HOW TO WIN MORE WHEN YOU WIN THAN YOU LOSE WHEN YOU LOSE
For the past couple of weeks or so, I have been enjoying (for the second
time in about seven years) a heated response to my suggestion that deft and
disciplined money management can overcome the house edge at casino games of
chance and win consistently.
As before, I have been hammered with centuries-old mathematical axioms that
are certainly applicable to vast numbers of outcomes but are in my long
experience largely irrelevant to day-to-day play in an actual casino.
Some perspective is needed here, I feel, and before I retire from my role as
whipping boy of the month, perhaps a few of you will bear with me while I
make an effort to supply it.
We need to remember what gambling is all about. For most of us, it means
walking up to a game and placing a bet in the full knowledge that we have
accepted a losing proposition. The more bets we put down, the more likely
we are to lose in the end.
Very few of us are professional gamblers. The rec.gambling.blackjack
possible to count cards and win against a rich deck. I disagree with them,
but it's a free country and their eager stoking of the counting myth may
have helped slow down the eventual demise of the best game in the house as
slot machines inevitably replace gaming tables.
Absent some mystical inside knowledge of the card distribution in the deck
or the shoe we are playing against, ordinary mortals have to deal with the
simple fact that they will probably lose more bets than they win. If that
turns out to be the case, then the only way to walk away from the game with
a profit is to win more when we win than we lose when we lose.
There are only two ways to pull off that trick: You have to get lucky, or
use a money management betting strategy. If you can find a blackjack table
a third possibility. But since such games no longer exist in casinos on
Planet Earth, you can discount it.
not be changing negative expectation, in that you will not win more often
than if you had bet haphazardly, as most people do. But by pressing your
bet in response to almost any win, and freezing or reducing your bet in
response to any loss, you will repeatedly achieve a small profit in spite of
having lost a larger number of bets than you won.
learn that losing is not inevitable.
Exactly what method of money management you choose is, of course, entirely
up to you. And if after a thorough evaluation in your own time against
whatever "house games" you choose to play, you accept Parlay+Plus as a
viable way to win consistently, it's then up to you to decide how
aggressively or conservatively you will apply it.
You will find the rules of Parlay+Plus at
http://www.highsierragetaways.com/Parlay+Plus/index.html and more about the
recent rgb "discussion" at
http://www.highsierragetaways.com/Parlay+Plus/look.html.
The consensus among the handful of posters who dominate gambling newsgroups
and promote card counting as the One Truth is that any betting strategy must
eventually encounter a loss pattern that will annihilate all previous
winnings and bankrupt the player.
The assumption is that what can happen in a million or a billion outcomes
can happen any minute and therefore all casino games must be considered
unbeatable (unless you count cards at blackjack, of course!).
You need to pay serious attention to this level of probability if you plan
to devote the rest of your life to gambling. But since 1,000,000 bets is
around a decade of continuous play for a fulltime punter (assuming time out
with me that Parlay+Plus gives you a much better shot than flying by the
seat of your pants.
The pedants who pounce on anyone who posts a method of betting other than
wrong, and knowing that, they are not above a little dirty pool to support
their argument, such as misquoting or misapplying my methods or supplying
spreadsheet formulas with as much as a 20% bias against a Parlay+Plus
player.
Blackjack is in my view the best venue for Parlay+Plus because with skilled
basic strategy play, the house edge is negligible and the extra revenue from
naturals, doubles and splits more exciting and, usually, more profitable.
betting the field at craps can be rewarding, too, so long as you remember
that the house edge there is at least 2.78% and flee the scene for more
roulette because the 5.26% house edge on so-called even money options can be
a killer, and Pai-Gow is a game devised for players with money to burn, so I
Parlay+Plus requires cautious commitment, consistency and a viable bankroll.
But so does any approach to the challenge of beating the casinos at their
own games, if it is to be successful.
Money management is not for the squeamish, or for those of you looking to
make a quick fortune without any effort and at no risk. But again, neither
is any other method of betting.
Much as I sympathize with the casinos' need to promote gambling as
learned that losing is not inevitable, and winning is much more fun.
I have given you the opportunity to learn what I know and make an educated
decision about whether or not money management is for you. Whatever you
choose, I wish you all (even the pontificating pedants of
rec.gambling.blackjack) more winning days than losing ones.
G.T.Woo
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