Mottorpop's Advantage Play Q&A

[Mottorpop]

Good day everyone, in recent months, I have asked questions and read comments from various threads all regarding Advantage Play in the casino. I thought I would consolidate my thoughts here in one thread moving forward ... and also make it a question and answer thread for those who are interested. To get everyone off to the same starting point:
1) Advantage Play is finding legal ways to shift the odds in the player's favor
2) With card games, this means card counting - the most famous of which is card counting in blackjack. I personally am focusing on certain side-bets as well as the main game.
3) With craps, this means dice setting / dice control ... trying to position the dice and have a consistent roll that will shift the odds of which numbers appear and do not appear (for example, avoiding the seven).
4) With slots, this means looking at those few slot machines that actually give some indication of how close you are to a bonus feature or jackpot and occasionally / rarely finding a machine that some other player left in a favorable position.
5) None of these advantage plays are available online - you cannot count cards when they are being reshuffled every hand, you cannot influence the dice when it is a random number generator, and no other player is leaving the slot game behind in a positive way for your account.
6) My position is that advantage play will be limited to a small percentage of people because of the skills involved. For example, in blackjack it increasingly takes some mental gymnastics to move from learning perfect basic strategy, to learning a simply hi-lo count, to learning a more complex count with side counts or two level ratings. Or for craps, learning ALL the various ways to bet on the table and make strong combinations, learning to set the dice to gently influence the numbers, and finally becoming so practiced and having a steady hand that some measure of dice control occurs with a much stronger influence on the numbers.
7) I have kept my wagers small while in the early stages of training, but my recent trips to the casino have been positive ones. I am currently getting more serious (wagering a little more) as I try to build up a reasonable bankroll so I can move forward with betting ever larger amounts.

 

[dunover]

Good day everyone, in recent months, I have asked questions and read comments from various threads all regarding Advantage Play in the casino. I thought I would consolidate my thoughts here in one thread moving forward ... and also make it a question and answer thread for those who are interested. To get everyone off to the same starting point:
1) Advantage Play is finding legal ways to shift the odds in the player's favor
2) With card games, this means card counting - the most famous of which is card counting in blackjack. I personally am focusing on certain side-bets as well as the main game.
3) With craps, this means dice setting / dice control ... trying to position the dice and have a consistent roll that will shift the odds of which numbers appear and do not appear (for example, avoiding the seven).
4) With slots, this means looking at those few slot machines that actually give some indication of how close you are to a bonus feature or jackpot and occasionally / rarely finding a machine that some other player left in a favorable position.
5) None of these advantage plays are available online - you cannot count cards when they are being reshuffled every hand, you cannot influence the dice when it is a random number generator, and no other player is leaving the slot game behind in a positive way for your account.
6) My position is that advantage play will be limited to a small percentage of people because of the skills involved. For example, in blackjack it increasingly takes some mental gymnastics to move from learning perfect basic strategy, to learning a simply hi-lo count, to learning a more complex count with side counts or two level ratings. Or for craps, learning ALL the various ways to bet on the table and make strong combinations, learning to set the dice to gently influence the numbers, and finally becoming so practiced and having a steady hand that some measure of dice control occurs with a much stronger influence on the numbers.
7) I have kept my wagers small while in the early stages of training, but my recent trips to the casino have been positive ones. I am currently getting more serious (wagering a little more) as I try to build up a reasonable bankroll so I can move forward with betting ever larger amounts.

The odds are never in your favour aside from marginally in BJ for example via card counting, increasingly difficult with larger shoes and more frequent shuffling, assuming it's not spotted by overseers in casinos.

With craps, the effect of bouncing two dice off of the back of the bed by throwing them in a certain way is negligible to zero.

The casino slots are random and unless they have a 'win-by' time setting on certain progressive prizes (I'm not sure these are permitted in land based? and if they are it would result in limited or no play except a few minutes beforehand) so you cannot ever advantage play them. (There is/was an error on Novomatic cabinets where people could read the RNG clock by the way!)

