
How 'Advantage Players' Game the Casinos - troydavis
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/magazine/how-advantage-players-game-the-casinos.html
======
llamataboot
I used advantage gambling to help put myself through grad school during the
first online casino boom. There were so many casinos vying for players, that
many offered a bonus -- say $500 extra to play with if you deposit $500. Of
course that $500 had a playthrough requirement -- you may have to wager a
total of 20x that to withdraw -- so $10,000. Now you simply find a casino that
has a game with odds that beat the playthough. So, for example, if a game has
a 1% house edge, you're expected to lose about $100 wagering that $10000,
leaving you a theoretical $400 in profit.

Eventually, the casinos wised up and changed it so the wagering had to be done
on slots, which have terrible odds. However, we figured out early on (I was in
an advantage gambler forum) that there were "double or nothing" games in the
slot machine, that let you go double-or-nothing between 5 and 10 times. These
counted towards wagering, and were essentially perfect 50/50 odds (no house
edge) - so by always going double or nothing until the end, you could rack up
most of your wagers at 50/50 even though the initial slot roll was at a much
higher house edge.

I think I started with $100 deposit into a casino and probably made > $50k in
the two years after that. About $40k of that went to bills and $10k became my
initial poker bankroll while I taught myself to play poker professionally,
which I did for the rest of grad school after the casino bonus gambling winded
down (they eventually wised up to the slot machine thing too) -- and if you
player poker at a high enough level and you use judicious table selection, you
can always advantage gamble (because you are gambling with each other, not the
house, though the house gets their cut with the rake -- so you have to win at
a high enough level that you know you are beating the rake)

I was a "small time" person, just doing it on the side to earn spending money
-- there were certainly other people who had many many computers, VPNs, shill
addresses, etc who took those casinos for hundreds of thousands a year for
those couple years.

I learned a lot about probability theory, estimated value, and the mathematics
of gambling in general, gained the emotional strength to deal with high
variance (the best description of playing poker professionally that I ever
heard was that it was like playing a game of chess for $1, then flipping a
coin for $100. In the long run that chess game is the only thing that matters,
but in the short run those coin flips can be brutal). Good times.

~~~
simonswords82
> the best description of playing poker professionally that I ever heard was
> that it was like playing a game of chess for $1, then flipping a coin for
> $100. In the long run that chess game is the only thing that matters, but in
> the short run those coin flips can be brutal

Great quote! What books or online resources would you recommend for getting
better at poker? Not looking to play professional but do enjoy the game and
always looking to improve.

~~~
llamataboot
It's been a long time now since I've studied intensely (haven't played much
poker outside of the occasional home game with friends for 10 years), but I
imagine the 2+2 forums are still the best forums around for discussion of
strategy, hand reviews, theory, etc.

David Sklanksy and Harrington and Ed Miller's books are probably the best
around still in terms of a comprehensive overview of the various games,
especially Hold Em and Stud, the games of course change as people change
styles, but the basics are there.

If you are mathematically minded or just interested in a whirlwind tour
through game theory and gambling theory, I highly recommend The Mathematics of
Poker by Chen and Ankenman -- but it's a pretty heavy lift
[https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Poker-Bill-
Chen/dp/188607...](https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Poker-Bill-
Chen/dp/1886070253)

I've also heard good things about Applications of No-Limit Holdem by Matthew
Janda but it came out after I pretty much quit playing regularly so I haven't
read it.

