statewide cost of ignoring basic strategy

In 2009, the total amount wagered on blackjack tables in Nevada was $8.917 billion. The casinos won $1.008 billion. How much of that is attributable to players deviating from basic strategy?

Beats me. What would you do? Look at one table and try to extrapolate? You would have to eliminate those who did not know Basic Strategy or atleast made no attempt to play it and therefore can not be said to have deviated from it. Difficult problem, but it sure is certain that statewide casinos are not getting rich on a 0.64 percent game. Some players are generously turning a 0.64 percent game into a much higher House Advantage game. And the casinos are probably assisting them to do it by plying them with booze. Also assisting the House was the drunk woman who tried to give me BlackJack advice and so screwed up my concentration that I was probably playing against a House Advantage of ten percent!!

The total amount wagered is NOT 8.917 billion. There is no way to track how much was wagered. That is the total amount of money that was cashed in at the table. Since you give and take from the chip tray through wins and losses, the amount won of 1.1 billion cannot be used to extrapolate a house advantage. The only data that you can get from this is that the casino kept about 12% of the total money it took in for the game.

Quote: reno

In 2009, the total amount wagered on blackjack tables in Nevada was $8.917 billion. The casinos won $1.008 billion. How much of that is attributable to players deviating from basic strategy?

From the Nevada Gaming Control Board 2009 revenue report, we see the win for "21" was indeed $1,008,525,000. That probably includes blackjack variants. From my February 20, 2010 Ask the Wizard column, we see the cost of mistakes in blackjack is about 0.83%, according to gaming consultant Bill Zender.

The missing piece is what would be the house edge without the errors? I admit this is kind of crude, but the average of the house edge column in the April 2010 blackjack survey is 0.78%. So, the total house edge in blackjack, including errors is 0.78% + 0.83% = 1.61%. The portion of that due to errors is 0.83%/1.61% = 51.55%. So the 2009 profit from blackjack errors in Nevada could be roughly estimated as 1,008,525,000 * 0.5155 = $519 million.

The $1,008,525,000 in CY2009 was a 11.31% win percent. In Nevada blackjack peaked at $1,459,352,000 and a win percent of 12.75% for the 12 month up to and including Oct 2007.

Using the Wizard's estimate, it does look like the take from players deviating from basic strategy is now down about $1/4 billion from 26 months ago. I suppose some of that difference may be from tightening up the rules.

People are leaving the game by the millions (just as they are not playing slots).

I think I should take a moment to explain the difference between house edge and hold. The house edge is the ratio of the amount the player can expect to lose to the original bet. The hold is the ratio of the amount players lose to how much chips they purchase. The hold is much higher because the players will sit there and circulate through the same chips, while the house edge grinds them down. For example, if a player buys in for $100 in roulette, and bets red every time, and cashes out for $75, then the house edge was 5.26%, but the hold was 25%. The win percentage in the Gaming report is on the hold, and thus doesn't do us any good in answering the question at hand.