A million people before you have tried to defy the fundamental house edge game maths at casinos and they all have one thing in common (card counters sometimes excepted) and that is that they all lose over time. As the numbers decree you should.

"Show me the man with a 'system' and I'll send him a taxi.."

 

[jasonuk]

Having a look at each point in turn...

1) Advantage Play is finding legal ways to shift the odds in the player's favor

Glad you said legal, because people lump in illegal methods (such as multi-accounting) which is fraud and not advantage play.

2) With card games, this means card counting - the most famous of which is card counting in blackjack. I personally am focusing on certain side-bets as well as the main game.
3) With craps, this means dice setting / dice control ... trying to position the dice and have a consistent roll that will shift the odds of which numbers appear and do not appear (for example, avoiding the seven).

The first one is possible but subject to intense scrutiny (see Steven Bridges' YouTube series), the second would require incredible skill and likely to be picked up quickly (and also strays into dodgy territory because you're trying to load the dice, which isn't you beating the game as presented)

4) With slots, this means looking at those few slot machines that actually give some indication of how close you are to a bonus feature or jackpot and occasionally / rarely finding a machine that some other player left in a favorable position.

Always comes back to stored value, otherwise you're playing the same 4-15% house edge game as everyone else.

5) None of these advantage plays are available online - you cannot count cards when they are being reshuffled every hand, you cannot influence the dice when it is a random number generator, and no other player is leaving the slot game behind in a positive way for your account.

Not true, it would be much more difficult to achieve given the higher level of monitoring and the significantly higher volume of traffic - but there are plenty of stories out there of it happening over the years.

Why do you think Evolution has such a large security department for their table games now-a-days...

6) My position is that advantage play will be limited to a small percentage of people because of the skills involved. For example, in blackjack it increasingly takes some mental gymnastics to move from learning perfect basic strategy, to learning a simply hi-lo count, to learning a more complex count with side counts or two level ratings. Or for craps, learning ALL the various ways to bet on the table and make strong combinations, learning to set the dice to gently influence the numbers, and finally becoming so practiced and having a steady hand that some measure of dice control occurs with a much stronger influence on the numbers.

Thinking back to the Steven Bridges series, the biggest issue he had was losing - even if the maths is right, you can be huge deviations up and down away from that. Much like the irrationality of the stock market, the results can be nonsensical longer than you can stay solvent.

The biggest part of any such theory is what the worst case scenario is - if you make a mistake, if there are technical issues, if someone else sharks you, if the casino refuses to pay out... a valid system would account for all plausible eventualities.

 

[jasonuk]

(split into two posts for readability)

The odds are never in your favour aside from marginally in BJ for example via card counting, increasingly difficult with larger shoes and more frequent shuffling, assuming it's not spotted by overseers in casinos.

I would disagree with this, overall across all players it obviously isn't otherwise the casino would go bust, but there may be pockets of stored value (in slots and table games) or mispriced information (in sports) out there.

The problem is that people focus on the happy path and their "system" falls apart when the bad stuff happens (see martingale and all that crap).

The casino slots are random and unless they have a 'win-by' time setting on certain progressive prizes (I'm not sure these are permitted in land based? and if they are it would result in limited or no play except a few minutes beforehand) so you cannot ever advantage play them. (There is/was an error on Novomatic cabinets where people could read the RNG clock by the way!)

You would be surprised what they can get away with - something I've looked into previously on DIF:

• WMS G+ Deluxe slots used to love "win by" progressives which increments based on what you won (rather than what you wagered), and it sounds like there's been a resurgence of them in recent years from newer providers.
• UK-based FOBTs have also gone through waves of "win by" progressives - including one that backfired spectacularly because the players worked out the increments, the drop ranges and thus could solve profitably to the extent I believe the game was patched then subsequently pulled.

So when something is "random", it may not necessarily be your understanding of random...

A million people before you have tried to defy the fundamental house edge game maths at casinos and they all have one thing in common (card counters sometimes excepted) and that is that they all lose over time. As the numbers decree you should.

