,.-----""~·-_._~-~-~.~-"y~--~-';,....~-~~· .

rx
~. }

6V
!295"" This book fs dedicated to
, [;t;~- my wife VJ.VlAN
rs- and mY children~
·-·,"Nand JEPPJU!.Y.
!1[,(:; llUAN,~

\
tl
·Copyright C 1962, 1966 by Edward 0. Thorp
AD righfi reserved under International and Pan-~CIO\ Copy-
\J'
~i
right Conventions. Published in the United States by Randcim
H~. Inc., New York. Distributed i~ Canada by Random
- House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally pulllished by
Random House, Inc., in 1966. The quotation from Paul ONeil's
ankle in Ufo Magazine appears courtesy Lifo .Magazine @ 1964 6}.
Time Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Thorp, Edward 0.
Beat the dealer.
;-'· Reprint of the 1966 ed.
Bibliography: p.
1. Blackjack (Game) I. Tide.
[GV129,.B,T5 1973) 795.4'2 72-8006
ISBN 0-394-70310-3
Manu&ctuted in the United States of America
Vintage Books Edition, February 1966
~- ..

!'.

· Acknowledgments

I am. Indebted to Roger R. Baldwin, Wilbur E. Cantey.

Herbert Maisel, and 1~ P. McDermott for making avale c
ablo the computational details of their work on blackjack
and to the M~T. Computation Center for making available
an mM 704 computer.
I wish to thank the many friends and colleagues who
have mado valuable suggestions, particularly Protesson.
Claude E. Sh8D110J1, Berthold Schweizer, Abo Sklar, an4
Elbert Walker. I am indebted to ViVian and James Thorp
for the long hours they spent playing the part of "'tho house.•
For showing me ~y of the metboda and devices 1l8ecl
by casinos in cheating and for &Wing me a largo amouDt of .
pneral information on the world of gambling, I owe a great
deal to Michael MacDougall. former special inYCStigitor for
the Nevada Gaming Control Board, to some of the old-tim.o.·
Nevada •coUDt" playen, and to a certain crooked Nmda ·
card mechanic. Conversations with a certain federal invcsti-
ptor have given me a largo amount of information about -~
the iDside 1Ctivitit8 and the out-of-state c:onnectioM of .cel'o
tain Nevada casinos. Last, but not least, I wish to thaDt tho
two milJjonaires who financed the highly tucCessful easiDO
test of my SJSle.ll1 tbat is reported in ChapterS.
ffe···

r
[f ·viii
~ :
The resqlts of the first edition have been ~ al)41.
improved by the extensive researches of Iulian Braun Of
the IBM corporation. He has made most of the calculations
. for tho point-count method and has made numerous de-
tailed an4 \'aluable suggestions. I am grateful to him for
I· .
allowing his work to be incorporated into the second edi·
tion.
il
I particularly wish to thank William B. Walden for tho
related work he has done with moon Nevada baccarat.
~ ''There Is a tide in the affairs of men, which.
Thanks to Paul O'Neil·for the integrity and journaJis. ~ taken tJt the flood, leads on to fortuM. .....
tic clarity with which he portrayed Beat the Dealer and its
author in Life magazine. Thanks also to Life for its cour- t
!
--8HAKEsPEARB (Julius Caesar)
ageous stand in printing the truth despite hostile Nevada '
mobsters and politicos. .
I wish to thank many leaden for. their helpful sugp
dons, ideas, personal experionces. and testimonials, and for
proving the book again and again in theusinos.
,_ Finally, thanks to the readmofthefilst edition of Beat
f<.,lhe Dealer who, in their tnthusiasm, bought so many copies
\. that they put it on the national best-seller list.
!.
r
 Contents

f
'
f
~ Acknowledgments

f 1. Introduction 3
~
. f 2. The Rules of Blackjack 8
Numben of player11. The pack. The deal. Betting. Na-
merical wilue o/lhe carth.lutrd fUUisojt 'htmd8. Objecl
oj 1M pla]er. Naturllb. The draw. The settlement. Split-
ting pain. DoubUng down. lnsuranu. CIUIOliV tUUI
lrtiCilcu: Shuffling. Shill~. N.w dM:kl.

~- 3. · TJJ.o ~B;lsic: Strategy 16

t /
1 _The playu'11 decislonll. The btlllc lliilten for thwlng
or •tanding•. The btlllc mateo for doubling down. The
baric strateKJ for spUttlng pain. WMI to up«:~ when
ruing the balk maten. Comparison with 1untu pere
untage agahut other blackjacl /ltrateglu tmtlln other·
~- So• common blllCkjtd erron. Finl ~
ment: drizwlng ver~~W llta1Uilng holdlng hard l6IIB'fblll
4111 Jfce. Secoml upet'lmal: tlollbllnl dowa oa hard 10
tzgaln/11 1111 Ac.. Thlr4 ~ 6J1Uitb18 a pfllr of
8/xu agolnllla Flve. Mlmldlng 1M dll4ler. 2'he player
X._
1PIIo ....,. bllllll. man who. trimmed hill barber.
 -
4. A Winning Strategy
Failure of the popular gambiing systenu. Thelmpoi'tllnce
of th4 de~nce of trial4 in blackjack. The use of
favl!rtlble 6itUiltions, A lint winning strategy: counting·
Pwu. Counting dee ctJrds. An Improvement in the Flvu
11'16tltod. Preqwncy of favimzble -situations. Variations
In bet slu~ Ca,ital required. utent of risk, rate of profit.

S. My ldclas Are Tested in Nevada 59 . : U.

Pnpill'tld0111. rhe $10.000 banJ.:roll. The warm-up. A
huntir6d ~we. a tltOIUllnd there. Nine hundred dollan

game. an.,.,.,
kt on 11 6lngk hllnd. Tire twenty-/We-dollar inlnlmum
thoiUand dollm-s In two houn.

·6. The Simple Point-Count System 7S

The llmple point collllt, Refinements, Henry Morgan
and I visit l'llerto Rico. Enter the Salmon. An lnten.rt- '}
lng ld., for end play. Playing pTillegy when the deale~s
hole C'tiTd is k110tvn. Value of knowing the deaie~s hole
card. A 1G lorga: the Stzlmcm ww $SO,OOO, The rule~
tire "c!uzng.tr In Puerto Rico:

7. Tho Complete Point-Count System 93

.C01111dng th4 etlrds. The hers. Drawing tmd standing.
Doubllng down. Pllir splitting. Insurance. AdvtUJtage l1lld
.· • 'fntluenc;y of /avOTilble sltuatiOM,_ _
. 8.
A Winning Stta~gy Based on Counting Tens 102
Effect on pl4y.rs mlvantage M proportion of Tt'M .
'llal'iu. I.Aornlng to count. lmurance. Strategy tabla.
Lettrtdng th4 strlllegy klhks. Rate of profit. lncbuling
RefeJ:ences %OS
Accr In the c:oant. The l'elnllrkable pia /TOifl ~pu end
play. List of Figures and Tables 211
9. Beating the Casino Countermeasures I.adex 215
124
S/uif]le up. Dea/en who C()unt. Strike when the tleclc
II hot. Punishing faker. Multiple decks. ~ules chonges.
Rules variations. Camouflage. Disguises. The llUIOIIIIllil:
Nllclcjw:k 11111chinu. Tlut /HlPIIN'out, teehni ue.
11
J.'

