I want to start out right away by telling you about myself. I spent over 10 
years in the casino business in Las Vegas. During that time I was employed 
as a dealer, boxman, floorman, pit boss, and assistant casino manager. I 
have seen every casino game and probably every kind of system player there 
is. System players are easy to spot. They never seem to be having as much 
fun as the recreational gamblers. They are very serious and deliberate about 
what they are doing. Some will even try to disguise or hide what they are 
doing so the house doesn't catch on. Now that is funny. Funny because the 
house loves system players. Why? Because there are no systems that can beat 
casino games. There are ways to gamble smart and stay ahead of the game, but 
that is not so much a system as it is a method and discipline. More about 
that later. Let me deal with each of three games that seem to be the most 
popular, blackjack, craps, and roulette.

Blackjack has the distinction among those three games, of being the only one 
of them in which you actually participate in making decisions about your 
play and I mean not only about betting, but in the play itself. You decide 
whether to hit or stand, split, double down, etc. So you have some control 
over what happens in the game. In blackjack the one obvious advantage that 
the dealer has over the player is that the player has the opportunity to 
bust out his hand (go over 21) first. In fact, if all the players on the 
game bust their hands, the dealer doesn't even have to play his or her hand. 
Now that is a huge advantage. The only blackjack system worth mentioning 
here is of course, card counting. With card counting the player stays aware 
of the number of cards already dealt, or more accurately the number of cards 
remaining in the deck, the number of tens that have been exposed, and to a 
lesser extent, the number of smaller cards that have been played, and the 
number of aces left in the deck. When there are a lot of tens remaining in 
the deck and there are fewer (maybe less than half the deck) cards left, the 
deck is said to be rich. This is advantageous to the player, especially if 
there are also a good number of aces left. The player's chances of getting a 
blackjack are increased with a rich deck. Counting also makes the player 
aware of how many remaining cards can bust out his hand and he might play 
his hand accordingly. Not a bad system. This could probably give the player 
an edge or maybe at least level the playing field. In fact it does! If you 
are playing on either a single or double deck game and you are more than 
halfway through the deck and you are aware the deck is rich, you would 
increase the amount you are betting as the odds swing a bit in your favor. 
It is worth mentioning here that the dealer's chances of getting a blackjack 
have also increased. When I first read about card counting, I got excited. 
Here was a chance to really win some serious money. It made a lot of sense 
and in fact, in theory, card counting is the only system that can give you 
an edge. So, why aren't there a lot of people out there making money on 
blackjack with card counting? The answer is simple. Card counters are very 
easy to spot. You see, any floorperson or pit boss also knows how to count 
cards (at least they should, to some extent). So they can also determine if 
the deck is rich and if someone is increasing their bets accordingly. Should 
a card counter be spotted, there are 3 things the house can do. Just ignore 
it and let play proceed and see what develops. Or they can nicely tell the 
player that he or she is not welcome to play in their casino. Yes, they have 
that right according to gaming commission rules. Or they can simply tell the 
dealer to deal one or two hands and shuffle. This completely nullifies any 
advantage that a counter might have. In fact, when I was working in the 
pits, this is exactly how I handled it when I spotted a counter. I can 
remember one incident when I noticed a young woman walk up to the game and 
she was very deliberate and serious. Something instantly told me to watch 
her play. So much for trying to hide! Well I watched the game she was 
playing on and she was in fact the only player on the game. Sure enough, 
when the deck got rich she immediately increased her bet. I leaned over to 
the dealer and smiled and told her to shuffle the deck. It was so funny. The 
player actually yelled out, "Hey!" I just smiled and walked away, 
instructing the dealer to deal 2 hands and shuffle. Needless to say, the 
player went elsewhere with her money and probably had the same thing happen 
to her wherever she went. Counting is very over-rated. Money management is 
the only way you will be a winner in a casino.

Now let's briefly talk about roulette systems. I don't want to spend too 
much time on it because it is a silly game. There is no possible way anyone 
can predict where that little white ball will fall on a roulette wheel. I 
have seen players poring over little notepads, scribbling down God knows 
what, thinking that this will enable them to determine what will hit next. 
Think about it.the wheel does not spin at a constant speed. The dealer does 
not set the ball spinning with the exact same force or from the exact same 
point every time. This is all random. When the dealer takes the ball from 
the wheel, he or she will give it a little nudge to keep it spinning, hence 
the non-constant rotating speed. And to think that the balls position can be 
influenced by the preceding spin is pure folly. For instance, let's say that 
5 has hit twice in a row. What do you think the odds of 5 coming up on the 
very next spin will be? My friend, the odds are 37 -1 against the 5 hitting 
again. The odds of any number hitting at any given time is always 37 - 1 no 
matter what happened in the previous spin(s). This is a point that many 
players do not see. You don't even get paid 37 - 1 when you do hit a number. 
You get paid 35 -1 ! You are already beat! Hence, very simply, there is not 
a system in the world that can beat roulette. Sure, you can get lucky and 
win on the game but that is just luck. No system can guarantee a winning 
session. It is all complete random. As Einstein said, "The only way to beat 
a game of roulette is to rob the game." He is right. Do not ever pay anyone 
that claims that they want to sell you a roulette system. They are all 
scams, period!

Okay, we have dealt with blackjack and roulette. That leaves us with craps. 
Now craps is a pretty complicated game and there are literally hundreds of 
ways to bet on the game. I am not going to go into any betting systems as 
that is not exactly what I am trying to debunk here. My concern here is the 
player that actually believes or tries to sell the fact that he can control 
the roll of the dice. This type of player will set the dice in a certain 
way, throw them a certain way and claim that he or she can determine how the 
dice will fall. Do I really need to say more? A craps table is 8 - 10 feet 
long, with a hard surface underneath the felt layout. The dice bounce and 
rebound off of that surface at completely random angles and velocity. There 
is not a person in the world that can have that kind of control. Even the 
master magicians in Vegas can't do it! Have you ever seen a magician even 
try it?" Of course not.

I want to conclude here that the only valid system I have ever seen is one 
that minimizes losses and maximizes wins. It is a money management system 
that actually takes a great deal of discipline to use. This system can be 
applied to any game but poker. I have actually seen players use this method 
and stay ahead, day after day but it is a money management method and not 
really a system. I will write about that in my next article.

In the meantime, if you want to know more about this subject, just click 
here

http://www.NousBleux.com/bettingforprofit.html

Anthony Mancuso - 10-year veteran of Las Vegas casinos

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