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Over the years I have seen some major changes come about within Sheffield where there are three land based casinos. These are the G Casino and Napoleons in the town centre and Napoleons at Hillsborough. Years ago when I first started in gaming, the G casino was called Grosvenor and Napoleons at Hillsborough was called Bonapartes.

Each casino has had its turn as being the premier casino in the city. Back in 1990 up to 1996, it was Napoleons in the town centre that was the premier casino in Sheffield. Often the venue for local celebrities, footballers and even snooker players when the World Championships were in town.

Then when Bonapartes moved to a new expensive casino in Hillsborough in 1996, that then became the number one casino in Sheffield. That situation lasted until recently with what is now the new Grosvenor casino or G casino as it is known. This multi-million pound development has made the G casino the premier place to be in Sheffield in terms of casinos in Sheffield.

So each casino has been number one in terms of status within the past 14 years but it is clear that the status of the G casino as the number one casino in Sheffield will be here to stay for quite some considerable time as the city centre Napoleons is restricted with how much more development it can undertake.

It is interesting to see these events take place because it highlights one very important fact of gaming and that is the fantastic competition that there is to capture the biggest slice of the market and that will continue long into the future and as long as there is gaming anywhere in the world.

While casinos are not evil places, they often attract people looking to cheat. This is an unfortunate side effect but fortunately the number of people who cheat are well in the minority. In my experience the vast majority of cheats are nothing more than opportunists that take advantage of something if and when the time arises.

For instance, there is a world of difference between someone who finds a wallet and then keeps the money inside it without handing it in and someone like a pickpocket who actively goes out and steals one.

In one instance one person has the money by default and is still technically stealing while in the other, the individual has actively planned the act. In a similar way, it is like the act of murder and manslaughter. Both involve the taking of a human life but only one was deliberate.

It is the same with cheating inside casinos. I believe that at least 99% of any dishonest activity stems from opportunists. Maybe someone was paid a bet that they shouldn’t have been paid and said nothing but whatever the cause, very few players actively plan cheating moves in my opinion.

But that is taken from the total population of people who inhabit casinos and 1% of that population still accounts for an awful lot of people. The last casino that I worked at had around 22,000 members and 1% of that figure comes to 220.

While only around 5000 of that total were active core regulars, that is still 50 people who actively go out to look to cheat. So that is an awful lot of people and if those 50 people each cheat the casino out of £200 per week then that is an amazing £10,000 a week being lost to cheating.

Someone asked me the other day about entering into a blackjack game in mid-shoe without knowing what the count was and how this affected your edge. Firstly what you have to remember is that if you enter a game in mid-shoe then what we are dealing with here is cards unseen.

So we don’t know if the count is plus or minus and in the absence of such information then we have to take a long term view of this and this means only one thing. The number of pluses that we cannot see will equal the number of minuses and so theoretically we can now treat the count as zero.

This is great for cover plays and especially in casinos with more than one table open. No card counter moves from table to table and bets sizable bets unless they are being signalled in by non counting team members. But let us say that you have a 20/1 bet spread of $5 to $200 and you enter mid-shoe. You could enter at say $20 and then downgrade the bets if your initial count is negative.

But also, going in at $20 allows you to double up and get to $100 very quickly and thus $200. Going from $20 to $40 to $80 to $160 looks like you are merely chasing losses or letting winnings ride. This can be achieved if the count goes immediately positive after entering.

However if the count goes negative then you can merely switch tables and enter mid-shoe again which makes you look less like a counter. So as long as you understand that entering mid-shoe makes no difference because cards unseen means that you can take the count to be zero then you will do fine entering mid-shoe.

There is no doubt that being a Croupier sounds like a very glamorous life and job to many people. The reality is something rather different of course as inner city land based casinos are often populated by many types of people who you would not want to be around.

But yet there is no doubt that becoming a Croupier is something that is not only accessible for the ordinary person but it can also lead to a very exciting life. I have known several people personally who were fully trained up in the UK and got their experience there and then left and went to work on the cruise ships.

This was a life that attracted many people although most of them came back to the UK at some future point in time. Imagine sailing around the Mediterranean or the Caribbean seas and being paid to do so.

The downside to life on cruise ships is that the hours can be long and there is nowhere to go except on deck or to your cabin. So I can understand how the novelty would wear off after a few weeks or months of doing this.

But then again I have also spoken to people who have worked on cruise ships and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. So I suppose that this indicates that they do not suit everyone. If you do not like long hours or life on the sea then cruise ships are not going to be for you. But a certain type of person could find this life very rewarding and exciting.

Following on from yesterdays post and I want to continue my look at the inner workings of casinos and what they really are and peoples perception of them. In this aspect it is similar to poker in so much that there is no real badness inherent in the business.

The only badness if it can interpreted as that is from the people that frequent them and not from the owners themselves. Basically the casino is what it is……..it is a place of business where business people make money by providing entertainment for others. It is certain members of the public who have misconceptions regarding casinos that some people  see them in a totally different light.

This is why some people see them as cheats or as places where criminals and other various types of low life hang out. There is an element of truth to this but this just reflects life in general. The types of people that you may see in casinos will be the same types of people that you see in other areas so it is rather unfair to throw that label at casinos by inferring that they are only ever inhabited by crooks and low life.

Casinos are still one of the few places where a single woman would in all likelihood not be molested in any way shape or form. You really couldn’t say that about many of the bars and nightclubs in most major towns and cities. So casinos are forms of entertainment first and foremost and how much you want to pay for that entertainment is basically up to the individual.

Having worked in the casino industry on the inside as a Croupier, Inspector and trainee Pit Boss then I was in that industry for quite some considerable time. So it annoys me sometimes when certain ignorant people have some rather extreme views of the gaming and the gambling industry.