Beat the Dealer

,r.·
I'~
~1
'~

Introduction

The game ol blackjact, ortwent,y-one, is one of the wodcrt

1llO$t widelJ played gambJing games. In the United States
· It is played in the state ol Nevada, in IeffeQOD Parish near
. New Orleans. in the Galveston area, on and off iD Bot
r Spriags.· Arkansas, in White Sulphur Springs, West V1l'o
·~ pa. and in homes and private clubs throUghout ·. dJe
J COUDtry. Blackjack can bo played in Puerto Rico. ~
! Panama, the Grand Bahamas, and.other spots ill theCarlb-
f bean. There is blac:tjac:t in Europe at the Lido casino JD ·I
t VCDice. on the Isle ol Man, and In London~• ManDa. ill· I
1 the Philippine Islands, and the Portuguese colony of Macao.
near. Hong Kong. also have casinos which featum bJac:t-
1 jack.
r In England. blackjack is biown as -van-john• ad ia
i Australia. as "'poll~• BOth ol these are couuptioas f4
~ the French term vlngt-et-un. In Germany it is ca1lccl BhJ.
• "- of this wrftiD&· many fonDa of pmhlfDg are leplla W
A llUIIlber of the large LondOil samiJll cluba haVe bladt~ ndel tllat
are esreatiall~ the IIDIO a 1boiO Ia 1.11 Vejat. Tho wiliaiD; ttrallsfll
.. ddt llooJt apply.
.,.
 -~ BBAT THB DBAI.BR
und-Zwandg or Achtuhn-und-Drel. Although the namo
varies, the game is essentially the same. _
· In the modem casino game of blackjack. the player
can gain a consistent advantage over the bouse by using
the strategy presented in this book. Based on the mathe-
matical theory of probability, this strategy was worked
out With an electronic computer by tho author and others.
·It· is fortunate IUld. perhaps surprising that the system re-
. 'i:lUce$ _to .a few sbnple charts that c:ap1 be undetstood and
:. ~rlzed by the _:*Verage player. Ii1 addition, the system
·.lends itself totl\0 rapid play usually encountered in casinos. .
The rutes ofblaCkjack"vary.somewhat from casino to
casino. These variations, based on .my studies of many
casinos, are listed in Table 9.2. The table shows how these
rules vapations affect the player's chances and enables him
to cOmpare any tWo. casinos and decide in which one to
play. - - ..
.· : No system can win when ·confronted with the chrOnic
diBeBso of gambling games: cheating. Blackjack gives ~e .
ckaler an excellent opportunity to cheat. Aside trom not
playing at ·all, the only sure protection seems to be to have
the aemeesd a card expert. But, by taking the precautions
described in Chapter 10, the average player can protect
JDinself sufftciently in most· situations. · _ player a comfortable 3 pet cent edge!.
In tho following pages we begin by outlining and dis-
cussing the rules of tho game and then proceed itep-by-stqp ·
to advance the reader to any level of playing proficiency
be desires. The first step ~ to team what we shall can the
-t;asic sft.ategy": a simple set of rules which tell the player ·
when· to draw or stand, when to double down, and when
to spHt • pair. With the basic· strategy alone the player
lias the slight odvantage of 0.1 per cent in moat Las Vega$ .
caimOs. Blackjack-is the only casino gambHng·p.ae today
whero you can consistently have. the edge. Other published
~tegi"' for blackjick commonly .give the player disad-,.
vantages ranging from 2 to s per -~ ',l'he first substan-'
I,./'
Introduction 5
dally correct wrsion of ~ ~ strategy .as
by Baldwin et al. and published in (2]. • There were slight
~
inaccuracies both in this version and in the improved ver-
sion published in ~ first edition of Beat the Dealtr. The
correct version of the strategy for one deck and a ~
set of easino rules appears in Chapter 3· It was calcUlatOcl
by JuHan Braun. In casinos with favorable ~~ tho baslo
strategy actually gives the plflyer a ~er e<lp over.~
house. In casinos with unfavorable ~ tbe player JllB.1
have a slight disadvantage (up tci p.5 per cent or so). Bven
so, he Js generally better o1f thari. in an? .other casino pne.
including craps. · ·. ' ·
The basic ~tegy does not involv~ counting catds. ·
However, after mastering the basic strategy, the reader wtD
Jearn a simple modification, using a card-counting system.
that identifies many situations in which he has an a~
tage over tho casino of more than. S per cent. Most people
who are advised to count cards say, "But I can't~ track
of all the cards in the deck.. I can't-~ ~- ~
phouc numbers." They may be surprised ta team fbat ~
must count only four cards (pet deck used by the ~l
-the Fiw&-and that this additional inform~ _COJJlot
bined with minor strategy cbanges. ~ enough tO &f.VcJtie
·. ...
Tho player who is willing and able to ~unt more tbaa
four cards can go on to more sophisticated striltegies. Pint,
there is the powerful new Thorp point-count ~ $
method was perfected by several people after thO firSt· edl~
tion of Beat the Dealer was published. It has proven Wft1
effective against assorted casino countermeasures. In pu--
ticular it is effective and easy to. use against sevetal deeD.
It is as simple as the· famous Goren point count in brid~
Every card is counted +1, o, or -1 as it is seet1. Yoli
simply need to keep track of the total number of pointS you
have seen (thus you mnember ·one number only). The
• Numben fa ( J ilidicato nfercm:ea 1iatoc1 on pp. aos-g.
-_-;_~~--~----- --~--~----"' ----- --- B;O~-;-~T~-B D~~;;; 1
Introduction '1
point-count method_ is effective because it takes into~~ !.
aideration every card the plaF, see& 'This allowS Jtlu. lo irequents the gaming tables or who plays b-·states.at hoo1o
shOW~ be handsomely rewarded for hiS trouble. We bope
Identify nearly half of an situations • favorablo tO Jami..
self.: In fact. half the time ~ has a sUght edge in the oni> also that some of the aura of superstition and mystery Slll"-
rounding games of chance will. be dispelled for the reader
deck game as soon as be sees a singlo cardJ
The Ten-count method was presented in detail iD the as we study blackjack together.
first edition. It was used so successfully by thousands of
readers that the Las Vegas casinoso for tho first time in
history, changed the rules of blackjack. £34]. (The change
failed and was dropped. When I wrote the b9<>JC I foresaw
the change and explained in Chapter 8 [of die first edition).
Rules- Variations. how to continue winning.. The casino
operators apparently only managed to Red ai far as Chap-
ter S.)
For skeptics who do not believe a theory until the)'
-~it w~. in Chapter S there is an accouut of the author's
~ginal test of the Ten-count method in Nevada. Backed
by $Io,ooo, which was lent by two milUonaires interestecl
in making a profit. I purposely played very cooservatively
for about thirty hours. At the end of this time. the mil-
~ Sxo,ooo had increased to ·over $20,000. As wo
hecamo known, it became harder and harder to get the
c:asiD01 to play a ..nice" game. The tactics they used in-
eluded refusing to give us a private table. shuftUng every
Jumd at two, switching dealers in and out. challgin& decks
constantly (0110 casino switched in four new decks in five
~), and ~g to sen us largo-denomiaation chips.
One Casino even mtroduced_ a cheating dealer when we sat i.I
dowa to play.
Despite- these. annoyances, we were stiJl able to get
pmaa- whenever we wanted them. We finally quit because_
the millionaires had bigger business elsewhere. because my .
facbing duties ~uired me to, and because the system had
been sufficiently tested. ·
We think that this_ boot will pay for itself and for
tlio time spent reading it many times over. Anyone who

2 The Pack
The Rules· of Blackjack
I._,
,_first step in learning the game of blackjack is to master
~ .tba rute&-with emphasis on the .word "master." Even
~- ·.}Dowing the exact meaning of the rules ia not ~gb.
··· . ThO reader Diust be able to uncterstand the effect of each
~:~ t1Jle and of each possible variation. Both experienced plaJ-
_jrs and beginners should study this chapter. · the pla~s ~ in no way helps the cfeaJer if, 8$ is usuany
. •· ~ casino bas a set of blackjack rules which agree
: with those of other casinos on the DUlin points ~t which
..~differ in details. Later in.tbis bookwcman.analxze
· the effects of these variations; but~ for simplicity; wo
consider a typical set of rules. A set that is c:Ommon. yet
by no means universal. is listed below.
.. Number of Players
A blackjack game has a dealer an4 from one to seven
players. We will see later that. generally speaking, the fewer
the ~un1ber of ptayers at a table, the better it i8 for &be
pm~~
•••
The Rlllu of Blackjack
One ordl'Nll'j 52-card pack .Is commonly 11#4. Rcnf.
ever more and more casinos arc going· over to two aud
even four pacb shuftled together, in an effort to maka
card counting more difficult. • It turns out that an ia-
crease in tho ·number of packs euts the player's advaatage
s1igbtly. (In Puerto Rico two decks are genetaUy used, aad
in London four decks dealt from a shoe are coiDIIlOD.)
The Deal
Before play begins, the cards are shuffled by 1M
dealer an4 cut by a player. Next, a CDT'd is •~Jurnetr.
(placell face up on the bottom of the deck). The. bume4 ·
t:ard may or may not be shown. The dealer then tleal8 two
eards to himself an4 to each of the players. Playen Bc .
both cards face down. The dealer receives one t:ard ~ ··
up 11114 one CDT'd face down. The two cards of the pf4yir ·
an4 the "down.. card of the dealer are called ...hole cards.·
Some casinos deal the player's hole cards face up. .
This is the practice in Puerto RiCo. This is very convenient
for players ~bo count cai'ds. On the other hand. l6e1ng ·
>
the case m casmos, he must act according to fixed rutes.
Later we shall see that about half the time the abSeDe8 of
the one burned card is _enough to give the playu a· sligllt· ·
edge- ovor the house. (This is not true when two or JDOJO-.
decka ate. used.) .
Betting ,
· The players place aU bets except insura~e (discussed
subsequently) before any cards are dealt. The house- estflb-
li.shes a minimum. bet and· a maximum bet. The minimum
• In ·Nevada the· multipack dealing devices, whfdl an~ .more aac1
.r c: :0
moro common. bavo ~ to bl taowa JaformaB u ~
~-rl ltOq b¥ ilarokJ Drab. ·rr!t Who ......;;:;

~:.····
10 BBAT. TK'E DBA.l.lnt
bet is usually between 25¢ and $5 and·the maximum bet,
between $zoo and $soo.
Our winning strategies involve varying the size of the
player's bet- The player places larger bets in favorable ~itu­
ations and smaller ones in unfavorable situations.
The size of the minim\llll bet is of greatest interest to
the player with a smaU amount of capital. The size of the
maximum bet is of interest to the player with a Jarge
amount of capital because it limits the rate at which he
can wid. (In Puerto Rico, a '$x minimum and a $50 maxi-
mum arc <:9mmon. In. London a minimum of from ss. to
'£!~proximately 701 to $2.8o-and a. maxnnum of
·£so--about $14o-are common.)
N.umeriCill Value of the Cards, Hard and Soft Hand$
. The player Clln choose either I Or 11 as the valae of
4111 Ace.. The numerical value of a f~ CIP'd ls'Io, and the
~ value of the othei- cards is simply theft' face
·.. - - . W.- call a hantl"sotr i/ it contairu an Ace and that
~CII et~~~.H counted as 11 without causing the totlll to t!X•
.t;iitd: 21; we call all other hand8 "hard." Since -thbe are
lwo possible tdtals for a soft hand, we shall define the
.19talfor G sOft hand as the number obtained by counting
the· Ace 113 11. · . ·
The distinction between bard and soft banda is im-
,"'~ We shall see that the best strategy for 1r Jla.yer
"'-·~Witk • soft hand of a 'Certain total usually differs tllatply
· -trOJ;n his strategy with a hard hand of· the same totaL
Object of the Player·
,,_ .. •. Each player tries lo cbtain a total that Is greater t1uut
: · thtll-0/ tM detller but that does not exceed :u.
NGturai.J.
i .· -11 ,..first two cards dealt either to lite player or to
1M 4lt!}R ·consist· of cn Ace and • 1fJJfllllllll card, they
.! - -_--..- "'""'~
The Rules of BlackFfc Jl ,
constitute what we shall call a "naturaf' or -&lackfdck.•
II a player has. a natunil and the dealer. does not, tiN
player: receives .1.5 times hU original bet from. the ~.
If a player does not have a natural and the deOler ·doG, ·
the player loses his original bet•. lf both player and dealer
have naturals, no money changes hands. · ,
In 1964 automatic blackjack machines were intro-
duced into northern Nevada whi<:h paid 2 to 1 far
aa
untied player naturaL We analyze these machines io Chap- ·
~~ . .
il
The Draw
The draw starts:at the kft of the dealer and proct!*b
In clockwise fashion. A player looks at his hole carib and
' may elect to "stand" (draw no additional COI'tb); otkmvise,
he can request additional cards from the.dealer, wlddUlR ,.
dealt face up, .one at a time.
If the player "bustS' (goes over 21), he lmmediatelJ
turns up his hole cards.and pays his ~et to the dealer. ~ft.
each player has drawn his Cllrtb, the dealer tu1'n8 11p h&
hole card. If his total is 16 or~ htJ must draw a Cllrd ..
and continue to draw cards until id8 totizl Is 11 or mpre. tzt . ,,
which point h6 must stand. If the dealer receive.r an-Ace.
and .if counting it as 11 would bring his total to E7 or l!fPI'fl :·
. without exceedfng 2:1, then he must count the A.ce M zr , ·
and stand.
Many casinos alter this rule for soft hands so that the
dealer draws on so_ft 17 or less and stands on ·sott 18 or.·
more; in this way they gain a small advantage. Some casinos
pin still more by other· variations of this ·type. · ·
·. It is common practice for the player to request .addi-
tional ~ from the dealer either by saying·~~, or
~t me~ ,9f .simply by scratching the felt table. top widl ·
his cards. To: refuse additional cards the player places hJI
bohtcards face d<>WJJ ud •Y also say "Stand." oq)~t:Jiia
~:ard.u•~)lis ~t. IUs ooDSidered bad form tor tJ1o..player . ·
 12 B'B-AT THB DI!ALIB.
. to touch the bet itself after the deal has begun. One reason
fOr this is that players have been known to auempt, by
sleight of band. to alter their bet after seeing the dealer's
up card.
The Settlement
· II the player does not go over~~ tmt1 the dealer tloel,
1M play.r wins an amount- equal to his original 6et. II
neilher playlr nor dealer bllsts, ths person with ths higher
total wins an amount equal to the original bet of the player.
II dealer G1'lll player have 1M SlUM lt1tal, not exceeding u.
• 110 lfll1M1 t:htmga 1umds.
· A player-dealer tie is ca1led a -push.• When 1he!e k a
~ the ~er removes the playt;r's cards without touchlnJ
JUs bet. This often sc;.ems to be CODfusing, 80 to bring the
-push" forcl"bly to the player's attentiog. 4ea1ers· sometimes
hold the player's cards face up and atdke the table a couple
· ·of times before temoving them. · ordinary 21. Simzlarly, II a player splits a. pair IJI fac6
. . ·In somo games the dealer takes 4Jl ties. This gives
111m a horrible 9 per cent edge. Avolcl such gam.es. ·
· · ·· · If tieS are a standoff, one might think that, except for
· · the effect of aatorals, the game is even if the player uses
;precisely the lline strattv u the dealer. HowevP.r lt baa
··1Jeea. observed that the plaF who usea the strategy of the ,, _1he .first automatic blackja<?k machines iu~, kito
dealer loses ·at 8lJ average rate of s to 6 per cent• The rea-
· ton for this is that if the player busts, he loses his bet to the ·
• ~ St:llll'tW• eom"'* o.u- , ollltlblblg (S8] tt Js claimed oo I
, The. Rules of B14c1cjack '13
.. dealer.. even. though the dealer -may later bust also.~Titus
the case wherein both the_ player and d~aler bU$t 1s:. au.
. example of a "tie" ~t is won_ by the dealer.. ·
·Splitting Pain
lf the players hole cart1s are numerically Identical,
they are called a [xzir. He may choose to tum them face up
and to trellf them as the initial cards in two separate "twirl'
hands. Thrs Is known ~ "splitting a pair." The original bet
goes on one of the spUt cards and an equal anuiunt is bet
on the other card. The player automaticaUy receives a
second card face down on each of the split cards. He then
plays his tM?In hands, one at a time, as though they were
· ordl~ hands, with the following exceptiOJJS. In the_ COR
of splzt Aces, the player receivf!S only one. card •on eaa,
.·Ace. Further, if a face card or Ten fall$ on one of the split · •
Ac~, the .hand Is not counted. as a natural bid Of!I;: 116
.· carda lf Tens and then draws an Ace, 1t counts only as
(I1J ordmary 21. 11 a player splits a pair and tecelves a third
· card o/ the same value, he is not permitted to ·split a8afn.
··. Ac:es are the best pair to split The tempQ!llq .tu
:· Vegas rules-~ now off again. forbade sp~ Aces.
. Nevada do not allow pair splitting. · ··
Doubling Down

