Banking Blackjack against the house
***DISCLAIMER: It's quite late where I am, I'm rather tired, and I ended up modifying this below to update some numbers from what I originally sent the OP.
Hey,
So I have been on a hiatus from this site for the past month or so, which is why I missed your message. I used to be on here daily but alas... I looked at your thread and I think charlie nailed the idea pretty spot on; he's a good numbers guy as well. I don't think this is a profitable play, or a play that you could do with any kind of seriousness or long term goals. Apologies to say, but here's why:
1) Basically you're fighting a 5% HE... the game itself is ~2% HE to the house, which means you have about -3% working against you.
2) In order to counteract a 3% HE you'd need a TC of about -5.5... this is not going to happen very often... hands with TC of 5.5 or greater comes in at about 4.5 per hour (given 100 hands per hour dealing speed). This means you're only going to have a BREAK EVEN or better edge for about 4.5 hands out of every 100 hands. This produces a lot of problems.
3) If no one else is at the table, the game stops. You must then play negative expiation hands (by making the corporation play for some SMALL minimum bet of money) for ~95.5 hands out of 100 hands in order to get to your good counts. Even if you make them bet $10 per hand for these 95.5 hands, that's still $955 in action per hour that you will have to pay 5% on ($47.75) and then you have the small positive expectation (2%) from banking the game itself. TC -4 to TC +4 takes about 91.1 hands per hour, so this is the range you'll likely be in 90%+ of the time. Averaging this out to the TC 0 and HE 2%, you're playing 95.5 hands per hour ($10 min bet) with a 2% advantage. This comes in at +$19.10 per hour as well.
Thus from your fee, and playing these bad positions, you're looking to lose $28.65 per hour just while waiting for your good 4.5 hands of the shoe. Now here comes the next few problems.
4) Of these 4.5 hands let's say on average (rounding up) you're at about a TC 7, 3.5% edge on top of the 2% normal game, but only a .5% edge over your game. You have a HALF OF A PERCENT advantage on these 4.5 hands, on average. Even if you made the house bet $1000 on these 4.5 hands that would be $4500 in action, at .5%, would be a positive expectation of $22.5... thus you're still playing a LOSING game per hour... of about -$6.15... and don't forget to enjoy the variance of betting $1000 per hand.
5) You'd need a decent bankroll to handle the swings of these $1,000 bets. I hope you have $50k laying around for this, all to lose ~$6/hour. The only way you could make money is if you bet $10,000 per hand on those hands, and again, then you'd need something insane like a $500k bankroll, and even then you'd still only be making $200/hour. I know that sounds great, but if you have a $500k bankroll for gambling, good lord you can make a lot more than $200 per hour with it.
And I haven't even gotten to the real fun part about all of this, which has NOTHING TO DO with the math.
6) The casino will not allow this long term. This would last probably for an hour or two... maybe like 5-6 shoes. The moment you have the banker go from $10 to $10,000 there's going to be a call upstairs. They're going to review a few shoes (again, hour or two of play) and determine what you're doing. They will then kick you out and/or ban you. Not a prayer on this green earth that you would be able to pull this off for more than 1 day... Thus you need to get a $500k bankroll all to make about $4,000, if you do all of the above appropriately.
Sorry to tell you, I don't believe this is a very good play with the information at hand. If you had rebates, free play, other promotions, or if some other details could be changed a bit then yes you might have something... but you would still need a large bankroll to do any of it, assuming you got details changed (which they won't). I don't like to be the bearer of bad news, but I'd advise against this game.
*Disclaimer: I'm confident my numbers are "rather" accurate (in the ball park of a few $ either way), but to get something exact you'd have to SIM it.
Romes
Quote: ThekidIf you are banking you pay the corporation 5% of what you have them bet. Plus you pay the dealer the $1.
If you play then the corporation pays the dealer the $1 or however much depending on the amount bet.
For BJ pays 6/5 , 8 deck***:
If you are banking and made the corporation bet $100 you would need a true count of about -13 (or worse)
If you are playing then you would need the true count to be +6 (or better).
***: what are the complete rules (including doubles and splits, and penetration)
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Update: After reading the previous post, I used a 2nd calculator to see if I could get closer to his figures , and it says you would need worse than -9 to bank, and better than +6 to play.
The post above seems to explain it a lot better than mine, I am no sure why we get different true counts for the "banking side", maybe you should sim it, like they suggested.
TLDR.Quote: RomesMight as well reply here for all to see as well... I also sent this to the OP:
***DISCLAIMER: It's quite late where I am, I'm rather tired, and I ended up modifying this below to update some numbers from what I originally sent the OP.