If watching people play is more your thing there are tons of good sites out
there now were good players record themselves playing and give a running
commentary on their thought process as they play. It can be quite an eye
opener to listen to what a good player thinks about when they make their
decisions.

~~~
Falcon9
Daniel Negreanu is always fun to watch, and he has some great streams on
Twitch when he's out of the country:
[https://www.twitch.tv/dnegspoker](https://www.twitch.tv/dnegspoker) (He often
plays Hearthstone when he's home in Vegas, and that's fun to watch too.)

------
downandout
For those of you that don't know, the primary character in this piece, James
Grosjean, isn't just any advantage player, he is _the_ advantage player. He
wrote what is often referred to as the Bible of advantage play - _Beyond
Counting_ \- and its sequel, _Exhibit CAA: Beyond Counting_. Both of these
books are incredibly hard to find, and when they do come up for sale, often
sell for thousands of dollars. Here's a current listing for the original book,
at the low price of $1600:

[http://www.ebay.com/itm/Beyond-Counting-Exploiting-Casino-
Ga...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/Beyond-Counting-Exploiting-Casino-Games-from-
Blackjack-to-Video-Poker-
James-G-/131848943010?hash=item1eb2cf35a2:i:131848943010)

Here's a link to his _Beyond Numbers_ blog:

[http://beyondnumbers.lvablog.com](http://beyondnumbers.lvablog.com)

~~~
SonicSoul
I know it might be judgmental and possibly hypocritical, but I can't help but
think that kind of intellect and education is wasted on trying to beat a
casino.

If money is the end goal, wouldn't there be a bigger opportunity in pursuing
investment strategy ideas (i.e. market inefficiencies), or working on making
some process more efficient that could disrupt some industry (i.e.
spam/phishing detection, or deep learning) and have better chance of long term
gains. I'd think casino strategies once discovered can be mitigated over time
so all that hard work will payoff temporarily?

~~~
mmanfrin
You could say the same thing for derivatives traders. At least with beating
the casino, you're usually comped swanky rooms and perks (since you're
wagering so much money).

~~~
mattmaroon
If you're good, you get comped a lot more than swanky rooms. A friend of mine
has done this for a couple decades. He gets comped cars. Nice ones. He sells
them. He's always selling stuff like $1,000 Saks gift certs online.

He gets what they call RFB (room, food, and beverage) out the wazoo. He's
drank more expensive wine that most sommeliers. At one point it was hard to
find an expensive restaurant in Vegas I hadn't eaten at, and I only saw him a
tiny fraction of the time.

He gets his plane trips to basically anywhere with a casino paid for, often in
a chartered jet. A guy with a sign with his name meets him at the airport.

In most parts of the country, if you ask enough girls if they want to go with
you on a private jet to a luxury suite at the Wynn, one will say yes. Not a
direct perk, of course, but an attractive indirect one for a single guy.

The value of the perks is substantial. You could buy them, but it would cost a
lot.

~~~
chillydawg
If he's "good", he must win money. If he wins money, the casino loses. If the
casino loses, why on earth would they comp him anything beyond the first
couple of times he turns up?

Sorry, but I don't believe you. Either your friend has a chronic gambling
addiction and is filthy rich and the casinos love him as he's a walking ATM,
or he or you is talking nonsense.

~~~
Mikeb85
Most career gamblers are making money in poker. In big money games, you play
against other players and the house takes a rake. If players have stacks in
the millions (which they do), the rake is pretty damn big. Not to mention,
players will win a million in poker, then go play Baccarat or something.
Gamblers don't gamble just to make money...

~~~
Chos89
I remember a quote from somewhere: "If you are winning it's not gambling". If
you beat the rake and have an edge over the other players it's just a mind
game of dealing with variance.

------
PaulHoule
I used to think my sister-in-law was impervious to the law probability because
she plays the slots.

Then one day she noticed there was a scratch ticket where you could put the
losing tickets into a raffle being held at the local casino and win a prize
but you had to be present at the drawing. Well, she looked in the jar a few
days before the drawing and estimated there were only about 50 tickets in the
jar so she bought 80 tickets and put the losers in the jar and got her mother
to put 20 in... And her mother won a trip to Las Vegas worth around $2000.

Which is the rub because people who look for this kind of thing are people who
are serious about gambling and often they lose it back some other way.

I think of the many WSOP winners who immediately lose the money playing craps.

------
the_watcher
Casino (and gambling in general) benefit from the perception that they can be
beaten. It's why they sell card counting books in the gift shops. While
they'll shut down anything like card based craps that advantage players can
just clean up on, they're generally perfectly fine with professional gamblers
who work their asses off to get a slight advantage.