:::S::'.:.t',::Z. =::a :l., ':e. =

f8&W ''ami 317 tblt tho llook'l audlor wu thdnt penoo to ca1ca1ate

1ime ~
, ·. Af!R loOking at h& hole cards a player may elect to
• balk.. fa¥orable ,._.... a& lll"ckJeat. Oa rJ: 317 It II aJso - .. ~ his bet and drtnf one, and only one, more Car4.
· ~This strategy is known as ~'doupling down." ..4 IJ.laytll'
'" 681) tile ..,.... 111te (I&. ~ or· ttae total 811101111l'1:) a& ,. , lfOfll'lu down turns up his hole cards and r«ei'HS hl8
Wl*hoatbe~-=:-~ -=-~~~ tbat It II DOt feasible to alure . , thfrd ~d face down. A p~ who splitl any ,alr.ei'cept .
who
dle ~ apl.a lilullwJdae1 P.Jen because their ltratigles . .. tf ot~· aail cfOea • . . .
differ . • Allo - pap 536. ~ campositlaa Js Ulllllle4 1or r -- Of lOsS? . . .DOt split p,afrs or- double doWn, "hat~ 1111 ·awrap
lllo ~ '1'1.-.. - J!P ,,. • ilturtblr assumecl that the playw i "" ;> .. . . . • . . >: .
·'folleft.
. tlaO ·ratea {te... '""*D_.• u. tb8 tbllowiDg -~ itJoW> !· ; -~- IrcDerm_.set the0 ~u.. ·.· WaeJ. _
............. 1FO mGfon tbat,Bal.dwlu. CMtey.,_·
..
• .w; ..... That the IIOOk--la reality to be~ lho s01U- ! -~ . 1 ' - ._ tollUioD. to thia pr~ -~,...
a a m o ._ _fBI!..

.t~QQ:eo.bprol!Ieal: If ~)!f- folfowa the same ltiate&Y • the J .

