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Comment by Eji1700 | Hacker News Reader

Vegas makes a fuckload of money off everyone who thinks they’re smart but doesn’t understand statistics

There are only two types of people: those that believe they can outsmart the house, and those that never gamble.

That's deffinately not true, I used to go to the casino under no illusion I'd come out poorer. I'd just do it because it was fun.

If that was true, the house wouldn't throw people out for suspected card counting.

If they threw you out, you clearly didn't outsmart them.

Not really, no card counter goes unnoticed forever. It's about making sure you get enough time to play when the count is high that you manage to earn money. If you're curious about the life of card counters I can't recommend this YouTube channel enough: https://www.youtube.com/stevenbridges

You don't always get thrown out. Part of the game is monitoring the atmosphere on the floor and behave accordingly in order to not get thrown out.

Even if you do get thrown out it is already after you have won some money thanks to your edge and therefore 'outsmarted' them.

> You don't always get thrown out

…because it’s actually extremely difficult to do with the countermeasures casinos now use, more decks and random cutoffs. Letting you try is very profitable though.

The whole environment part is of course not useful. None of the monitoring happening where you can see.

Which they rarely do now because the number of people able and willing to count a 7 deck shoe with a random cutoff is extremely small and it benefits them to let people try.

Aka "we don't want you here because you might win".

A strange game; the only winning move is not to play.

Well, there are occasionally a few other legal options.. https://wizardofodds.com/games/slots/loss-rebate/

Also a couple of video poker variants have actual positive (!) returns with perfect play. https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/basics/#playing-s...

And then there's David Walsh and his syndicate

And card counters.

Do they still exist? They have closed most of the gaps previously exploited by card counters, and continuous shufflers are everywhere.

I think the only ones who can make money are those playing poker and are really good at it. That's because they are playing against other players and not the bank. They still have to beat the rake.

I'm not even sure comp players, that is those who play to get non-cash rewards like travels, restaurant and hotel stays while minimizing their losses can still have an advantage. I heard that casinos calculate comps by expected losses, making sure they stay on top (statistically).

And they are cheaters, but it is like saying thieves can make money.

> And they are cheaters, but it is like saying thieves can make money.

Absolutely not. Using your brains to keep track of cards is not cheating in any way, shape or form. They are simply using all the available information and some pretty basic math to them to gain an advantage.

Calling card counters cheaters is like calling chess players with better knowledge of patterns than their opponents cheaters. They are not cheaters.

The post you are responding to addressed card counters at the top, claiming the casinos have closed most of the loopholes that enabled card counting to be profitable.

The cheating it mentions at the bottom is not card counting (technically legal), but genuine cheating.

They do, and some even document it on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@stevenbridges/videos Can recommend his videos, quite interesting and nice insights into casino procedures.

Card counting isn't cheating, it's how you play card games.

Until the houses realises and chucks you out.

Not sure if casinos still bend rules/give special deals to high rollers but it sure worked out for this guy:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/the-man...

Card counting is cheating. Thinking before playing is cheating. Also, knowing the rules of the game is cheating. You should only play at random and never ever think

They probably make quite a lot off people who think they understand statistics as well.

I'd be willing to be that the intersection of people who think this and then choose to engage in gambling anyway, is probably one of the highest grossing demographics that exist.

If true, we'll eventually see casinos sponsoring statistics MOOCs or other forms of relevant education.

Or people who understand the statistics but find it to be fun and do it anyways

Not just statistic. There are plenty of smart defcon people who understand statistics but don't understand that if you start winning they'll just kick you out.

They don't kick you out for being lucky.

The only reason to kick you out would be if they believed you somehow have an edge on them.

The customer who got lucky at first and is willing to try to be lucky again and again is the best customer for the casinos.

I am very doubtful. Outside sports betting (where you can actually outsmart the house) we loved winning players when I worked in online gambling. Winning players are much more likely to return and lose more than they ever won.

How did you handle winning sports betters? Did you decline to take their bets, cap their bet size or just move the line to compensate?

You ban them off your platform when they win.

Not sure that's true, actually. The usual strategy appears to be to comp the gambler with generous stays at the casino they're a patron of, with the expectation that they'll dump their winnings back in the next day.

Taken with a grain of salt, as my only knowledge of this is via Hollywood movies. It does make sense from a game theory perspective though.

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