoples money but it seemed that everything that I told him to do came off. Once again pure luck but he won about £800 based on what I had told him to do. When he got up to leave the table, he tossed me a £25 chip which I tried to refuse but he was having non of it.

Maybe I ought to go into consulting work inside casinos and advise some big punters and make money that way without the risk

It never ceases to amaze me just how many cheating teams there are out there trying to take money either from casinos or from the actual punters who frequent casinos. I recall one interview that I did some years ago with a professional pick pocket who told me that crowded places were the best places to take wallets and purses and this made casinos a prime target.

When I asked him why, he then told me that it was because bodily contact was normal in such crowded places where many people were in such close proximity. This definitely applies around roulette at night on busy games where quite often there can be as many as ten people around one roulette table.

Pickpockets know that people who frequent casinos usually have money. Even if they are not a big hitter then they will at least be having a night out and be carrying around at least £100 on average. I actually had this skill demonstrated to me once and my wallet was lifted from my back pocket without me even feeling it. Apparently slim people make easier targets because of the cavity between the fabric of the cloth and the persons actual body.

This means that a slim person is less likely to detect any movement. It was only after I had my wallet taken and then handed back to me that I then realised just how good these people are. But then again these are practiced skills that are akin to the skills honed by magicians and card mechanics but the only difference is that their sleight of hand comes with cards and not wallets, purses and cash.

Its a scary business so watch out.

It was revealed a short while ago that gaming agents in the USA are investigating a claim from a known high roller that he was deliberately kept in a state of intoxication just so that he would continue gambling money.

The casino chain in question is Harrahs and this is a real shock seeing as this is one of the biggest casino companies in the USA. The gaming control board are interviewing witnesses who reportedly can back up the claim that Terence Watanabe was deliberately supplied with alcohol at Caesars Palace and the Rio.

It has been mentioned that Watanabe lost an estimated $112 million on the tables in 2007 alone. But the mystery of the case deepens when it also comes to light that Watanabe owes numerous millions in unpaid markers. But the rules of the Nevada gaming regulations state that any player who is in a visibly intoxicated state must not be permitted to continue.

So if these allegations are proven then allowing him to continue would not only be a violation of gaming regulations but by deliberately feeding a player alcohol is also more than likely breaking numerous laws. But some people are claiming that this claim by Watanabe is nothing more than a ploy to divert attention away from his own criminal practices.

All will be revealed in the coming weeks I am sure but that promises to be a very long and drawn out case indeed and one that is highly complex in nature once the full details are understood.

Yesterday was not a good day, it started badly…..continued poorly and got downright horrible towards the end. My three horses that I backed on the Grand National all fell within a few fences of the start (my worst ever National).

I also backed Hull to beat Burnley and they got beat 4-1……AT HOME! Then last night we had a casino trip and I was playing blackjack for about three hours inbetween watching the golf in the bar. I only intended to play for an hour but I committed the ultimate sin…….I played on to get my money back.

I didn’t play badly, blackjack isn’t like poker where a player can tilt. With blackjack then you simply do what needs to be done and the increased bets are necessary. You always know of course that the edge with a game like blackjack is so wafer thin that a loss on any one particular night is a strong likelihood.

I ended up losing about £300 which was six of my maximum bets. On top of that I had the misfortune to have not only an annoying dealer on my table who I felt like telling to shut up but also a really annoying punter. Both of them had backed the winner of the National (what a surprise) and both of them couldn’t believe that I hadn’t.

Sometimes I really hate the people who frequent live casinos and this has certainly not changed since the days when I used to work in them as a croupier and Inspector. Is it any wonder why I spend so much time on my computer. No annoying dealers, no tobacco smoke and no travelling……absolute bliss!

With certain bets on roulette, players can unwittingly increase the house edge against them in that particular situation. One may be forgiven for thinking that the house edge is fixed at roulette but it isn’t and can drift depending on the type of bet that a player places.

I will show a classic example here, one player places a bet of $10 on first and second dozens. This bet wins 2-1 on each winning section and seeing as they can be only one winning bet while the other bet loses, if a number comes first or second dozen then the player wins $10. The winning dozen wins $20 while the losing dozen loses $10 so the net result is a win of $10.

The house edge for this bet is 2.70% but the bet could have been placed better. By splitting the total $20 and placing $15 on the low numbers and the remaining five dollars on the 19-24 six line then he has still covered all of the numbers from 1-24 in the same way that he would have by betting first and second dozen.

If a number from 1-18 comes then the even money low number bet gets paid even money but the bet from 19-24 loses so the bet makes no money but it doesn’t lose any either. This makes the bet seem inferior on the surface but the 19-24 pay-off gets paid 5-1 and this winning bet wins five units minus the one unit loss on 1-18.

The long term pay-off is exactly the same but the difference comes when zero arrives. With the old bet everything is lost but with the new bet then the player gets returned 50% of his bet on low numbers which in this case is $7.50. So every time zero comes the player saves $7.50…….the effect of this reduces the house edge from 2.70% assuming a single zero wheel to only 1.35%.