.... Joe.
.
liaala OD d· 0C l'(
-
er..,....
- ~
dfa'WI 00 aU tota1a of
.
_5.__. . _
'
1..,_1!le,=-··.r~. ~iaatMt""'uaticalpper[z.p..4DJtiad ·
~ ~ ,., •. , · " · · - P. 47);
··-
. .
r------~=
I
~
~
~
hands.
-g :,;;;,)~
==~=""'"',_~---
L ...,. .,,., .In
...,.~~~- ~-
:..·;:,.•;
the split cards, double down on one _or both oJ his~ twin
In Puerto Rico doubling down is permitted on a total
! of 11 only. Some Nevada ~ particularly iJl the? Reno
~ and Lake Tahoe areas, allow doubling down only on totals
! of 10 and n. 1be same was 1rUc of tho first automatic
r· blackjack macbtnes. Tho temporary Las Vegas ~es
~- changes. now off. again. also teStrictcd doubling ~ to
· · totals of bard rr. This was the only l'!lles change besid~
· ·tho restriction on splitdng Aces mentioned al)ove. R.estrlC-
lions on doubling down tend to increase tho house ad-
untage.
llf8U1'41U¥
- If the dealel's up card 18 an Ace, an tldtl/llotull wager
18 allowed before the draw. After c~klng his hole cards,
, pJtqp may put up an tuldltlOnal side bet equal Ill most
10 hall his original bet. After the player has decided
whdlter t11' not 10 do this, the tleoler checb hi.$. bole card.
·lf.lhe. Utzle~ has a natural, the Iitle bet wins tWice its
·11111tJU111. lfi/Je dealer does not _ltllve a l'llliUTtll, the side bet
u 'lost tilld the plt,zy continues. The original bel is settled in
the ll$l!lll way, regardless of the slde bet.
SupPose. for instance. that the player makes the side
· ·bet. aDd that tho dealer hal a natural and the player. does
· DOt. The player then loses his original bet but wins ~e
same amount back on the side bet, for no net loss or gam.
This is why tho side bet is referred to as -msutance." Many
of. the casinos. Jn northern Neyada do not allow inaurance.
u0r do thO automatic blaOtjack macldnes.
CU81om8 mid Praf:dea.
. . There are customs and practices ccmnected with tl1e
pne pt ·bJackjack which are not to be thought of as. part
of the ~-They 'YarJ_ enaticaDy from_ cuino to .casino,
~-in the same caaU1o oa different shifts. aad smno-
l " TM
I
an4
~utes 0/ Blac1cfack.
:=,::.~~:.::.:; == 15
there are therefore threo Shifts of employees.~ Puerl,o
Rico the casinos are perally open from about 8 J'.V: ·to .
4 A.M.. so there is only cmo sbift.) Th~ customs and
practices will have Httlo bearing on the basic strategy of
Chapter 3 but will. be of interest in connection with tho
winning strategies to be discussed subsequently. ·.
Shuffling. It is a custom that the dealer can sbnftle at
any time between bands. Also the ·\'lealer sbuflles In· the
midst of tho play of a band if the" deck is exhausted. ·A
dealer whO sbufiies in the mltlsl of tho play of a hand
when unused cards remain is probably a c~ The playel'
may request a sbuftle between bands.- Some dealers compf7
and some rcfuso.
We shall refer to the practice of unnecess8rily fro.
quent sbufDing by 1be dealer as "sbufile up." . .
ShiliL. A sbill is a-house employee who bet&moDe)'·
.l ·.and pretends to be a pJaJer in order to attract cust'omell
' or to stimulate play. Shills may or may oot be used in a
pen casino at a given ~e. . .
Shills generally follow "shill rules"; I.e., they uever
doublo down, _split pairs, or insure, and they stand on ~
. totals of 12 or more. They often foUow Ulo dealer'• rules ·
for drawing or standing on soft totals. If the sbD1 does nat
follow a fixed strat&!gy ho may be helping the dealer and/or ·
Jiouse to cheat the players (sec our 1atec discussim of
-anchor men"). · ··
New ~. Tho player by custoiD. but uot ueces:.
sariiy by law, is supposed to be able to reque$t a new deck
whenever he wishes. Generally new decks are ~-spread
face down. Among other tbfngl. this gives the. ·dealer a
chance to check the backs of tho car(1s for hn~ODI
that in. tum could be used by the player to identify cants
when they are faee down. -Then tho cards aro -~ face
1' up~ 'Ibis gives the player a Chance to see that no ~da
llavo- been removed fcom or added to the cfeck(s).
~-·
J
- --... -~~~~~,.-.---~,_~·....---~-..--.- --~~-
~- ·:.~;~-~::?f' ~·-tu~-~~-;;?M;;;.
·: .. ' ;&1
'.3 -
_The Basic Strategy
During one Christmas vacation, my wife and I decided to
relax from mj' teaching duties at tho University of California
at Loi Angeles by spending a few days in Las Vegas. We
-~ had been there before, but we were not gambJtrs. We
~ t,!le shows. the luxurious low-cost _mc8ls.. and· iD sea-
IOD. the swimming poOls.
-· . Before we took the trip, Professor · Sorgenfrey of
U.c.L.A. told me of a recent artide in one of the mathe-
matics journals [2). The article descn"bed a strategy for play-
Ing _blackjack that allegedly limited the house :ro the tiny
owi'alf edge of o.62 per cent. • Because thiS figure is so
._ly even, and So much better for the player than in any
Other casino game,· I wrote tho- strategy on a little card and
cainecfit on our trip. ,. . . _ ·.
When I _arrived at the blackjack tables, I Purt?hasCd
· , .. • Mr. Wilbert B. Caatey lias told us that an error in aritlunetfc.
4llaoverecl after [2) aa4 [3) were pu~ allows that the figure gfvea
for 0. ·boase adYIIIItage should baWl belen 0.32 per Cent. rather thall
.o.6a per.~ 'l'ho cprrcct· lpro for their llrl&te&Y ia· a p1tqtr advaDtap
~~~~ . .
. . •16•
.
-=-. .. ..,..Jy---.-.-------17-l
-;:BU;-:::-c-::StrtM:c
"'"":c
·r· = silver dollars. 1 did not expect to w1n but wantect to . .
how long my stack would Jut. as wen as to try out ibfs
I strategy "under fire." - ,
I In a few moments tho slowness of my play and the
1 little card in my palm had attracted amused bystander& Tho .
I dealer could not conceal his scom for one more •ayaraa•
player. These sentiments wero soon iaced with. pity whea
these people saw· tho way I played. Who 'Plit a pair of
lowly FJghts-and doubled tho amount of mouey being
. ~ed-when the dealet's up card was the powerful Ace?
Had anyone ever ·seen a player who doubled dowD- on
(A~) against a Five or who chose to stand on a piteous sa
(hard) against a Four?
To add to this poor beginner's misery, tho dealer was
having a very strong run of 1uct. Every player at the table
was losing heavily. Surely my tea •Cl'1J~Jlbr would 100a ho
swept away. Or would the.Y7 Somehow these weiR!-~
kept .tumiD! out right. As o~ !layers lost heaps of-~
my liUio stack held. It even iDchocl up ODCO. After twelltJ
1· miiJiltes most of it was sdD thae. Bcgimleta tact. .
. . ~ a strange thing happened. I wu dealt (A.2"J. I
drew a Two, and then a Three. I DOW~ (A,2,2,3}, a so{t
18. The dealer had a N'mo up. but ho might haw W It-
Only a foc>l would dJaw again and • tho Clesiiucdon 4
~a~ ~ I consulted my card and drew. With 110
Jitt1.e satisfactiOn and several ~~tsk's," the amu8od oD-
~brs.. saw me.. ~w a Six. Hard 14.J "Serves. mo . ~-• I
__ ._rig&_
~ an .A£o which gave me liard 15. Tough luck;. f4tew
~.A six! I DOW held (A,2,2,S.6..4,6) or-~ ai.
This JS an event so rare that it only u.ppeas OJXO De.r
~eral thousand hands. . . · - · "'-
'. · After a moment of ahock; some of the. bystanders saicJ
I _bad ~.........a ....,;...
$25 -~ • • The dealer- .:..·~~ · ·
- . couung . . P1V -No".......
..
was Ulll)' .r- at a few places fa .Reno. I wa$ ~Or
~a-bon~ But_ I thought lt_mlght be~-~
the DnpreSSion4bat I had saerific:ed my soft 18 ~-~
Ff:';-~~ - -- ;~-AT-THB DB-~~-;~---r fti: Baslc'Siiizi6gy It
r . foresaw the seven-card 2I. "And who knows, they migh~ .· f /
1
even pay me." Of oourse they did not. But the amusement } De P~s DeclsloM
· and._ ~nizing attitude of some _bystanders change4 to - . As we saw in the last chapter, the game begins Wid&-
~ to attentiveness. and even to gopse pimples. · certain prelfmlnades. When the players arc seated, tho
· After another fifteen minutes-and after the oblitera- deck is shufDed by the dealet and cut by a player, and the
i-. don by the dealer of all my fellow players-1 was .,ehind a cfealer burns a card. After the playm ·have plaeed their
total of eight and one-half silver doUars and decided to stop. , bets on the table in front of them. the dealer gha two
But the atmosphere of ignorance and superstition that per• • cards to each player and to himself. As mentioned' pro.
· vaded my little ~ence securely planted in my mind the - 1 · viously, one of the dealer's cards is up and the other dOw&
~n _that even "good~ players did not know the funda· - At this point the player must make a number of decf...-

if·
•181$ of this game;. 'Ibetl: might be a way to beat it. •
When I returned home, I began an ~ve study of
·
sions. The principal ones are whether to split a pair, if he,
has one; whether to double down or DOt; and whether to
- _• · thO:~. I was convinced at once that a winning system stand or draw. In general. whlit the player should do ~ ·
eQUid be devised with the help of a high-speed electronic pends on ,the cards he holds, Oli die dealer's up C8ld, au4

,
!

•· •1he
calculator. As the first step in_finding such a system, I used

the above episode. It is thiS revised version-which I call

, on any other cards the player may have teen. However,
an mM 704 computer to. improve the strategy discussed in . f· in .this chapter the player completely ·Ignores an- cardl
, Jae Jlas aeea except his own hole cards aud the deaiefs up
the "basic strategy':-that you will learn ·in this .chapter. It f 6l,td. no-
basic strafe&Y, pen ill this chapter. is tho best

!
foundation for the winning strategies otla• chapters. + . pt)#lble way to play witla this iDfonnation. aso. Later, we
. . ~ show that iD. a typical casiRo ~pajer who , shall.l!nprove our atrategiea by using the 1cDoWJedp gaiDec1
- 1ises-•-1he comet basic strategy has an edge of 0.12 per_cent t • bodl frOm the playet's seeiDg which can;fa were eonsnmecl
- over the housi In some casinos the player actually has a 1 --~ -~ ~- of play 8ll4 8lso- from his - . , OD--
i mwow advantage of -aS much as o.6 per cent. In casinos ~·- :-~---_ eunea-~-'IOillld. of
. t-_ .. play. exposed cards other dum Jds
I
1
•.._ the
• Wlu-& m
ost ad -·t-.. th . 1
verse '"'- e p ayer
has di d · own hole cards and-~ ~~ up card.
a sa vantage i . . The player's. by decisioDs (pair splitting, ~Wiag
·
Il of ·-less· than. t pet cent. Against some- of the autOmatic i. -$landin_g .Qr drawina) Dnd the order in whicb M
. . . . . . . _ -__ -.

l: blackJack machines, the basic-strategy player should. theo- uy_w~ ···--o

~- retit;ally have an advantage of 1.6 per cent and be able to , lfl#kes them are illustrated ia Fipre 3-I.
l- win consistently. For details, see Chapter 9· Tlw· Bosic Strategy for Drawing or Standing
Time and time again you will need to use this_ basic ·. In the great majority of hands ~ player will Deftlle&o