A few years ago a proposed “Super Casino” was planned for the town where I live. It actually made me laugh at the time how so many people were getting hot under the collar about this proposed event. They cited increases in problem gambling and prostitution amongst others. I saw documents from local residents which showed clear misunderstanding about what casinos actually were and their role in the community.

I also find something inherently wrong in being preached to by people many of whom have never even set foot inside a casino in their entire lives. Casinos first and foremost are places of entertainment and they do provide many thousands of jobs nationwide. This also knocks on into other areas as well and casinos plough an awful lot of money back into the economy.

But drugs and a dependency on drugs drives a large part of the prostitution industry and young people who become dependent on drugs need income in which to buy them above and beyond what they could earn in a normal day to day job.

Young boys turn to burglary and other types of theft while the girls turn to shop lifting and prostitution but the driving force behind prostitution is the drugs industry and not casinos or any proposed “Super Casino”.

Take it from me when I say that gambling books will not necessarily make you a winner. This applies whether we are talking about blackjack, poker or gambling in general. I will leave other forms of gambling out of the equation where it is not possible to create an edge like roulette for instance.

In my opinion, books are a constant in what is an ever changing environment in so much as what is written in them has the tendency to date. Also what you have to remember is that the information that is in them also has to be deciphered and understood correctly by the individual.

I have created a name for this and it is the “understanding gap”. What this means is the difference between what is being written and what is being interpreted. This isn’t always clear cut as well as often the reader can deliberately interpret data in a way which is favourable to them. Adding and subtracting data is a common theme amongst book readers and so the reader rarely reads what is intended.

In blackjack of course then this problem isn’t as severe due to the somewhat mechanical nature of the game. But even here then care has to be taken. Merely having blackjack knowledge connected to card counting does you little good if you get caught and are then prevented from playing. So what I say on this subject is that by all means read books as this is a very important part of your education.

But you have to read them objectively and almost begin the process of disputing what you read even though you could and often will be incorrectly disputing issues with the author. Then and only then will your thinking start to evolve.

If you go into any casino or play any form of gambling then a progressive betting system can work very well in the short term. As long as you do not use systems like the Martingale for instance which double up after every loss. The bankroll requirements are very severe and especially on casino games where the table minimum is well below the table maximum in terms of the number of potential double ups that you can make to get your money back.

But systems like the Reverse Labouchere for instance can use progression in an entirely different way. However it needs to be pointed out that in no way can a progression system turn you from a long term loser into a long term winner although on blackjack then it has the potential to do so if you are using good solid basic and card counting methods.

But even here, it is the card counting strategy that is providing the profit and not the progression system. In this environment then the progression system can serve a very good strategic purpose as it can allow the player to look like an everyday player when betting in this way. So even though the progression systems cannot and will not provide long term profits in their own right, everything has its place at some stage.

Even though we never used progression systems when we played blackjack, the strategic use of them as cover cannot be under estimated. But if you were to go into any casino for a day or an evening and use a progression system then your chances of success and walking out in front would be very good indeed as that isn’t an amount of time that is long enough for the house edge to take effect.

I had another casino trip last night and after I had watched the Spain vs Paraguay game in the bar, decided to play a little blackjack. I had been counting for a while but my maximum bets were only very small and about £30 or so. Everything had been going very well on the table even though I was down about £100. I had been having friendly banter with the staff and everyone had been talking about football and England being so bad.

Then the dealer went to pull a card to her own hand when she already had seventeen. She quickly placed the card under the shoe to be the next card out and I had seen that the next card was an ace. So I quickly asked for £200 to be placed on first box and the dealer went to place the chips when the Inspector stopped her.

When I asked why, he said that it was because I had seen the ace. I then said to him that this was academic because it was their mistake and not mine and that there was no law saying that I couldn’t bet the maximum on any box I chose. Suddenly the mood on the table shifted but the Inspector was adamant that if I placed this bet that the box would receive no cards.

So my next line was to say that I hadn’t seen the ace to which he then replied that I wouldn’t have jumped from £30 to £200 if I didn’t know that the next card was ace…….fair point and difficult to argue and the only thing that I could think of at the time was to say that it was going to be my last hand anyway and that I was having one big blow out. This was semi-believable seeing as I had over £200 in £5 chips on the table. The Inspector thought for a second or two and then allowed the bet to stand…… I did get my ace but only a total of 19…….the dealer had a nine which made…….you guessed it…….19!

I am going to be starting a new section shortly which will go into my experiences with my first blackjack team. But a few people have asked me down the years how I first got into blackjack. Well it sort of happened in stages and not all at once. I guess that the first stage was based on me working as a croupier and then as an Inspector for nearly nine years.

This gave me the interest in the game from the very outset. The second step came by chance when I accidentally picked up a book inside a library and that book was “Beat The Dealer” by Ed Thorp. It also helped me to identify and then befriend a card counter who was active inside the casino where I worked and we are still good friends to this very day.

But even then my interest would have remained at nothing more than merely theoretical had it not been for me leaving gaming in July 1998 and then accidentally meeting what would be my financial backer down in Bournemouth when I was on a financial consultant induction course. So my entire operation was basically based on fluke events and pure chance.

I think that this is how many people start out to be honest and this was also how I started out playing online poker. This was something that happened simply because the blackjack operation had reached its shelf life. But starting soon, I will be telling my own story which I will call “The Dean’s Blackjack Story“.

I really do think that it is a very interesting story in so much as that it highlights just how something can be achieved out of nothing with little more than knowledge and determination. So look out for that coming soon.