"Show me the man with a 'system' and I'll send him a taxi.."

This isn't true though, if someone actually had a system then they wouldn't be talking about it - because the more eyes on it then the worse it'll be for that particular edge. We are still learning new stuff about legacy AWPs from tricks and emptiers, and those machines are 20+ years old at this point.

So if someone is offering you a system (to come back to the point), why can't they do it themselves? Is that because it's obvious (e.g. matched betting), or it's out of date (e.g. fruit machine tricks), or it's bogus in the first place (e.g. martingale).

 

[mulven]

Steven Bridges' card counting series is excellent! And a great example of the swings and roundabouts that volatile advantage play methods can have. Always very interesting to see how different the backoffs can go from infuriating to gentle and polite.

a large chunk of people making a good living advantage playing can be divided into two groups for the most part; sharps who don't want to reveal their edge(s) and people resorting to illegal methods (such as multiaccounting) to achieve their goals. Taking advantage of slow tennis umpires in person is against terms for other reasons but the people making bank doing this also resort to multiaccounting as betting with guaranteed outcomes tends to decrease the lifetime of a betting account to a few hours.

promotional offers themselves can be advantaged played by a single account legally (your own) but if you solely use promotional offers for profit this also goes against the terms of the casino, though seldomly properly enforced. Sports promotional offers work too of course, I can't remember the name (each way edge perhaps?) but the not so lovely people at betfair had a massively taken advantage of offer for years. I'm not sure if the terms are the same these days but 2up was another popular one for people to lump large amounts on.

As far as obvious, well known and legal methods of AP, low-risk play tends to be a bit attritional in earnings and high risk play tend to require a lot of money (50k-100k for $300 deposits lets say) to begin with to be statistically sound (0% risk of ruin).

I wouldn't recommend becoming too obsessed with trying to find a way that works as this will likely end up with you losing all your money due to faulty logic/methods or improper bankroll management. And don't get frustrated and resort to something illegal either.

Jason has pretty much covered all the bases in debunking each point although martingale with infinite money and infinite table limits is still real to me damn it!

 

[jasonuk]

Taking advantage of slow tennis umpires in person is against terms for other reasons but the people making bank doing this also resort to multiaccounting as betting with guaranteed outcomes tends to decrease the lifetime of a betting account to a few hours.

This is part of the reason why in-play delays are so long now-a-days, courtsiders (particularly in tennis) working with unscrupulous people to make a fortune betting on known results.

promotional offers themselves can be advantaged played by a single account legally (your own) but if you solely use promotional offers for profit this also goes against the terms of the casino, though seldomly properly enforced.

Probably because some of them would be legally unenforceable... so they want the stick available, but don't want anyone to test it in court (and why you hear stories of a lot of cases being settled shortly before going to court because an operator doesn't want to set a dangerous precedent). Naturally, if the amount in question is big enough, or they are confident enough, then they'll fight it...

Sports promotional offers work too of course, I can't remember the name (each way edge perhaps?) but the not so lovely people at betfair had a massively taken advantage of offer for years. I'm not sure if the terms are the same these days but 2up was another popular one for people to lump large amounts on.

I vaguely remember that one (and yes it was "Each Way Edge"), and I would say that happened because Each Way is a simplified offering. In the old days you could get natural E/W prices that caused arbitrage (and Each Way would give you more bites at the cherry), but that changed dramatically when the books started offering 1/5 odds instead of 1/4.

Even worse when they started scalping win odds with 1/5 place odds

 

[mulven]

Probably because some of them would be legally unenforceable... so they want the stick available, but don't want anyone to test it in court (and why you hear stories of a lot of cases being settled shortly before going to court because an operator doesn't want to set a dangerous precedent). Naturally, if the amount in question is big enough, or they are confident enough, then they'll fight it...

I remember the first time multi-accounters got jailed in the UK, one of which being

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d. I remember reading the actual court documents back when it happened but couldn't find them now. He sued bet365 for thousands that they'd confiscated and he'd failed to get it back through appeals so he sued... while impersonating someone.