-_ strategy while "waiting" for more favorable betting situa- '· split ,a p~ nor double down. ~ his decision is~,.
lions.~- arise. It must be ~ completely ~emorized that to·~ ho should draw or stand. Since this deciSion. is
any decisiOn it calls for.can be made without hesitation. •. the ~~ana most important part of the. strategy, we
.- •'111cre will ba DWlJerOIII anec:doles aDd fDcidents ~ our sball -~ li 1itst. -porarily negJectiog dae· poss,ibJiidet
~ ia .actual -,Jay. They are here to male tlaluJs "cGme a11vo.• · of.-_·.· · Uttin and dnt.J.rn.~ down. _ · ·
l1le .-dor • c:autiOnCcl tbat oae ~ a lew iDddeafi ltioul4 DOt Ill .c ~~a ~ ~~ Ta~ .1 in Orc1et to. do-
3
. ~be _CCJIIItnled .. ~ evfdem:e for 1M .,.... . ' c . .

l ;
 BEAT .THB l>.i.ALl!R f -·The Bdifc· ifridegi -it ·
[ l1aid hand. You stand OB hud 1ofats of I7 or mote. )'011
l ckaw with hard totalS of 16 or leis. When the dealer 4owB
:f a Six ·as an up card, the standing number drops tO 12! Now ·
p stand on 12 or more and draw on II or~ _
The persoa who is CODifortable ~the baste~
can add,the refinements no~ They''happen to wtor.-a .
dealet's up card of Ten. The rCfinemeDt for totaJa of Jll1d
J
16 against a Ten actuaJ1y c:onsi4ers cards Jn additioa to tflo
t player's hole cards. This anticipates later.~ • · ·_
Nodce-IJso· that if you stand on a gtven total agaiDst '
a dea&'s given up card. you also '!aDd on an high« totala
3.1. Tile Player•s Key Declsiold.
agaiDst that up card. SimDarly, if you draw on a givea total
8gaiDst a given up 'card. you also draw to an lower tota1l
,-

.• • Jteeal(•that•hel! a pair of Acts arc apUt, 7011 arc obliged to stand after 1Jei!la
• deolt cme card on each Ace. agaiDst tbat up Card.
clde whether'- to stand on your current total or draw one

~;
or mo~ additional cards in an effort to improve your hand.
· Notice that Table 3.1 recommeJKI~ drawing on aU
~~· . llard totals of I I or less. Th~ is reasonable because a player
':";_~-->W!w dOe$- this cannot bust and must increaact Jli$· totaL

• / You Dealer shows

I Jll· --------. .
a· 4
....,.._
s •· 7 ·a
~

- t 11 4 5 6 7 i ·g 10 .. A
17
I- 16
15
14
[3'
.. -·.-· ..• ,--_r_~,
~ ,;,~'ltandi{Ja mnnbetS
•Holding liard 16. 1lraw H you llold two. cards, -'1 (lOA or (9.7). and
ltand if you hold three of mor. cards, fol' -mple. (6.4.4.2). ·
tStaad haklin& (7,1) a_gainsUO. ·

' ·, '!:able 3·1 is a pictorial Jist of "hard_standing numbers.•

The harcl staJKiing number for a certain dealer's up _cant is
simpty th~ smallest total you stand on ag~ tha~ up cat:t~.
·~or eXample, 'if the dealer. shows a Seven,. tlJejt_ Ta9le J.I
~ ihostand.ing number iS 17. ThiS is yoq{pu with a
~-; '

l;:
l 2::1 BBAT TBB DBALBK
~~.it can be countc:ct ~~-~.if nec:essUy~ ~;, oth~
caN wiU haYe a DUJ:Derica1 value-of 10 or less. .·
· ~ tho player with a soft tOtal of 16 0r lesi c8miot
bust by drawing one moro card. he cannot make his total
pOorer. Tbis is .because aD fbiaJ. or "standing.• totals of I 6
or less are equivalent. If you stand ·and tho dealet busts.
· you win ~ same amoun~ no matter what yOUr total is.
Whether 1t lS 16 or less than 16 mnes no dift'erence. If
you stand on 16 or less and tho dealer does not bust, then
. by. the ~les he must have _ended _up with a total between
17 and ~I. Thus he automatically beats all totals of 16 and
. uadcf. 'I'heiefore, ~you draw io soft 16 or less, you ~t
· Jiarm yourself~ In fact, you may even be able to help your-·
self. For example, on holding (A,s}, you improve your
dmnces to tic or win if the card. you draw is any one of tho
group At2~.4.s: C?n .holding _(A,2,A), you improve your
chances to tie or wm if tho card you draw 1s any one of the
group 3.4,S,6,?.
I ~ _ · · . When drawing to a soft 17~ there is a small possibility
J efbls. If you stand and the dealer alsO hu 17, .:you will tie
Jdnt and -thus avoid losing your bet. However, lr you draw
t _- to soft 17, you may convert your hand into a hard hand
I that totals less than 17. If you then stand on· this, you are
! worso off than before, for the dealer may ~nd up with exact-
ly 17 and n~ you lose, whereas y~ would b~ tied. Ifyou
draw to thiS hard band, you may bust and .,_ at once.
I" Po~ example. with (A,3.3)=soft 17, suppose a Five is
, draWn to make (A,3.3.SJ=bard 12. If the dealer shows a
[ · Rve. Table 3·• recoDunends standing. If tbe dealer shows
t. an Ace, tho tal:ile recommends drawing. tf a T-eA is drawn,
Mfttach (AJ,3,s,zo)=22 (even counting thO Abe as one)
and bust. '• - and~ if your soft total is greater tban or equal to this.
~te this chance of making your hand poorer by
drawmg to a soft 17, calculations show that this risk is more
~ o~ by the possibility of improving your han(l1'Jul$.
.with (A,6), you may draw an A,2,J, or 4, all of~hiGh ill}-
~tr~ .~
· 1. :. ;r ,... draw • s.6.7J1.9• .,.
p do JJ4t bust. You still have another draw~ if you wislt..
. . with which to try for a good total. . · ·
' . It sometimes. takes a little· wiD power to follow th~
'Instructions. More than once I have been confronted with
heart-stoppers like this. I was playing a "big:.money" gan:ao
in ~ certain Nevada casino. By tho card-counting methodS
of later chaplm, I knew...:.tbat I bad as per cent ecJ&e on
tho 1mt ~ of play. Therefme, I had placed the maQ.
,_ mum bet of Ssoo. The ~~ up card was a 7· I was
dealt (J4,6), a soft 17. Since the remaining~ in tho
deck consisted largely of Tens, I was fairly certaiB- that
tho dealer had 17. Since thecc were only four canfa that
would help me-the A.2.3.4-8Dd- five tha.t would. hurt ·
me-the s.6..?,8,g,1 was reluctant to draw and was.inclhled
to play for .a_ de. Neverthc!lees, I grittect my- teeth and,~
I once, rec:dring an 8. I now held hard IS. I held my -~tla.
' and drew again; this time I RCeived an Ace. I now held
._.d 16. Resignedly, I drew again. ~my lllllaZC)o
ment-a 3· I now decided to stand with my hard 19. \VbeJl
the deaior exposed; his handJ to my surprise he held •
happeaed to be the only Ace yet UllaCCOUDted for (oQOlaad.
already appeared on an earlier round of play).~- -·
to tho rules-Oi the game he wauequired to stand. The basic
strategy not only produced. the one line of play .that c:oqkf-
ave the $soo. it doubled the PlO!ley besides. ·
We see from Table 3.2 that there are minimum staJtd-
Jng numbers for 80ft hands similat to those.for. har4 ha1lds. ·
~you should draw if your sott total is less tbaa the _soft
~number given for tho current up cant of the dealer,
._ . ,bcr. The reader w)J.o practices with the basic_
.. 'SOOI)lcnow the ~g uumbeis well enougll --
tq __ .. with TAbles 3.1 JQ~d 3-2. . . -_. -·
. .::J,Jiti~ llQW. that you go iQ.to a ~- tq practice
Ulijjlf_(lltlmding uumbers. You never double down, never
 ~----~--~-----.-

BBAT THE DBALB:R < •

'split pairs, and never h1sute. How will you do? Suiprisingly ,Tbe Bqsit: S~rategy - , .-~S
«iough, tho casino edge win be only about z·percent. Your ··~ is done only on totals of 13 or more. Sof(d.b~
game is alteadyctose to~ It is better than tbe methods dOwn .on a total of 12 is sometimes better thaa. draWing.
recommertded. until recently by die worlcfa fotemoSt ·card - But-.soft 12 means a pair of Aces. It i&:mnch better to split
experts (see. for example. [8]). the Aces instead of doubling down with t:hem.
Observe that the player always doubles dowa. on bard
The Basic Strategy for Doubling Down . u. With hard 10, the player doubles down except against
· The part of the strategy which is next in importance,
1
! :an Ace or a Ten. Hard 10 is a less favorable tOtal t1ian
u well as next in simplicity, is hard doubling down. It is , hard II, except when an Ace is drawn, becauso tJ» total
probably DlOl'O couvenient to. postpone memorizing the ft the P.layer obtains when doubling down on hard 10. is ()ne
·IOft.doubling-d strategies untU after pair splitting has less than the total that he would }lave obtained by doubling
·· beea learned.· But- for cOmpleteness, we $hall aTso discuss down on hard II. Hard 9 is even less favorable thali hard.
10ft doubling down now. · r xo, and with hard 8 the player rarely doubles down. In fac:t.
AI indicated in Figure 3.1, the decision about whether -1he situations where you doub~. d~ with hatd 8 are so
· · or not to double down must be made before that about tate; and the gains are so slight, fh:at you can neglect them
drawing versus standing. This· decision is made by using ·with practically no loss. ·
Table 3·3· The poJSible up cards ot the dealer are aga~
listed across the top of the table, and the player's totals f~- _-·
are listed in the column on the teft. In order to decide
.mether to double down, first see if· your total~ in
tho. column on the left. If it does not appear~· ,OU 'Should \ .
. DOt double down; instead, proceed to the next decision. t
whether to draw or stand. If your total does appear. run f
i clown the calumn belqw the dealer's up card until yo~ ~ .
reach the row in which your total appelll'S on·the left. If r

l the· sqww at this location is -shaded, ctome -down. Note (

that the table bas two parts. One part is for soft hands •
. • Cauble down
D no nor double-
ba,.,
~dOwn wilt (A,A) only if Aces cannot

l! .only; the other is for hard hands only.

To illustrate the use of Table 3.3, suppose that the
dealer shows a 3 and you have been deaft (A,6J, or soft 17.
On locadng the· appropriate square you find ihat it is
I
l
ahaded. Therefore you double down. . ;
i Tbero are S8'Vetal tbings to notice in Table 3·3- Ptrst. '
! there is no total on which the player -doubles down regard- -~ IIlii Double down
' less of whether it iS hard or soft. Second, hard doubling ' D oit not doulll8 dowiJ
.cfown is done only on totals of I 1 or less._ and soft dOubling .·:,._.·~~>.,~dolon.-Pt"""(6JO.
. f . . .~:
rc--;,.-.. UU' TBa--.. DhLlfll .....-s~
---.-,

it-
.--· -~A. conspicuo111 feature of. the table is that soft doubling '< Oneo you have.raasteted the ltr8tegy fer ltar4 doubt-
•

.«twn is never recomDiended against 7.&.9,10; or A. mg. JOD furthei cat thocaSiao'aecJge tom thaa 1 per cat.
It is hard to explain the doubling-down strategies
without using mathematics. Biit experience in actual play Tbi Boslc Sttrltegy for Splitting Ptllr.f
10011 engraves them on the memory. I always remember After memorizing tho strategy for drawing and stancJ.
to double down on soft 13 against a Five because of a ing and for bud doubling (soft doubliug too, if tho rest il
hand 1-played at the Silver Slipper in Las Vegas. On this easy), you am mady to add pair splitting to your repertoire.
occasioa, my friends and I bad gone to see whether this Tho detalJal_pair-splitting str8tegJ will be deacribed,' fol..