Why not come and play roulette at bwin casino ?

After watching the Fulham vs Tottenham game last night we headed to a casino for the first time in ages. In fact regular readers of the blog since it started will have read some of my earlier posts regarding these trips. The journey took about an hour so we arrived at about 9pm.

Casinos tend to be quiet at around this time so it is a good time to go. You don’t have to wait at the bar or wait for coffee for ages either. As usual we took a friend for my partner as I hate playing and leaving her. She merely likes to watch and has no interest in gaming.

The blackjack game was a six deck shoe game (not my favourite) but I decided to play anyway. Sometimes when you manage to get an inexperienced dealer then they can often make mistakes. Although in England the mistakes are often picked up by the Inspector anyway.

However I don’t have any good news to report as every dealer that I encountered seemed competent to me. I merely played table minimums for about an hour and then became bored after losing about £10.

I hate the new electronic games inside casinos these days as they leave no room for creativity with regards to gaining an edge….at least not for people like me anyway who is old school. It felt good to be back inside a casino again, maybe I just need to find some now that have decent blackjack action.

Why not come and bet in the bwin casino with some great casino?

I have said this many times and I will keep on saying it, card counting is not only a very serious business but it is also very difficult to pull off. Certain people with certain personality types are definitely not suited to playing full-time blackjack or even part time blackjack for that matter.

The thing is that it does create somewhat of a nervous situation when you are ramping your bets. When you do this for the first time, you always get the feeling that everyone in the entire building knows what it is that you are doing.

This first time nervousness and paranoia should go away but with many people it doesn’t. The fact of the matter is that anyone who goes and does the bare minimum as a blackjack player will get caught. Or at the very least will have severe counter measures taken against them.

This usually involves the dealer dealing short shoes which decreases the number of hands dealt per shoe but it also decreases the number of profitable situations for the counter as well. The best and most profitable situations tend to arise at the end of the shoe so when the shoe is cut very shallow then the really profitable situations rarely arise and the game tends to be nothing more than a process for recycling money.

This is what many novice card counters do not understand, they learn the running count but do not do true count conversions. If the first ten cards out of a four deck shoe are low cards then the running count is +10. But this figure of +10 does not represent the same ratio of high cards to low cards as it would if the count was +10 with only one deck remaining.

If we use the high-low count to show what I mean, there are 208 cards in a four deck shoe. These are broken down into 80 low cards, 80 high cards and 48 middling cards that have a count of zero. So ignoring the middling cards we can see that there are now 80 high cards and aces and 70 low cards remaining for a ratio of one high card or ace to every low card at a rate of 1.14.

But with only one deck remaining if we took a standard distribution of 20 low cards, 20 high cards and 12 middling cards, taking away ten low cards gives us a ratio of high cards and aces to low cards which is 2.00 and not the 1.14 like before.

See what I mean now

There are many benefits to playing at an online casino. You don’t need to worry about getting all dressed up, you can indulge in any of your favorite personal habits that may be otherwise precluded by a visit to a land-based casino (smoking is one such obvious example), you don’t need to worry about any physical quirks of facial expressions giving away the fact that you are holding a bad hand or that you are beginning to feel tense or stressed, you can quit playing at any time, as well as being free to come and go, and take breaks as you wish. One huge advantage is that you don’t need to travel any distance at all when you feel the urge to play your favorite casino games – you can simply turn on your computer, go to your favorite online casino web site and away you go! Online casinos do have their own particular character, though, and there are certain things that patrons should become aware of when looking at web-based casinos.

First, and probably most obvious, you are not physically there, so it is hard to assess just what is real and what isn’t. How do you know, for example, if you are playing at a real, genuine online casino, or if you have merely arrived at a flashy, up-front web page with no substance behind it that will simply relieve you of your money, credit card details and, possibly, even your identity? Online patrons should realize that there are codes of practice and industry standards that the very best online casinos sign up to, and they are graded regularly on whether or not they continue to meet the strict criteria. Look for the logos on the website, and be very wary about any casinos not displaying membership. Beware also that some previously disreputable online casinos, having been made to cease trading under one name simply shut down and start up under a new moniker. This tends to be common practice among the worst offenders, which is why adherence to the codes of practice is important for gamers.

Gamers also need to remember that although online casinos may seem much more laid back and relaxed than their land-based equivalents, they are still playing casino games for money, and can still lose large amounts of money by doing so. In addition, deciding to relax by drinking more because you are in your home environment can backfire if you become so loose that your judgement becomes impaired.

New online gamers will also find the independently audited reports published and made available for their patron, which detail the payout levels of the casino. The published payout figure will give you a good idea of the percentage an online casino pays out and gives a good indication of how fairly the casino runs its games. Remember though that the figure is an average payout and some win much more (by bagging a jackpot), whilst some may lose far more.