~~~
s_q_b
They will toss you out on your ass for any systemic card counting that
actually works, especially the newer blinded player methods.

~~~
te
What are the "newer blinded player methods"? Google only finds your comment.

~~~
s_q_b
I'm aware of it from school. Essentially it's a variant on the MIT team
running tally system for blackjack. In the original, players are called over
to "hot" tables, based upon a running tally kept by other team members at each
table. Details are widely available.

Casinos now use training and technology to differentiate surprise vs. expected
wins. It also becomes fairly obvious to spot once one knows the trick. To
obfuscate the technique, some players are called to average tables. As a
result, the players don't know whether their table is hot at the time. The
overall win percentage is lower, resulting in lower ROI, but it's much more
effective.

------
mmastrac
> But when Sun was arrested in 2007 for a $93,000 gambling debt owed to MGM,
> she vowed revenge

What? How is that legal?

~~~
Waterluvian
Not legal in Canada. Debt isn't a criminal offense. I don't think they can
arrest you.

But maybe I'm confusing it for: they can't throw you in jail for debts.

~~~
MOARDONGZPLZ
It's also illegal in the US to jail someone for debts. The way they get around
this in Nevada is to jail you for writing bad checks, which is fraud. THat is
to say: intentionally writing a check you know will bounce is fraud and a
crime, but in the event that a check you wrote bounces, it's hard to prove
that you didn't know the check would bounce when you wrote it. So it's not
really debtor's prison, but almost a loophole to create a debtor's prison.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
"Didn't know the check would bounce" implies you, what, don't know how to add
up a list of numbers? Its fair to say a bounced check means bad faith.

~~~
MOARDONGZPLZ
Here are some examples where it wouldn't mean bad faith, and I'm pretty sure
the majority of the time a bad check would NOT indicate bad faith:

I wrote a check, but I was changing direct deposit accounts at my employer to
a new account. I transposed my account number, my paycheck didn't get
deposited, my check bounced. Oops!

I completely forgot that I wrote a check earlier in the week. I write the
second check after looking at my bank account balance which says I should be
able to write the second check. The first check then comes through, the second
check bounces. Oops!

My landlord usually cashes my rent checks on the 3rd. This month he was out of
town so didn't get around to cashing it until the 10th. I checked my balance
on the 9th and assuming my rent check had been cashed as usual, that I had
enough to write the second check. By the time the second check is cashed,
there is no money in my account so it bounces. Oops!

Didn't mean to write a check that would bounce in any of those (imaginary)
situations. No intent to write a bad check means no crime of fraud, as fraud
requires specific intent to defraud.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Most of those _do_ constitute "not knowing how to add up a list of numbers".
Checking your balance before writing a check is not sufficient, as the
examples demonstrate. This is almost a perfect example of 'bad faith' e.g. the
check writer isn't diligently accounting for all of their expenses.

What you 'mean' to do doesn't matter. Writing more checks than there are
deposits to cover, is bad faith.

~~~
dpark
"Bad faith" requires intent. Carelessness is not "bad faith". It's negligence.

I've had my debit card declined because I'd already withdrawn everything and
failed to pay attention to the balance. If I'd written a check instead of
using the debit card, it would have bounced instead of being declined. That's
not bad faith. It's careless and embarrassing, but not bad faith.

~~~
Spooky23
In New York, you have 10 days to make good on the obligation.

[http://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/article190.htm](http://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/article190.htm)

I imagine in some of the nastier states, the law is harsher. IIRC, you can get
10 years in prison.

------
the_watcher
> “We killed most of the cards-based craps games, including one at Agua
> Caliente casino near Palm Springs. That’s where we won $335,000

I grew up a few miles east of this casino, I wondered where craps went when I
ended up there during a bachelor party.