casino would cOntinue to play when we began to win sub- lowed by a simple way to 1eam it. ·
&Wltial aunounts. 1 was varying my bets from $1 to $10. If )'OU have a pair. Figure 3-1 shows that the fttst decl-
' ,{A variation of $1 to $3 would be wiser at present, now sion you have ~to mate. before both doubling dowa and
f': that thOusands of readers of Beat the Dealer have infticted drawhig or stJmding. ia w~ or nOt to spHt it.. You C8A
f .bloody losses on ~e casinos. r Because I had frequently 4ecido this by using Table 34 In that table tho possible
.•. bet_ooly $1, we agreed that I was not to raise ·my bets ·r· up aida of tho dealer am listed in a lOW llCl'OSI tlle- top
. above $1o-to do so wouk1 attract attention. However, and tho possible pain of tho plaJar·am-liated in tho columa
!. a juicy situation arose (a 6 per cent advantage). 1 could on f:ho left. If you havct a pair. IUD &nm tho column be-
not teSist! I shoved out $30. To my satisfaction the dealer's
up card turned out to be a Five, tho most favorable card . with
· . fOr the player. Confidently I tutnccl up my (A,2) hole cards
your.,.
low tho ~ up caret until you gel to tho mw.labelo4
If tho square at this locadOa ta b1aDk, do
.. JlOt split your pair. Proceed immediately to Table 3·3· If
and doubled my bet. I did not bother to loot :at the down tho . . js shaded, tint split JOUr pair aud thell,go 01110
QU'd that was dealt to me beCause I expected the dealer Table ·3·3- If you have no pair, as is tho c:aao about six
_to..have a~ down and then to draw another card, busting 1 1fmea out of sevea, skip Table 34 altogether aDd go 6
bimself. To my horror tho dealer's hole card was a.Four. zectty to 4'8bte 3·3· .
·· Be drew the CJq*ted Ten for a total of 19. I was resigned · If Table 34 seems imposing. you may replace it by
to • loss when the dealer turned up my hole card to settle -~- t~pproxlmate set of ruleL They am: .alW&JI split Aea
. the·bct. It was a Seven! i · aDd Bights; never split Foun, Fives. or Tens: split tho Other
·. - There was a strange expression oil the dealer's face. t parr._ whoa· tho dealer shows 2 tluough 7· Tile bea'V)' 1iDea
· · Luck. by itself was one thing. but my huge bet in adv~ in Teblo 3-4 DKficate this set of rules. Notice that,_., . .
naade it &eei.Jl- like I could foretell the future (which 1 .~iDtroducesonly1iveerron. Some of tbeseerroa
~-of course. to a limited extent, although iD this ease .--quito large. but becauao. the sttuatious arise iafrequently,-
I-was quite wrong about the detail$). ·What the deater did ...elf~'l.is to add only o.13 per c:ent to tho Oftl81l hoUse
not realize•was that he was as lueky to have a Fout under~ -~,.().aeo you haft Jeamecl to lise. theae· .approxt.
neath u I was to draw a Seven.· Orie of the characteristics . . .~~·~_with ywr-doub~·--
of the basic strategy is that it m~ those who use it . ~ Jlrategy.. you . . ready fo.Jeaar
considerably ..luckier" than the average player. In thi$ m.

li~~~~~-•~u
&taDce. my "luc:It- proved embarrassing~ ·
1
~h-
31
28 -B-:&A'r THB :DB-ALia
~;~er to team by•visualizinfthe ammgc!uu:nt of the ~'·-,ulO~ from the book and used while playing., As. )'OR·~
·Oeano more expert you will consult the card lesS frequent~)'
~quares. For ·example, the .infonnatioq in forty of- the~--·~ finally not at alL
squares is contained in the.. rule "Alwa~ split Aces and
Eights, never split Fives and Tens... There are "reasons.. · What to Expect When Using the Basic Strategy
tor these rules that may help yau to retain them. • Aces You are now familiar enough with the basic strategy
~ould be. ~!it because there is a very good_ chance of get- to try it out in aCtual play. If a casino is not available and
ung a wmntng. hand-even 2I-with each of the new you play at home, be sure that tho set of casino rules we
hands, whereas the original hand (A,A) is only fair for have adopted are in force. This will mean a CODSkterably
· doubling down or for drawing or standing. differentprocedure from that usually employed in a home
_game, but perbaps your friends will go along in the interest
of learning something new about blackj*
A The following data may enCO\U'Ilgo yon to tty tho
basic strategy at the ~ in. spite Of tho fact that whea
you use it you are still, in general.· s,lmply _playing about
even with the house. Table 3.6 descn"bes the possible out-
comes that can be expected if_ IOO hands (~ from
· : thirty mitmtes to one and one ball -ho1U8 of··playfag time,
- . depending on the speed of the· dealer and tho .J~Uin1)er. of
• Spiii_Piir players at the tabl~). are played at $I pet hand, an~ also if
CJDonatsp&r,_ I,oOo hands (generally from five to :fifteen hours of
· If the dealer has a 1.8,g,ro, or A up, Eights should be playing timo, depending on conditions) are played ·llt
split, not so much because a good total will be· obtained · $I per hand. If the amoun~ ~ per hand is ditiereDt. just
· · ,With each new hand, but rather because I 6 is, in ge~l, a multiply all dollat values· by the appropriate DUIJlber•. Por
bad total to hold. The reason that I 6 is unfavorable iS this. example,· if you bet Ss per hand, multiply by s; if }011
. When the dealer's up card is 7 or high~, beis·n6t likeiy ~sol per hand, multiply by o.so (or divide by 2) •. Tho
. to- bU$1; ·and if be does not bust, he is sure to beat I 6. Thus, .. average gain after one thousand $I bets is $I. Afte.t ·one
z
tho splitting of Eights against through A "breaks up" a hUndred $1 bets, the average gain is IO#.· Thus we regard
· ~ •l:timd. · the basic ~tegy as essentially even: ~ real advallttge
I~ turns out that the new hands _are not:Vf!rJ unfavor- ' for either side.
a?le (1n fact, they have about an av.e,rage chance Of win- Bat~ et al. (3] report the results in Table 3·7 with·
JW1g), and even 1hough you are staking more money, y9ur their strategy (it ~ essentially tho samo · as
the· basic
~).
. • These *reasons• are onty a yery crude picture of the actual state · ,- · -Who number of hands· play'ed in each. group is near
. of affairs. &be precise. situation .is given ill U4e Ap~ We give ~ to 000 if n-tMad the .. - t - - of .hands
· ..reasons" here t? help you 1ix the rules iif your mind witJiou~ M.flng • ~ . I, . • we r~
t h a t .·

SO nu..u.u,.- ·
.to worry .about mvotved mathCilUWcal Rofnts.
Ulistance might c:onsUk [14}.
no. wJIO ..........
.' - .·
-·. . . iii-.-(JOO each time hl Table 3·7• we caa '&180 the
. _......
 -· ... - - ------~~--~~:-:---:c--
&zslc
. ..
··~ ~.- ~_~~~--~-- -. -~

~~-·
-:;.·
.. ~- -. 33~
~

33 BBA'f· TiiB Ji~A.L'ltll '

TABU! 3.6•.
..
RalllU V.slng tb BaSii:' Straleg1.
.
' .. .-•.· second part of Table 3.6 for· a rough check of ~ JeSUlts
Of'I1able 3·1· Everything is normal- except for the awing
If 100 hands ~ playcd,at $1 per ha~ .,
fiof4s6. This awing, jf it is not the result of causes .other
approximate the result. is* than chance, is a. rare event. Table 3.6 tells us that ~
per cent of 1,00o hiuads are played, the chance of a awing of -$56 or
time that between and
more is less than o.I per· cent. With a smaller number of ..
0.01 -$19.9 'below hands, in this case 770, the chance of such a swing is even
0.1 -149 -$19.9
2.1
13.6 -
- 99
'49
--
-149
4.9
less. In fact, calculations show that if 770 hands are played
at $1 per hand, the probability that tho player will lose
-34.1 0.1 4.9 Ss6 or more turns out to be approximately o.oi per cent;
34.1 S.1 0.1 that·IS, the odds against this are about Io,ooo to I.
13.6 10.1 S.l
2.1 lS.l 10.1
0.1 20.1 15.1 Comparison with House Percentage Agm'nst Other
0.01 abovo 20.1 Blaclcjack Strategies and in Other Game1
If 1,000 hands are played at $1 per band- We remarked earlier that the basic strategy is better
approximate the result is* than other blackjack strategies and that it is also better
l . per tent of than any published strategy for any other gambling game.
I
time .that between and T~les 3·8 and 3·9 illustrate how much better it is.
0.01 -$62.2 below
TABLB 3.8. Thtt Ba.dt: Stl'(ltt/81 Comporeil wldJ Oihttr
0.1 -46.4 -$62.2 Blackjtlck Stl'(ltttgitl~o ·
2.1 -30.6 -46.4
13.6 -14.8 -30,6 BlacJtjack strategy Player's advantage (in per cent)
34.1 r.o .:.. 14.8 . +0.1 is typical; rangoa roughly fJOGl
34:1 16.8 1.0 -1 to +1
- 13.6 32.6 16.8 card -3.2 .
2.1 48.4 32.6 -5.1
u 64.2 ~.4 -2.00 to -15.00
0.01 above 64.2 -6.0 (estimated)
' .
......... lllllllliiD ln4lcale .....
. Some Common Blackjack En-oil
The basic strategy for blackjack was first published
(with a few insignificant• errors) by Baldwin et al. [21
TAB~ ]·'· Ruulu tJ/ Blzldwln, et lltl. .
fQur years before .this book was begun. Nevertheless black-
Nu,mbll' of hands playecl Gain
930 $38.50 ( jack strategies containing gross errors continue~ appear.t

-
770
1140
690
'3S30
-.56.00
-4.!10
-4.00

-426.00
'
... •We caD them insl~ because thoy cost tho player on tho
average a mom 0.04 pee ceut of hil action.
.· fin tliJa aectiOil we are ~ tho basic strategy_ with only
atratog1es fJl which completli
~ ~-which do aot COUDt card~.
composition is assumed. tha&

·,

f ...
~~ c -~ :.>. --
..
-~ ; ---"?"-.;·-..:-;.;~ /~;.:i; ~:.;;::""-<?.:--- < .·-- ;
 3S
.TABLB 3.9. Till Btalc Strtrt•gy· Compol'ftl with But Plfl1 ·FintExpqimmt: Drawing Versus Standing HoT.ding
in Other Casino Gamu• . -. _ . · Bard_ z6 Agai11St an Ac~
Player•s advantage (besfplay) Table 2a shows us that the player who draWs rather
Game (in .per ee~)
than stands on hard 16, when the dealer bas an Ace show-.
+0.13; rallge$ roughly from ing, gains· an average of 14.6 per cent in such situations.
--1 to +i Put another way, to stand rather than diaw on luu'd 16
. crap -1.40 (may drop as low •
-o.6: see [80]) · costs the player an average of 14.6 per cent The fOllow.
JOUfette (Europe) -J;3S ing experiment is designed to verify this. Reuiove a... Ace
.• roulette (United States) -2.70 to -5.26 ~a complete deck and place it face up on the tal)Je.·-pua.
Nevada~lll'llt -1.06 (banker); see [70]
-1.24 (player); see [70] represents the dealer's up caret Next, write the number 16
-1.52 b average; ranges fi'Olll on a _card or paper and place it in front o~ yourselt This
-30.0 to 0; see [80) represents your hard total. · · .
Of oourse this does not correspond exactly to the. real
• Card C01IlltCn Wbo -'stently make 8'ftiiMIIOIIeY bets (0 per CCDt edge) - . situation. In a game the cards that the player actually has
frawtaed \II>OIJ 111 llle operaton et Ibis vlllllshlns pme. The variation In advantage
wbldl Is li'fell -
Cll'ds plaJed. .
1111& tile piQW II aware of lbe cue keeper't RCOrd al drawn to make up his total of hard. 16 will alter tl\e. ad- . _