Shit hit the fan when that person received documents about it in the post so they phoned bet365 and then the police. Hilariously he committed mortgage fraud on top of the Fraud by false representation.

They had mountains of evidence against him and were able to gain access to even more through discovery. It might have been another multi-accounter from Essex that got charged but I remember one of them starting all this over around £10k in confiscated money and landing themselves jail time, a criminal record and a confiscation order for £270k. Not the greatest trade.

Those greedy fraudsters only have themselves to blame as I doubt bet365 would have bothered getting involved legally but as they had plenty of evidence and fantastic lawyers, as soon as they got sued, they went - as the kids like to say- "aight bet".

I vaguely remember that one (and yes it was "Each Way Edge"), and I would say that happened because Each Way is a simplified offering.

It's years ago so memory is a bit iffy but I believe whilst most people taking advantage of this were doing some simple arbing there were a very small group who had figured out a loophole or strategy involving this promotion that was extremely profitable. I had recently started matched betting back in 2017/2018 as a way to make an extra 500-1000 a month and remember some people being very hush hush on the forums about that offer specifically. There was a normal way to take advantage of it and then a very secret one.

I think one of the guys that settled with betfair in the court room over their infamous balance stealing behaviour was doing this but I'm likely wrong about that as it was years ago.

 

[jasonuk]

I remember the first time multi-accounters got jailed in the UK, one of which being

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d. I remember reading the actual court documents back when it happened but couldn't find them now. He sued bet365 for thousands that they'd confiscated and he'd failed to get it back through appeals so he sued... while impersonating someone.

I remember hearing about the story, they were trying to spin it as big bookmaker bullies punter, when it was criminal commits fraud. There's plenty of distain for bet365 out there, but on this one they were absolutely right and a smart decision to set the precedent.

It's years ago so memory is a bit iffy but I believe whilst most people taking advantage of this were doing some simple arbing there were a very small group who had figured out a loophole or strategy involving this promotion that was extremely profitable. I had recently started matched betting back in 2017/2018 as a way to make an extra 500-1000 a month and remember some people being very hush hush on the forums about that offer specifically. There was a normal way to take advantage of it and then a very secret one.

A very secret one you say...

I'm curious if it had something to do with frontrunning R4 deductions when a horse is withdrawn.

The deduction calculations differ between book and exchange:

• Bookmaker - Tattersall R4 deduction based on win price, applies to winnings only from both win and place bet
• Exchange - The win deduction applies to both winnings and stake, the place deduction is a separate calculation that applies to winnings only.

They would be able to pick the horse and places that would maximise the exchange deduction - e.g. one example from today was 10p on the books vs 9% win and 22% place (3) on the exchanges.

If you had a short priced favourite, you could see 70p knocked off the books, and potentially 90%+ off the exchange place market... although much less likely to see that kind of strategy work now with 1/5 odds and horrendous prices from the bookies (overrounds frequently above 120%, i.e. 100/120 = 83% RTP or worse)...

It would also explain why they wanted to keep it hush-hush, after timing is frowned upon in the first place, and if Betfair (and others) got wind of it then they'd update the markets faster and reduce that opportunity window.

 

[mulven]

It would also explain why they wanted to keep it hush-hush, after timing is frowned upon in the first place, and if Betfair (and others) got wind of it then they'd update the markets faster and reduce that opportunity window.

Could very well be that, R4 is adjustment to already placed odds after a different horse pulled out right? been years since I've done anything sports related.

Oddsmonkey was the forum I was on at the time and there was a definitely a very small group of in-the-know people taking advantage of it, and I believe at one point there was a bit of controversy because of someone outside that group started posting about it, that person either deleted their posts themselves after some pressure or the admins did it I can't remember. I was not present at the time of the posts and no-one who was posted about it subsequently so I never knew what was said.

