Comment by schwartzworld | Hacker News Reader

Comment by schwartzworld | Hacker News Reader

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> but plenty of things the casinos wouldn't like you doing if they knew you were doing it

Most of the time casinos are quite happy for you to attempt whatever system you think you have, card counting or whatever. Most people are bad at it, and even if you're good, you can't actually "flip" the odds as much as nudge them slightly into your favor. You figure out when you're a _little_ more likely to win and increase your bets by an order of magnitude. If you've done it right (and you probably haven't) and the casino hasn't neutralized your advantage by tweaking the game rules, you will still lose those larger bets a good percentage of the time.

Casinos are quite happy to let you do this, because the average joe doesn't even have the bankroll sit through 3 shoes hoping for a chance to 10x his bet. At a $15 minimum bet table, you could lose $500 in a single shoe, no problem. They'll let you count to your little heart's content, and then when your count is finally advantageous, you'll up your bet to $150/hand and that's when they'll shut you down.

Card counting is the thing everyone knows about. A good counter is getting a 1-2% advantage and is under lots of heat. If the table is paying 6:5 on blackjack instead of 3:2 like more are becoming it kills your entire edige. We were doing stuff in the 8-12% range. It is far more advanced than CC and almost never discussed online.

Every casino game has a vulnerability, even slots. Advantage play is not free money, it's a job. You need skills, a bank roll, and to put in a lot of hours in casinos.

>We were doing stuff in the 8-12% range.

If there was a legal way of achieving that kind of edge, casinos would know about it. That kind of gain is incredibly noticeable if you're watching the gambler, which the casino is absolutely doing.

>Every casino game has a vulnerability, even slots.

This is even more alarming. Slots aren't a skill-based game, they're RNG machines with a mean EV that's substantially lower than any other game in the casino. The only possible strategy that I can think of for slots (besides breaking into the machine and changing the RNG) is to hunt down slot machines that award an accumulative jackpot and play them when you calculate that the EV is positive. Even then, this is a rare circumstance and your gains would be small.

Yes, the more creative and rare the exploit the better it pays, and good ones do provide 10%+ advantage.

Good card players have lots of ways to gain advantages.

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/25107-poker-legend-phil...

Did you read the article? He was sued for using an illegal technique and had his assets seized. Like I said, no legal technique will give you the edge that you're talking about. Also, very few decks will have consistent manufacturer flaws nowadays.

The legality is disputable. They permitted everything he asked for.

Point is, he's the most famous card player in the world playing at the highest stakes at a top tier casino.

There are plenty of low profile players who can do the things Phil knows how to do. Casino's have a hard time distinguishing a lucky run from an advantage player they haven't seen enough times to catch their attention. The last thing they want to do is ban a high roller, so advantage players get the benefit of the doubt.

To make it as an AP you need a big bank roll, a lot of discipline to learn the games, access to a community of APs, and a lot of time for traveling and gambling. It's a job.

Some slots machines may have a poorly designed RNG. For example it may have too little entropy, and its state may be calculated from multiple rounds of watching the symbols it displays.

In one of Kevin Mitnick's books—can't recall which one, maybe The Art Of Deception?—he interviews anonymous hackers about their exploits, and one of the chapters is about a group of 4 people who did just that. They bought used slot machines, reverse-engineered the RNG in the firmware, found it was vulnerable. They exploited it to win a few million dollars over many months/years and many casinos. They spread their winnings over time, and they stopped when they felt it was too risky to get caught by the casinos.

Slots are designed by psychologists to maximize take. One of the things they do is make sure there's a decent payout every 80 spins on average. Also slots in well viewed spots pay out more because they get more attention. There are a number of strategies that are more detailed, such as the one Mitnick mentions.

People do make money playing slots, but it's real work.

Enjoy your fantasy.

> you can't actually "flip" the odds as much as nudge them slightly into your favor

Slightly less into your dis-favour?

Have a look at StevenBridges at YouTube

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