Why Casinos Like Systems

Many people have worked out systems for beating the casino. Some of these systems do seem to work in the short run, but in the long run will cost you. There is only one sure way to beat the casino. The best part about this system is that it is extremely simple and does not require much of a bank roll. In fact it doesn’t require any money at all.

What you do is walk around the slot machine areas of the casino. Today casinos have largely shifted to slot machines as they cost less to maintain and produce guaranteed money for the casino. Most of these machines use coins. When you cash out the coins drop into a tray. Occasionally, some coins end up along the outer edge where people do not see them when they are scooping up their winnings. Pick up these coins and you have now profited from the casino. While you are at it, look at the credits remaining. Some people will actually leave a machine with credits remaining. Why? Some people really like losing money so always play the maximum number of coins. When the credits is lower than the max bet, they simply leave. This is a bit more common on nickel machines that require depositing a quarter. As it is a hassle to get the attendant over for a nickle or a dime, they just leave the credit. While looking at the machines, you should also keep an eye on the floor for dropped coins and if there are payphones (a rarity these days) check those out too.

Blackjack players also have a way of beating the casino. Card counting is a way of playing blackjack that tracks the ratio of high cards to low cards that have come out of the shoe in order to determine how likely it is that the player will beat the house. When the odds are in the players favour, card counters start playing, or bet more. While card counting is NOT ILLEGAL, casinos do have the right to throw anyone they want out of their establishment, and they do not like card counters. As card counting is based on long term odds, being banned from the casino destroys the profitability of this system. Not to mention the fact that it really hard work to learn how to do it. More to the point, casinos are starting to switch to continual shuffling shoes. These are shuffling machines that continually shuffle the cards. This is roughly the equivalent to starting each hand with a new shoe.

I once heard an idiot say “There are no gambling systems and whoever says they have one is lying.” Why is this person an idiot? A system is a procedure or set of rules. Whether they work or not is totally unrelated to whether they exist. Besides, I just outlined a guaranteed system above. Granted, the above system isn’t going to make you rich (unless you happen to stumble across a million dollar chip that a whale dropped, and that is less likely then winning the lottery) but at least you will leave the casino with the same and possibly more than you entered the casino with. While I have heard about a lot of systems, they tend to boil down into three main types of systems: Chasing the money, raising the win, and finding the flaw.

Chasing the money is the term I have repeatedly heard used for any system where you raise your bet when you lose. A lot of people try these types of systems because they appear to work. The basic concept is that you make the minimum bet. If you lose, you double your bet. You keep doubling your bet until you win. This is based on the Martingale theory, which is that all streaks will come to an end. After all, if you flip a coin often enough it will eventually come up heads. While the theory is sound, the casinos have a built in safe guard against such systems called betting limits. The limits are designed to be large enough to allow for a nice range of bets but small enough so that after 4 to 5 losses (at least in BC, other casinos may be looser or tighter) the player will hit the limit. Variations of the Martingale system that use some type of sliding bet based on the Fibonacci series seem to solve this problem but in reality just increase the length of the necessary losing streak. As such systems require multiple wins to offset multiple losses, the gain in the length of losing streak needed before hitting the table limit is lost by the need to win multiple times. If the game was 50/50 then such systems would be more effective, but the casino always has a slight statistical advantage.

Raising the win is the opposite of chasing the money. Players hope that they are on a winning streak and raise their bet as they win. If you actually do hit winning streaks, then you will win lots of money. The problem is, the winnings are being returned to the casino, making your overall profits smaller unless you hit a long winning streak. The losses, however, will not be increased and if you are lucky then the payout can be really good. If you don’t gamble very much (and you really shouldn’t), then this is the ideal way to play as if you are going to hit a winning streak you will win big, and that is after all what you are hoping to do.

The final system, which I call finding the flaw, revolves around fining a flaw. This type of system is often used with games such as roulette, though craps is another common recipient of such a system. The theory is based on the fact that these games revolve around physical objects that can have minor flaws in them. Bets are made based on the history of the game in an attempt to take advantage of these flaws. In reality, the machines are heavily maintained and checked by the casino staff, so such flaws are unlikely. What is not unlikely is the appearance of clusters within the history. Casino games are truly random so there will be spans of results that are clustered, and spans that are evenly spread apart. On any given day either situation will occur and can change at any time.