~~~
moron4hire
I don't understand what "cards-based craps" is. I'm only familiar with the
dice kind.

~~~
itp
It's explained pretty exhaustively in this article.

------
jimmywanger
Unless you get some other enjoyment out of gambling, this is a hard way to
make a little easy money.

I used to play poker 30 hours a week. If you play optimally, it is extremely
boring and fatiguing.

------
erik998
This article was great. It made me remember reading Scarne's New Complete
Guide to Gambling long time ago.

[https://www.amazon.com/Scarnes-New-Complete-Guide-
Gambling/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Scarnes-New-Complete-Guide-
Gambling/dp/0671630636)

He has a great story of how gamblers would get casinos to increase betting
limits and allow them to successfully use a martingale system. To this day,
casino owners still fall for this and lose substantially.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_limit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_limit)

~~~
abduhl
Martingale systems definitely do not cause casino owners to "lose
substantially" \- the bettor cannot match the casino's bankroll and any amount
of money won back after the first bet increase is actually the bettor's. The
casino can afford to let you double because they are only ever putting the
original amount bet at risk.

~~~
alasdair_
It could only happen if the tables had a ridiculous limit which almost never
happens. If it did, I could see a few billionaires grouping together to be
able to bankrupt almost any casino by betting a billion on black instead of
red.

~~~
eru
Couldn't the casino buy insurance from some other billionaires?

------
splonk
I can expand a bit on how advantage play can work for the hold'em games
against the house. I'm sure Grosjean and other professionals at this sort of
thing have more sophisticated tactics. Fun fact - last I looked maybe 6-7
years ago, his book was selling for low 4 figures on the secondary market.
That's how much advantage players can value an unknown tactic.

About 10 years ago casinos started offering various hold'em variants played
against the house, presumably to cash in on the poker boom that was going on.
Most of them try to mimic the flow of a hold'em hand as much as possible.
You'll always have to ante something (somewhat analogous to posting a blind,
but also just required as a way to force action in a table game), and then
generally there's a decision point after getting your hole cards where you can
bet more or fold. The more complicated games include additional decision
points after seeing the flop and sometimes the turn. There's a lot more
details I'm glossing over here about how it works (dealer hand must qualify by
being a minimum strength, different payouts for various final hand strengths,
different allowable bet sizes, bonus bets, etc.), but that's the basic
structure. I recall seeing 3 major variants at the time - from least
complicated to most, WPT All-in Hold'em, Texas Hold'em Bonus (I think,
whatever the WSOP branded one was that Harrah's had), and Ultimate Texas
Hold'em. WPT seems dead, UTH I still see around a bit. Not sure if Harrah's
and other places still run Bonus.

The basic strategy for all these games generally involves a simple lookup
table for the preflop action - for WPT, the correct play is to max bet for
90+% of your hands [1]- it's a very easy game to play perfectly. For UTH, it's
probably closer to 25% [2]. (Aside - ignoring bankroll considerations, it's
almost always correct to bet the max on any game that allows a range of bets.
Either the bet is +EV or it isn't.)

The easiest advantage you can take is to simply know more cards at the table.
Most dealers in my experience will allow you to show cards to your friends,
ask for advice, whatever. Knowing more cards lets you make better decisions.
Simple example - in WPT 83 offsuit is a very borderline playable hand. If you
see another 8 in a player's hand, that may make it unplayable (since you're
less likely to make a pair of 8s). Alternatively, if you have a borderline
unplayable hand, seeing a pair of high cards in another hand may make the
dealer less likely to qualify, which is an advantage for you when you have any
bad hand.

In WPT at least, this is an extremely minor advantage - the "strategic
frontier" where your decisions may be changed by this knowledge is extremely
small. It's theoretically a much larger advantage in UTH, but there the
strategy changes you can make with this knowledge encompass such a huge state
space that you'll not be able to apply it consistently.

A second advantage is touched on in the article, viewing the dealer's hole
cards. This is much harder to do and usually involves finding a dealer with
bad form - I believe they're trained to slide the cards right out of the
machine along the felt to avoid this, but some dealers lift slightly, so you
can catch glimpses if you're in the right seat. Hopefully the playing
advantages of knowing the dealer's cards are obvious.

