Going the Team Route

[LoneWoLF]

I have decided if i really want to have a chance of logging over a thousand hours at the table each year playing two hands of mid black, im going to have to go through the team route. The reason for posting this, is to hope to get suggestions on how I can keep my spotters happy. I really want to pay each team member well so they work hard for me and so I can trust them they're giving me their best and keeping the count as accurately as possible. Lets say If Im betting 2x400 and play some really high SCORE games in the 100s, how should I work out the payment plan? My plan is to just have spotters with no knowledge of blackjack whatsoever. I want to keep it as simple as possible for them. They wont know any basic strategy or count deviations, etc. I will strictly create a team full of spotters that are just there to keep the count and signal me in. Eventually I hope to have another big player come on board, but for now I just want to create a team of about 5-10 spotters.

Should I just offer a percentage of the daily win? I plan on having about a 150k bankroll. I cant really pay each team member a high hourly rate since their are 10 of them and I want to make sure they get much more than 25 an hour at least to keep everyone happy especially since they will start seeing how much im making and i dont want them to get jealous. I think a better way is to offer a percentage of the win to each member, but the question is, how much, since all they're doing is spotting for me and it would actually add up to a lot if there's 10 of them each getting a percentage.

This thread is mainly to see if I can get any help/suggestions on how to pay my players. Thanks in advance.

[Boz]

I want to get on a team. Hire me.

You don't need 10 spotters. You need like 3.

You should pay out more than 1/3 total to your spotters. A small hourly should be paid to get through losing sessions, which would offset against their 'commission'. The more spotters you have, the less they'd want to work for you. Do you need to cover 10 tables? I don't see why your spotters should be ignorant of blackjack. You don't want them pissing away their minimum bets. I never ran a team, but I do know how to run a business, and that's my opinion.

I know OF a guy who runs a team. He pays like $10/hr flat to spotters. Nobody in their right mind would work in his sweatshop, and his spotters are almost certainly low-quality chumps. And he has the audacity to have try outs. He reminds me of those door-to-door sales MLM companies. Or Banfield pet hospital.

[Sharky]

...so I can trust them they're giving me their best and keeping the count as accurately as possible....My plan is to just have spotters with no knowledge of blackjack whatsoever....

with this 'plan', i suggest you just take the 150k and, on your way the the casino, just open your car window and start hurling it all out the window as fast as possible...it's much quicker and you won't have to experience the smoke

[Boz]

with this 'plan', i suggest you just take the 150k and, on your way the the casino, just open your car window and start hurling it all out the window as fast as possible...it's much quicker and you won't have to experience the smoke

LOL. Yeah, no kidding. Using people who know absolutely nothing about blackjack to count cards? What a grand idea.

[LoneWoLF]

LOL. Yeah, no kidding. Using people who know absolutely nothing about blackjack to count cards? What a grand idea.

I said that, because I have tried to train people in the pats, and you wont find most people having the patience or skill level to learn. Everyone wants quick money. So, I thought to myself, maybe ill just tell them to keep track of the count, get the true count and signal to me, make it as easy as possible. Besides if they put in the work I would also have to pay them much higher. I think Ill just stick to solo play, it's too much of a hassle

[Boz]

Why don't you recruit from an AP blackjack site? I heard this guy Norm runs one.

[MJGolf]

I said that, because I have tried to train people in the pats, and you wont find most people having the patience or skill level to learn. Everyone wants quick money. So, I thought to myself, maybe ill just tell them to keep track of the count, get the true count and signal to me, make it as easy as possible. Besides if they put in the work I would also have to pay them much higher. I think Ill just stick to solo play, it's too much of a hassle

Such impatience. LOL Why does it have to be all or none? Makes more sense to develop your team/business plan a bit further. What's wrong with having both types of spotters? If you have ones who "don't" want to learn the game, they might be the ones who case shoe games to allow you to Wong in; if you have ones that are actually playing, and being bankrolled by you to play minimum bets, you would them to at least know BS, right? You compensate them differently. You can develop and modify your team play over time as to how it best works for you. Don't just give short shrift to the advice the above posters gave you. =)

[Boz]

Such impatience. LOL Why does it have to be all or none? Makes more sense to develop your team/business plan a bit further. What's wrong with having both types of spotters? If you have ones who "don't" want to learn the game, they might be the ones who case shoe games to allow you to Wong in; if you have ones that are actually playing, and being bankrolled by you to play minimum bets, you would them to at least know BS, right? You compensate them differently. You can develop and modify your team play over time as to how it best works for you. Don't just give short shrift to the advice the above posters gave you. =)

I don't see how you recommend paying people to loiter in a casino (i.e. back-count). What are these back-counters going to do, wander aimlessly in the pit for 8 hours everyday? It would be so blatantly obvious what is going on that most casinos don't bother guarding against it on a shoe. You'll never be able to go the same casino twice. If you find a casino outside of Nevada that you can actually burn with this because their pit is that inept, it won't take a whole lot of time before they permanently institute a minimum bet requirement for mid-shoe entry.