vantage in drawing. Conceivably, if enough small cards . -
In the discussion to follow, we shall formulate experiments used to -c;omprise the tata1. it may even be. wise to stand. For
to demonstrate several of the more obvious of these errors. exmnple, consider the very close decision as to wliether. 10
Some of the experiments will take the reader less than an atand or draw when holdiiJg hard 16 and the dealer's up
hour~ Bach _reveals the error in one of the commonly recom· cant is aTen. According to Table 2a, drawing is favored
-, mended syst~ by comparing with it a feature of the basic
umte~. _
. The ~periments should convince anyone wJJ.o tries
_ the player's bard 16 totalis composed of (4. 4, 4, 4),-*
o-Yer standing for an·average gain of 2-9 per cent. But·Wbea

precise figure is 6.382 in favor of standing. acc:ordi!lg_to

them that the basic strategy is correct on these points and
that the other strategies are seriously in error. Study of
these experiments should enable you to formulate your
own ~riments for testing the gross differences between
lf the basic strategy llJ!d any :()ther strategy. We can, in prin-
l ciple, test tmy discrepancy, not merely the large ones;· in
-~ the case of close decisiops, however, the experinients are
li unpleasantly. long.
11 Tables teferred to in the rest of this chapter are in
. , the Appendix. Th~ is no n~ now to refer to or ~-
-~ • _stand these tables. The important thing is to get the idea
] of how to ~ ~ stratcay by uperimeat.
~
l.H. Braun. ·. · ·
· ·, The objection to-_the use of a. paper total in our ~
meat is answered as follows. A player could replace our
atperiment ~one in which he played a reiJl game of black-
jack and kqit a record of the re.sults of standing vemia
drawing in this situation. His average long-run result W01lld
be. within a few tenth$ of a per eent of the 14.6 per cent
figure based on paper totals. Therefore much time and ··
trouble C8ll be saved by a paper-total experiment. The same
CODSid.erations apply to the other experiment& ·· .· ·• -·
. ·,; Let'• ~m to- our -eXperiment. S1utftle the• deck 1Uid
~ 200 dealer "JwldsP as folloWs.· Assume you stantl' on

~
!:r i

r;f ~~~-,"'--~,__,__: ~
'
16 and deal a card to the dealer (his hole card). If he gets ·: "'s,cond Experimmt: Doubling DOwn on Hard 10
a natural, discard the Io-value card and dc:f'not reeei'd the
. result. We do this because .the question of whether or not .
·to draw on hard 16 arises only if the dealer has already
checked and found he has no natural. If the hole card is
not a Ten, continue dealing until the dealer ·either busts
or achieves a total, soft or hatd, .of 17 or more. If the.
~r busts, you win. If he does not bust; you lose.. Record
the result. Discard the used cards and deal another hand.
When 100 "hands" are dealt in this fashion the player w111
win, on an aver11ge, about I7 of the hands and lose the
.rest. This follows from the assertion Of Table 3, that the
player wJ,.o stands on I 6 when the dealer &bows an Al:e
loses.at the rate of .66 per cent.
. · Next, deal 200 hands as folio~ Give the dealer one
card (his .hOle card). If it is a Ten, discard it and deal
· anOther card, for the same reasons as before. Now assume
you draw e~ctly one eard to a total of I 6. If you bust, you
1,.
l. !Qse. Discard the card and record the loss. If yoti do not
!.·· bust you have ahard total between I7 and 2I~ Stop draw-
j ing to. your own hand and, if necessary, prOceed tosfvo tho
j . dealer further cards until he either busts or gets a total of
a 17 or more. Record whether you won, tied, or lost, and
il continue.
,,
1
Your percentage of "wins" should be figured as the
~ .·. number of wins plus one half of the ties (to tie e~ry hand,·
1
r. for example, would be substantially.~ the same as winnincr
li -o
il half and losing half, for no net gain). ln1 this part of the
p· experlinent, the average number of. "wins" per IOO hands .
H should be 24·3· Thus, with 200 hands the average separa-
li tion between the two ways of playing harcl I 6 against an
\] As:e will be 2 x (24.3 - 17.0) or 14.6 hands. In each.
li part of the experiment, however, there will be chance deVia·
tions from the cited average totals. In -fact, I time in so,
11 standing on hard 16 against an Ace will produeo better
!L}. resu1ts, over 200 hands, than drawing. · .of each t)'pe should be decisive.
i,
r!i
~:.Co~
,,~8afnst an Ace
"''~ •· · This eiperiment is eonducted in much the same way
.·'tii the previous one. Select as hole cards (8,2) for the max•
1mum error of 6.1 per cent, in order to shorten the expedo
ment. This figure of 6.1 per cent is obtained from Table 4J,
where we see that, holding (8,2) versus an Ace, if "
·limply draw untU we reach a SUitable total, in the long l'11lr
We win about 8.6 per cent of our bet. However, if 'We
·double dOWn ~win only 2.5 per cent of our original bet
in the long run. The difference is· 6.1 per cent. Play about
· 400 hands in which you double down. Afterward, subti'act
the number of hands lost from the number of bands won.-·
Then double this number to take into 8CCount your doublecl
ttet on the double-down hands· This is your total profit iD
the 400 hands by doubling down against the Ace. Rem.em·
~ as before to disregard all dealer naturals in yaur talll·
·If the·deller has a Ten under, give him another hole car4-
- · · Next, play 400 hands in' which you follow the correct
draWing and standing strategy versus an Ace (Table 3.5);.
¥ottt wins minus your losses give your profit for the 400
1wlds. ·0n the average, in 400 handS you· will have~
excess o(-wms over losses of about 17.2 hands with draw-
ing and Standing. With doubling down, you will have an
.aYetage excess of wins·~ losses of s.o hands. . _
Third Experiment: Splitting 4 Pair of Sixea
A.gaiiut 4 Five
. ·~.. According to Table 4f. the gain here by splitting
- ra~r than s~ding is 17.2 + 10.2 or 27.4 per cent. if
JQU·.$114. you have a net lQss of 10.2 units per 100 bet&
· lf.yousplit, your 100 hands become 200 and you will win
,OOUt 17.2 more of those 200 hands than you loSe. You
!lave an average net gain of 27.4 units per 100 original
~ by splitting rather tbm,. ~ding. Fifty original hal$
 ---',

BEAT :FHB J)EALB:a ·>'-;.,.- ii ·...- .. . " 3n .

:.·-:tbe· Basic Strategy 7

Mimlc1cing the Dealer , - ~ -. _ ;~ draws to a posst'ble buSt hand. FirSt we note~ tlduneaas,
· t4e_player's hard standing. numbers are ~ 12. H~er,
i. · To quote Baldwi~ et at. [2·, ·p. 439], WJbe ~layer who · tJtO ·son standing numbers aro not. det~ ThUs ~·
t iDhnics the dealer, drawing to 16 or 1~. standmg on 17. unanswerable
problem is meaningless as .stated. ~mce 1t iS
*i or. more, never doubling down or splitting pairs, has an as it standS.. we assume soft standing numbers Of 1.7 au4
~; ' clpectation of --o.os6•• That is, the @aler. has a s.6 per proCeed. As we pointed out earlier. cOmmon senso dictates
·' Cent edge. · that the·soft standing number should always be -at least
11 Let Us illustrate the use of Table I by computing .a
17• We ~ that 18 is at~ys better than. 17, .so 17
ef figure for ·the player who mimics the dethaler. First. notice g(ves the player a greater average rate of loss ~ he
111 that when t1te player follows these rules, e game 1S sym· - wcSuld have with soft standing numbers of 18~ We wiD
~l metric except for two situations. If both the dealer and call a ptayer using this curlous stra~ "co~tive.~
,\ player bust, the dealer wins. Count the dealer as a bust if · ·we assert that the true figure for the house advantago
.j he would have busted supposiilg that, althousJl the player
bUsts and bets are settled, the dealer plays out his ·hand
8g8lnst a co~ve player is between 5 and 8 per cent.
1
Our evJdence comes from three sources. First, we ran. an
· anyway. This favors the dealer. The edge it giv~ him is . eipctiment In which six groups of xoo ~ds each wero .
I the pi'obabiUty that both dealer and player bust. Smce the. played with the conservative strategy. The number of pla~
! dealer • player are assumed to be using the s.ame stra· units lost ranged from 13 to 2. with an a~ge of 7· Tbi. -
J tegies, Table 1 (Dealer~s Probabilities) applies to both of apemezit with our figure of s to 8 per cent JS good. ~
thcn\....The overall probability of. each busting. is therefore the figure of 6oo hands was selected in advance and llot.
o.2836,and (asswning stochastic independence. DOt stricti? IDftUenc:ed by the results of the early hands, ~dard ~,
Wlid but good. in this instance to a high degree of appr?~ · · mulas from the mathematical theory of probability apply
IllAtion. whea the deck is nearly complete) the probability to this data. We conclude that the true figure· for the ho_ulo.
f of both busting is 0.2836 X 0.2836, or 8.04 per cent, ia advantage almost certainly JiCs between 3 and ~I per .Cent.
1· 'favor of the dealer, as a result of this factor. The second Second. we ran a hand calculation (which iS c:Omparatively
· 1
I·
:·::,-
1
nonsymmetry in the game is the fact- that the player wins
1.5 units when he has a natural and the dealer .does DQt.
The dealer, on the other hand, only wins one unit from tho
· ·e8.sy because of the low hard standing numbeD) tllat
proved that the true figure was wdl_below IP per ~
TJiird lind beat. BaldW. and his coauthors give a ftgum.
· piayer.when.he has a natural and the player does not. Thia

1
<,t
1
\l
t

·happens 4.68 per ~t of the time for ea<:h side; so the

player gains ·one half that amount, or 2.34 per cent from
of 4-25 F ow for the house advantage againSt a. player
wbo stands on hard- 12, ·never· doubles down, and spD.tl
A£es and Eights only. (They fail ~o specify the soft ~
l ~Jl this factor. Thu,s. the net 4ealer's edge is (8.07 .- 2.34). ... · ing miinDCts.) It can be shown that splitting Aces.~
1 or S·13 per cent. · • Eights adds Jess than 1 per cent to the player's adVa.ntage.
· ··. The 1:01TCCtion, if any, for ~t soft standing-aumbem
• The Player Who Never Brist8
. b also, overall, of the order of 1 or 2 per cent. ~ tho
l· . · Another interesting figure to calCUlate .is th~ ac:lvan·
true AgUre estimated frqm this ~co is between 5 or 6
~·;:·:. tago which the casino has against a player who never F cenc ana 8 per cent. - .
tl
~
 BBAT THB ~BALBB.

The Man Who Trimmed His Barber

The disadvantages of such conservative play are amus-
ingly illustrated by the experience~f "the man who trim·
4
med his barber,'' my friend Professor John Blattner of the
mathematics department of San Fernando Valley State
College.• ·
Blattner and his barber feU to talking about blackjack

l
. one day. When Blattner told the barber of his friend who