I wouldn't be surprised if shuffle tracking is employed as well, but I'm not
really sure what the state of the shuffle machines is these days.

Surprisingly, the biggest advantage I ever saw was to simply understand how to
evaluate a hold'em hand. I've played hundreds of thousands of hands (former
pro), and I still get it wrong occasionally when I'm not paying attention.
When all these games first came out, casinos had to train dealers to do this,
many of whom had never played poker. I think I calculated that I'd need to see
a mistake rate of something like 1/600 to make the game profitable right out
of the gate, ignoring any other advantages, and I was seeing 2-3 mistakes/hr
(out of maybe 30-100 hands/hr). Admittedly only about half of the mistakes
will be in your favor. It's not quite as easy these days, but for the first
year or so it was an absolute gold mine.

Orthogonal to all this, some of these games are pretty easy to play at 98+%.
Watching how people play these games, I wouldn't be surprised if the average
table hold is upwards of 10%. I don't have any particular proof, but I'm
pretty sure I've gotten grossly overcomped for play at these games.

[1] Everything but 82o, 73o-, 63o-, 52o, 43o, 32o. I'm not sure why 53o is
playable. [2] Something like Ax+, K5o+, K2s+, Q5s+, Q7o+, J8s+, JTo, 33+. You
can find the full table at wizardofodds or similar sites.

~~~
defen
> When all these games first came out, casinos had to train dealers to do
> this, many of whom had never played poker. I think I calculated that I'd
> need to see a mistake rate of something like 1/600 to make the game
> profitable right out of the gate, ignoring any other advantages, and I was
> seeing 2-3 mistakes/hr (out of maybe 30-100 hands/hr).

What kind of mistakes are you talking about here? Like, the dealer has a full
house but mistakenly thinks he has two pair?

~~~
splonk
Things like the board being a 5-flush and not realizing that it's a push (or
pushing instead of winning because they don't realize that they have a card in
hand that plays), or the board being two pair that counterfeits your pair, or
the board pairing and counterfeiting your kicker. Occasionally flat out
missing things like having a straight.

------
olalonde
> illegal for dice to determine financial outcomes in games of chance

That's pretty odd, anyone knows why that is?

~~~
cperciva
Weighted dice. Go back a century and it's much easier to ban gambling using
dice than it is to ensure that the games are fair.

~~~
jonknee
Or it was a [poor] way to try and ban certain types of gambling while allowing
others.

~~~
cperciva
Same thing, really. Dice games tended to erupt into violence amid accusations
of dice being weighted; there was no practical way to sure that the dice
weren't weighted, but the state had an interest in preventing violence; so the
solution was to ban those games while allowing other forms of gambling which
were less likely to become violent.

------
Mikeb85
Personally I love the fact that people try to beat the house. And to play
devil's advocate for a second, the fact that consistently winning is even
possible should just drive more business.

~~~
TheCowboy
I feel that the idea, that consistently winning is possible, is partially a
myth, but it persists among casino regulars. I know people who do this or have
in the past, and the big problem is eventually getting banned from various
casinos. It seems rather one-sided to me, but legally they're allowed to ban
people for consistently winning.

~~~
ferentchak
My grandfather plays a video poker game called Deuces Wild and when the
payouts are set just right and you play perfect you have a slightly over 100%
payout. He has been playing for over a decade in Mesquite Nevada and has been
making a slight profit year after year.

When you add in points rewards you can end up doing ok in free steaks and
massages. The casino knows he wins and is fine with it. My guess is that they
like the fact that he is willing to try and help people learn how to play
perfectly (which is not trivial) and that makes the other customers play more
and essentially cover the small amount of profit he makes.

~~~
gabemart
Sounds like you are talking about what's often called "Full Pay" Deuces Wild

[http://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/tables/deuces-
wild...](http://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/tables/deuces-wild/)

~~~
ferentchak
Yeah that's the term he uses.

