Response on house edge

[Norm]

There are some claims on another site that I believe are highly misleading and could lead players astray. (No one here) I thought a response was needed. The claim is that the real house advantage is 17% and that casinos (and all authors which he claims work for casinos) lie when they say it’s 0.5%. As “evidence” of this claim, is the fact that a person with $100 that bets at a $10 table will quickly lose his money, even though at an edge of 0.5% the EV is a mere 50 cents a hand. Well yes, the EV per hand is small. But, the player doesn’t win or lose 50 cents per hand. The player mostly wins or loses $10 a hand, and more with doubles, splits, resplits, and doubles after splits, and yet more if he doesn’t flat bet. Most superstitious players don’t flat bet.

I ran a sim with about 10,000,000 sessions. Each session started with $100 and played until the $100 was lost or 500 rounds were played. The player played perfect basic strategy and flat bet $10 per hand. Six decks, S17, DAS. Results:

House edge .43%
Losing sessions 73.4%
Bankrupt sessions: 71.1%
Average rounds before bankruptcy: 134

What we see is that the player usually loses all his bankroll after an hour or so, even though the edge is only a half percent.

Next sim. The player plays a very mild negative progression. $10, then $20 on a loss, then $40 on another loss, then reset to $10.

House edge .42%
Losing sessions 83.9%
Bankrupt sessions: 83.6%
Average rounds before bankruptcy: 79

We see the same house edge (within the sim’s standard error of .006%) -- but the player now bankrupts more often and in 79 rounds on average.

Next sim, a mild positive progression:

House edge .43%
Losing sessions 85.6%
Bankrupt sessions: 85.2%
Average rounds before bankruptcy: 76

Pretty much the same. Raising the negative progression to 8 units and resetting only after a win brings bankruptcy up to 94.5% of sessions after an average 30 rounds.

These results are using perfect basic strategy, which most players do not use. The last sim run with a never bust strategy results in bankruptcy 98% of the time.

What we are seeing is that a player betting at least 10% of his bankroll isn’t going to last long even with a house edge of half a percent due to the inherent variance in blackjack.

[bigplayer]

Likely confusion by the original author on that site of "House Edge" of blackjack which is around 0.5% with "Table Hold" of which 17% is not atypical. Table Hold is higher than "House Advantage" because of what has been traditionally called "the grind" or repeatedly betting the same money over and over again. You buy in for $100 and make 10 $10 bets before coloring up $80.00. The house edge is 0.5%, but the game's hold was 20%.

[DSchles]

Nowhere is this concept more prevalent than with slots, where one plays on average many, many more "hands" per hour than at blackjack. Slot players routinely lose their entire stake, even at machines with 99% paybacks, simply because of recycling coins over and over again.

In all deference to Norm's study, there wouldn't have to be any variance at all to disply the dismal results and the typical casino hold at blackjack; all that is needed is the average amount of time a player spends at a table. This, of course, is also why we can win decent sums counting, with only a 1% average edge. It's because, with a reasonably modest bankroll, we might, nonetheless, put $1 million across the tables, on a trip, and our edge operates on that full amount. So, the return on the actual bank itself could be, say, 20% or more for the relatively short trip, and the 1% has no real meaning.

Don

[Norm]

Nothing so simple. He claims to be the only person to have ever applied probability and computers to Blackjack, that every card-counting author is a fraud paid by casinos, the dealer bust rate is 41.97%, the chance of getting a blackjack with seven players is one-seventh as likely than with one player, and the house edge is 17%. He also claims you bet on a horse race by ignoring the horses and bet based on the numbers on the horses and whether those numbers won a year ago as they should balance out. However, if you play his streak system, you will win turn $100 into hundreds of dollars in 98% of sessions.

[21forme]

Which site are you referring to?

[Norm]

A site we don't talk about here. But, I wanted to respond to those that read both sites as the discussion has been going-on for weeks.

[21forme]

Does it start with a Z?

[Norm]

I don't know any words that start with Z.

[21forme]

If there were other players at the table, you could ask them.

[Tarzan]

Surely this other site isn't being taken seriously or regarded as anything but garbage. Streak system? That blows any chance of credibility right out of the water before you read any further unless you're brain dead. I'm curious though, where is this site, this topic?

[DM21]

There is one guy out there that makes some ridiculous claims, I am not sure if he is the same one. I watched one of his videos and his claim is that he figured out his method first few hours of playing blackjack. I think he said you could take a few hundred and turn it into thousands 99% of the time or some crap like that. His videos were quite expensive. It amazes me that someone would actually spend money on something like that. They say a fool and his money will quickly part ways, they were lucky enough to be together in the first place.

DM

[Three]

I think he said you could take a few hundred and turn it into thousands 99% of the time or some crap like that.

Yeah, if you have half a brain you know this is total BS and he has destroyed all credibility.

[metronome]

Hope I'm not bucking protocol but I bet we're referring to one Ion Saliu.
I particularly like Part III. Theory of Streaks: Foundation of my Blackjack Gambling Strategy