When did the update to 1/5 happen? I was still on the forum when the promotion was updated and people considered it dead. I actually think someone explained what the secret was but I guess it wasn't memorable enough as I have no memory of it.

I was still a very wet behind the ears matched bettor at the time and hadn't even started "high risk casino offers" so wasn't personally doing many high volume large bet offers, there were some people on there doing very very large 2UP (and similar) offers and doing very very well whenever those would fully come in (0-2, 2-2, 4-2). As a result I had very little experience doing that specific each way offer, although I think I eventually started doing regular each way promotions with varying success.

That forum did not really permit discussion of high risk casino since its teachings were mostly based on guaranteed profit bets and low risk post wager casino promotions. However it was probably just to avoid liability when people inevitably chased losses from variance as well as not trying to disrupt any affiliate relationships by promoting the practice. Come to think of it anyone using a matched betting platforms affiliate links must have been flagged, save for the exchange ones perhaps.

 

[jasonuk]

Could very well be that, R4 is adjustment to already placed odds after a different horse pulled out right? been years since I've done anything sports related.

Yes.

Oddsmonkey was the forum I was on at the time and there was a definitely a very small group of in-the-know people taking advantage of it, and I believe at one point there was a bit of controversy because of someone outside that group started posting about it, that person either deleted their posts themselves after some pressure or the admins did it I can't remember. I was not present at the time of the posts and no-one who was posted about it subsequently so I never knew what was said.

I'm sure the fruit machine players of the day can tell you how elaborate those groups got - so much so that the CMA golden pages (which people paid for) was basically an advert of what methods had been burned already. It sounds like the juiciest stuff was held under lock and key... because it could be incredibly valuable...

When did the update to 1/5 happen? I was still on the forum when the promotion was updated and people considered it dead. I actually think someone explained what the secret was but I guess it wasn't memorable enough as I have no memory of it.

I'm not entirely sure, although it has been happening over a few years - there are threads from the BF community forums of on-course bookies seeing the change as early as 2012.

That forum did not really permit discussion of high risk casino since its teachings were mostly based on guaranteed profit bets and low risk post wager casino promotions. However it was probably just to avoid liability when people inevitably chased losses from variance as well as not trying to disrupt any affiliate relationships by promoting the practice.

I suspect part of it is they only want the hassle of the low hanging fruit - particularly when they're not the originator of matched betting but selling it as a get rich quick scheme.

There have been some absolute howlers over the years where people haven't tested their theory properly. One legendary example from a decade ago was where the early matched betting community "discovered" first goalscorer markets... didn't read the rules, pushed a 200% overround in to 100%... and you can guess what happened next when the voided players started rolling in...

The mistake was so severe that Betfair had to waive a bunch of losses because those negative balances would have been considered "credit" under UKGC regulations!

Come to think of it anyone using a matched betting platforms affiliate links must have been flagged, save for the exchange ones perhaps.

Check the terms of Matchbook and the like - people referred from those matched betting platforms get excluded from most promotions Paid for free information, then automatically excluded from the offers they are trying to get...

 

[Mottorpop]

Well ... I had to do some errands and continued on to a casino to practice at a live table. One of the realizations I am coming to is that in the real world, one will have to deal with other players at the table (cards or dice) ... and it really slows the game down.

I arrived and found the table empty for awhile and finally went over to start playing ... just like last time, suddenly a whole bunch of people suddenly come over and joined in [ apparently no one wants to be the one starting the table by themselves ]. It took about an hour for to get a second turn shooting .. and then another hour to get a third turn.

I am really going to have to make an effort to take advantage of the times I do have a turn ... as I did okay then ... but I was slowing losing when the others were shooting. Just to note: this week it was younger people playing - last week I had a few old men who seemed to know what they were doing.

Surviving the other players has to be part of my strategy and I had been neglecting that.

Before the others joined, I took a more risky shot my first roll and managed to get a win that helped cover the losing I did the rest of the time ... I am not sure I can claim skill at this point because hitting an exact combination is more of dice control rather than dice setting ... but I did try for it and it happened that time.