[Stealth]

This whole thought process is doomed for failure.

Teams need people with different skill levels but spotters and backcounters must have an ability to play or you can't use them.

My experience was to pay the players by EV and allocate the EV for a session 70% to the BP and 30% to the spotter/backcounter. Understand the the spotters could have multiple BP's seated at any one time thereby doubling their income. Do not even consider paying them % of daily win. Are they going to reimburse you for % of daily loss? Also, understand that results were first split at about 50/50 with investors and players. So the players EV controlled how much of their 50% they received.

A ratio of 3 spotters to one BP works well.

A team with great policies and procedures that control cash management and playing protocol risk can survive if they have done a good job of player selection for both quality and integrity. If not, it is only a matter of time (and money).

AP's seek out teams to bet bigger and get to the long run faster but few have any experience managing a team. After they do create a team and get that experience, there is a reluctance to do it again as the issues of managing people always present itself as a big component. The number and breadth of issues that will arrive will astonish you. I just don't have the time.

Those that are successful have done a good job with these.

It can be both fun and rewarding, but proceed with caution. Getting in 1,000 hands per year is the least of your problems.

[Villiam]

Yeah, seems a common theme that the PEOPLE part of the equation is a pretty huge and variable component. To ignore this would be perilous. I want to start/be on a team one day but I sense pretty profound reasons for people to not associate too much with too many. And it's quite obvious that managing becomes a full-time concern as soon as you have 3 or more people total. The feedback loops of BS can only get crazier with 10. If you haven't seen Holy Rollers yet watch it.

[Villiam]

I don't want to derail your thread. BUT... I have a question (and unfortunately I don't have an answer to your question!). Could you just explain the first sentence in depth for me at least (the rest of the forum may understand exactly why you are posting)...

"I have decided if i really want to have a chance of logging over a thousand hours at the table each year playing two hands of mid black, im going to have to go through the team route."

I'm assuming that you are getting too much heat to get in 1000 hours a year with your spread or is it another problem you are having? I believe with my modest spread and heavy act I will have no problem putting in 1000 hours this year, and would like to put in about double that. But I wonder for your situation--we're talking about 19.25 hours a week to get to 1000--is there NO WAY to get that given your situation or have you just not examined all your options? Can you tell me why a team would solve your problem so easily? And can you explain why team play would be a strong support to a significant upping of hours if you are still working all of those hours and working with schedules to find common times to play?

[Romes]

One note to be careful with, the Grossjean discusses in his book too... If you're gong to pay a portion of the daily win, or CE, etc... Do so in intervals that are more drawn out. Here's an example of why you shouldn't pay the daily win:

- Say you pay your 3 spotters 7.5% of the daily win.

Day 1, win $4000, amount paid to 3 spotters = 900.
Day 2, lose $2500, amount paid to 3 spotters = 0.
Day 3, win $3000, amount paid to 3 spotters = 675.
Day 4, lose $2000, amount paid to 3 spotters = 0.

So where are you at? Overall your NET WIN on the 4 days (before expenses) is 3500... which if you paid the spotters now they'd each make $262.50... yet because you do a daily break down they've each been paid $525 at this point... So on the 4 day "summary" they've been paid 15% (each) of your NET WIN. You've effectively paid out 45% of your NET WIN instead of your desired 22.5%.

If you want to pay them a percentage of the daily win, do it, but in intervals of at least a month where you'll have the ability to smooth out the variance a bit more. Or, do it like the church team with "banks" where everyone gets paid out a percentage when the TEAM wins a certain amount. This prolonged approach will avoid only paying them when you win, which in the short run can destroy your NET WIN profits as you saw above. I didn't even give an example where you were NEGATIVE after 4 days. Say you have a bad run and lose 4/5 sessions. Well your NET WIN is something like -$5,000 but you've paid out your team on your 1 win so now you're down even more... I.E. you're paying them when you're losing.

[Stealth]

Can you tell me why a team would solve your problem so easily? And can you explain why team play would be a strong support to a significant upping of hours if you are still working all of those hours and working with schedules to find common times to play?

Team play offers opportunities to play larger bets (bigger bank) while only playing rounds with an advantage. Spotter/BP ramps up EV. Much stronger game than all play.

Hours is a misnomer to the real value of playing rounds while you have an advantage. BP's will play far less rounds than the lone wolf all play AP but BP's ev per round will be considerably higher. Often team play results in the BP only flat betting which reduces heat. Somewhat offset by potential to get caught as a team. Being backed off as a lone wolf is most likely polite, getting backed off for team play generally looks like trespass.

OP is trying to take the CVCX type model results and translate to real world execution. Not so easy to do as he will learn if he takes that show on the road.

AP blackjack, team or solo, is, IMHO, 25% technical and 75% skilled performing arts and you better perfect both before you undertake the game.