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Comment by mwill | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, Ivey is supposedly a total degen outside of Poker, plays craps, makes prop bets, bets on sports etc. There's stories floating around the web of him betting on coin tosses, for example.

It wouldn't surprise me if he was simply playing Baccarat genuinely, noticed the possibility for edge sorting, and went for it, then looked for other casinos that had the same problem.

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A friend of his has claimed privately that he takes advantage of specific lossback deals that certain casinos give certain high rollers, and this gives him a positive expectation at craps at least some of the time.

However, it's hard to know how much truth there is to that.

This is likely true considering how low the house edge is on both Baccarat (1.06% on the banker) and basic craps (don't) pass/come with full 3-4-5 odds (around 0.37%) [1]

Any small positive edge in lossback, card or dice placement will lead to advantage. Some of them can't do math as well as others, apparently. This is how Don Johnson (not the actor) broke a few casinos several years back, including - surprise! - Borgata. [2]

[1] http://wizardofodds.com/gambling/house-edge/ [2] http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/04/the-man-wh...

degen?

http://www.floattheturn.com/dictionary.php?word=d&page=3

"Degenerate, often simply 'degen,' is a well-known appelation for players who behave in a self-destructive manner away from the poker table."

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