Hey,
So I have been on a hiatus from this site for the past month or so, which is why I missed your message. I used to be on here daily but alas... I looked at your thread and I think charlie nailed the idea pretty spot on; he's a good numbers guy as well. I don't think this is a profitable play, or a play that you could do with any kind of seriousness or long term goals. Apologies to say, but here's why:
1) Basically you're fighting a 5% HE... the game itself is ~2% HE to the house, which means you have about -3% working against you.
2) In order to counteract a 3% HE you'd need a TC of about -5.5... this is not going to happen very often... hands with TC of 5.5 or greater comes in at about 4.5 per hour (given 100 hands per hour dealing speed). This means you're only going to have a BREAK EVEN or better edge for about 4.5 hands out of every 100 hands. This produces a lot of problems.
3) If no one else is at the table, the game stops. You must then play negative expiation hands (by making the corporation play for some SMALL minimum bet of money) for ~95.5 hands out of 100 hands in order to get to your good counts. Even if you make them bet $10 per hand for these 95.5 hands, that's still $955 in action per hour that you will have to pay 5% on ($47.75) and then you have the small positive expectation (2%) from banking the game itself. TC -4 to TC +4 takes about 91.1 hands per hour, so this is the range you'll likely be in 90%+ of the time. Averaging this out to the TC 0 and HE 2%, you're playing 95.5 hands per hour ($10 min bet) with a 2% advantage. This comes in at +$19.10 per hour as well.
Thus from your fee, and playing these bad positions, you're looking to lose $28.65 per hour just while waiting for your good 4.5 hands of the shoe. Now here comes the next few problems.
4) Of these 4.5 hands let's say on average (rounding up) you're at about a TC 7, 3.5% edge on top of the 2% normal game, but only a .5% edge over your game. You have a HALF OF A PERCENT advantage on these 4.5 hands, on average. Even if you made the house bet $1000 on these 4.5 hands that would be $4500 in action, at .5%, would be a positive expectation of $22.5... thus you're still playing a LOSING game per hour... of about -$6.15... and don't forget to enjoy the variance of betting $1000 per hand.
5) You'd need a decent bankroll to handle the swings of these $1,000 bets. I hope you have $50k laying around for this, all to lose ~$6/hour. The only way you could make money is if you bet $10,000 per hand on those hands, and again, then you'd need something insane like a $500k bankroll, and even then you'd still only be making $200/hour. I know that sounds great, but if you have a $500k bankroll for gambling, good lord you can make a lot more than $200 per hour with it.
And I haven't even gotten to the real fun part about all of this, which has NOTHING TO DO with the math.
6) The casino will not allow this long term. This would last probably for an hour or two... maybe like 5-6 shoes. The moment you have the banker go from $10 to $10,000 there's going to be a call upstairs. They're going to review a few shoes (again, hour or two of play) and determine what you're doing. They will then kick you out and/or ban you. Not a prayer on this green earth that you would be able to pull this off for more than 1 day... Thus you need to get a $500k bankroll all to make about $4,000, if you do all of the above appropriately.
Sorry to tell you, I don't believe this is a very good play with the information at hand. If you had rebates, free play, other promotions, or if some other details could be changed a bit then yes you might have something... but you would still need a large bankroll to do any of it, assuming you got details changed (which they won't). I don't like to be the bearer of bad news, but I'd advise against this game.
*Disclaimer: I'm confident my numbers are "rather" accurate (in the ball park of a few $ either way), but to get something exact you'd have to SIM it.
Romes
Gonna TLDR me when I said "could make about $200/hour"??? Figured you'd be on that like suits at the el cortez to a $25 bet.Quote: AxelWolfTLDR.
$200 an hr, pfft...big deal, we have guys on here making triple that while riding the bus and getting a free high on bus fumes, not to mention passing up chunks of free play for anything over 50%.Quote: RomesGonna TLDR me when I said "could make about $200/hour"??? Figured you'd be on that like suits at the el cortez to a $25 bet.
Wize up!
Quote: AxelWolf$200 an hr, pfft...big deal, we have guys on here making triple that while riding the bus and getting a free high on bus fumes, not to mention passing up chunks of free play for anything over 50%.
Wize up!
Lol, triple?
Understatement of the year
Thought you wouldn't want to talk about those better opportunities ;-)... Loose lips sink ships, Axel.Quote: AxelWolf$200 an hr, pfft...big deal, we have guys on here making triple that while riding the bus and getting a free high on bus fumes, not to mention passing up chunks of free play for anything over 50%.
Wize up!