wrote a book' on how to beat blackjack consistently, the
.A Winning Strategy
.1
.li barber scoffed. "Why that's easy," said he. "Anyone can
Ji
win by just refusing ·to go bust (standing on· hard 12
t

. "i
'! always). mattner tried in vain ~o oonvince.the barber that
! he was wrong. Eventually the barber touted Blattner into
I
·a little game after closing hours. Blattner brought $x6o.
tI.
At Ss and $xo a hand,' the barber quickly lost an equal
amount. He constantly exclaimed that Blattner was tho
.l
.luckiest man he ever saw. After losing the $r6o, he refused
.' SO quit. He demanded the chance to get hi$. .money back. Ganl'blers soon teamed through experience that g8mee of
Tliey played on at $20 a band. When he was behind
.chance could be run in such a way that a certain ...,... .
$10200, the barber's luck turned. He won back $300 of centage".favored one side -' the expense of the other ·aide.
this'· loss. Then it was all over. He fell behind $x,soo and .'J:'hat ~ if a game was played a BUtlicient aumbet of tiiael
(the "long run"), the winniDgs of the favored lidO wuuJ4
·quit.
The barber still belieVes Blattner is lucky. He delayed pnerally .bo uear a c:e:rtaiD ~ percentago of tho. total
· paying his loss. Fmally he decided to ~ve Blattner free . ~t of all bets placed by the opponent. 1110 IDOlfora.
. baircuts. After .a year of these he cried that hard times were ·~bling cas1no takes the side in its games tbat hat pRtVCa
upon him and went back to chargiilg Blattiler•.(ThC barber .m. practb. to bo tavorabJe. If necessary, the calino otten
~ rulea· of tho game so that the casino advantage fa
"fnsi4ts that he will pay Blattner some day.) Question: Did
Blattner tritn his barber or didn't he? ID1Bcient fO cover .expenses and also yield a desirab1D rate
• There is a bit of mathematical irony Ia thiS story, as we shaD
.~ profit oil the capital that the owners have invested.
··,. . Tho~ aniouu,t of bets~~ called "actioa." Fgr
.. IH. Aa .background for the noamathematical reader, . we mentioa
BerlraDd llussell's. famous paradox. ~ that a barber iii a certain
town triDII the hair of an those pet'IOIIIo ~ Oniy these pe!IODI. who
do not trim: their own :hair. (We aaume that a person's .hair .. always
.~Ie, if ~ p~ bets of $3, '2,aD.d $i1, I have ·-ru;
·~. of action.• A player whO has a cei1ain amount ·of
trimmed by the same ~) Wbo trims the barber's1lair'llf someone . ·.•eapitat em geueraJly get many times that amount ia·acb
· else triiDI the barber's hair, then it :must be tho barber who trims 1he .~~~tely Josing- capital. to the.lwusO. 'This ecm.-
&rber's hair. Impossible! ·If 1he barber. trims bls own bait, then il
cannot be the barber .who trims the barber'a hair. ~~ WJJO· )~,greatly to the=~ of gambling. .
trim~. the barber's hair? · · ·· . . •.p•
r __.,.,......,__
,.'*'.,.,_""'"'--""""=~.~--'="....,;~-· --~-=-- .--,....~__,
~-
FaiJzll'e of the Popular Gmnbling Sy$lenu
There have been many attempts to ~ the
casino advantage. A· freqUent approach has been- to vary
tho amount that is bet from play to play according to
various methoda, some of which me simple and some of
which are -very complex. By way of illustration, in the
Small Martingale, better known as the "doubling-up," sys-
tem, the player makes an initial bet of, say, $1. If he loses,
be beta $2. Thea he wagers $4. $8, $16, and so on, dou-
bting the bet each time until he wins. Then the proeess is ·memory."
repeated starting with $1 again. The bet placed following
a .string of losses equals the entire amount lost in the string,
plru one. A winning bet either _is a $1 bet, or has been
. placed after a -string of losses. Thus each win results in a
net profit of $1, counting from just after the last win, and round of -play may infiuenco what happens both later Ja
the player k~ wUming a dollar every few bets. However,
this sjstem has a fiaw. The casino always sets a limit to the
·:,amount that may be bet. Suppose the limit is Ssoo and we
have started by betting $1. If there- is a string of nine losses
;-- ($I, $a, $4; $8, $16, $32, $64. $128, $256), the next bet
1. · caJkd for by the "doubling-'!p" system is $512, and tbis
bet is not permitted. - deck. Attt:t that IOUDd is over, the cards are placed f&ceup
.- It seemed in practice that, with this limit on bets, the
caSino won the same· percentage of the ectic;>n it normally
• cv~ though a player was using the doubling-up sys-
tem•. Thus the doubling-up system provided no advantage
whatsoever to the player. The other complicated betting
. _, _ tchemes all seemed to have the same fiaw. It was no sur-
~! . prise; $en, when .it was later proven, by the: lbathematical
\ tlieory of probability, that for most of the -~ •pll·
tr bJing games no betting scheme can ever be devised that.
,~ will- have _the slightest effect upon the casino's long-run
:;' advantage. . . - . -
; The games fOr which this is an establishecl fact include-
those games that mafu.ematicians call independent- trials ·
. . . . . . ,_- ......
~ .-..-., ....
,--;--~--~-
.0·
/ processes." (Craps and roulette are such ~·) What
•.·· this means is that each play Of the game- is ~
by past outcomes and, in turn, has no influence on futwe
C)IJtcOJn.es. For example, suppose we shu1Be a deck of _cards
and draw one cant. which happens to be the. Four of
Spades. We now return this card to the deck and shuftle ·
tlwroughly. If we draw one c8Id again, the chance_that.tt
spades will be the Four Of is no greater than and no leu
·thaD the chance of its being any one of the~ 51 ~-
- Tllis f8ct has made popular the phrase "The cards have no
-
The ImpOrtance of the Dependence of Trials llf Blackjack
In contrast to the previous situatioa, in casino black~
jack the cards do have a memory! What happens _in OliO·
that round and msucceeding rounds. Blackjack. theiefoie.
maybe exempt from the· mathematical arguments _wldcJI
rule out favorable gambling systems for in~ ~ ·
pnes. -
_· - Suppose, for example, that the four Aces appear Oil
· tho fir$t round that ia dealt from a fresh, thoroughly shnftfecl_
_oa the ldtom of _the deck an4 th6 second round- ia ~
frOm the remaining unused card& Now on the second. rowirf_
110 Aces can appear; there will be no blackjacks, no soft• · -
IWlds, 8ncl no 11~na .:of Aces (splitting Aces is- highly
favorable to~_p19er)o; This situation of having no AceS
in ptay·(which Is. On the average. almoSt 3 per cent agaiQs(
,tlie ·player as we shall see tater) continues. in succeedidg
rounds -until the deck Is reshuftled and the Aces are broupt
back into play. . .
. A few years ago one cashio made a practice of rem.ov-
•we 8ssumo ~dice and a~.. rou1etto wheeL For aa
~~ f1f attemp. fA> bell bialed rouloUe wbeeJs. . .
-- ...... .
41
•. ~ . ~· ~
~"··. """"~ "~-""''""_," __.,,...v~---- ~---.--~- -- . ." .. .. . . -c"ci:;i.'ivtnnlng StrtJUg • 45
t
~
:44 . BE A~ THE DEALE It -~ ~ that are p~ Suppose }'011 ate playing du\~-
.lbgfout'f~daNme.fromthcdec~ Fromour_~Ja.' :: --~~~-d;this meaD~ tbat )'O'i·are tho drdl:'-~ a(tbo
, . , tions, we,~w this added 2.5 per cent to their adva.atage. ·--.~ SUppose· also that you. have bear_-~1 C8nW1
~ . This ~~was spotted by theNevada Gaming Control _ ; -,ttack of~ cards played and you know t1Jat'ihe. unp1ayed
Board aJJd.1Jie casino was brought to triaL Bveutually the '· 'cards, from which tho next round wiJI be ~"'ODSfst pro-
,--
i
-casinO's 1iCease was .-evoked. However, there was one ironic - dsety of two Sevens ancf four Eights.• Hovr much should
J .. sidelight tG the .trial. The casino operatOrs were practical · -JOll bet? Answer: Placet tho maximum bet the casino ~-
men through and through and not at all theoreticians. They · -:anow. liven borrow money if you have to, for you are
l:new that their short deck helped them. but. they. did not ·- certain to win if you simply stand 911 the two· can:ls ~
know how much; Thus they had no answer for the damning -• ·will be dealt. · ·
asse~ of an expert witness that they were putting the ·., - . •· Here "is the analysis. If you stand on yottr, two- altds, -
. ptayer,.I_IOt at_ a 2.5 per cent disadvantage but at a 25 per · · ~p do not bust and are temporarily safe. When· the dealer ·
Cent disadvantage! - picks_up his hand, he finds either (7.7), (7,8), or (8,8).
· · Since his total is below 17, he must draw. If he holds (7,7),
. . . • there are no Sevens left so he will draw an Eight and bust.
The Use of Favorable Situations · If he holds ( 7,8) or (8,8) ho will bust if he dritws either
The winning strategies to ~ given in ~book depend ·. a. ScveD. or an Bight-the only -choices. Thus tho. dealer
largely on the fact that, as the compos1ti0n of a deck : · -busts end you win. · -
changes during play, the advantage iri blackjack will Shift · ,· This brings us to the central problem that I had to
back and-~ b~n player and casino. The advantage . ''IOl'fe':iri analyzing the game of blaekjack: How can a player
·· .~ ~ beyQnd 10 per. cent for one IJide or tho other :ewtusto the depleted deck in general to deteiminO ~
and on occasions even reaches 100 per cent We watch ·it not it is favorable, and if it is favorablo. precisely how
_the cards tfiat are used up on the fitst round of play. The · 'tDucb ril?' This problem was · solved•• {)y. asking _tho
. fact that thcs~ cards are now missing from the deck will, <IBM 704:; high-speed electronic computet • •seriet_. of
.Jn p2csaft~sbift the house advantage up or down on the -···~ The first question was: SUppose blaCkjack
. ~~"'that will be dealt on the secondrpund from
._depleted deck.. . . .
-now
·fs-ptayed with a deck from which only the four _ACes
are iemoved. What is the best possible strategy · for
. ~ successive rounds continue to_ be dealt ~ the ·Cho player tG follow and what is the bouse (or p~)
increasmgly depleted, deck, and the advanta~ shifts back .· advantage? In other words, the computer was to do .
, ~ · fpith between player and house, a· make latge bets · · .exaetty the samo thing it bad done in finding the basic
when the player has the advantage ~ very small bets . •'the esseDtlat thiDs fa tbat there be at least~ ~~~-lit .
· when the .~use ·has the advantage. The result is that. the : · 11t01t two SeveDa aetuany tJWJIIaltr. for p~tq. Por example, il tho -~
. payer usually wins a majority of hiS large favorable bets, :. tfoea I\Ot cleal tho last -c81d <• ~ practice), two Seftlll aDi1 tbzee
and although be generally ·lOSeS a majority cf his· small : ; ~~~!"to
anfawrable -... he bas .a considerable net ........f;t. ·
-::r:
degree of~-~
· ·eqct recU:a1atioDs were iDade tarer bJ' Juliaa Braua of tho IBM c:or-
-. · · . · · . · . t"":.,.. · .~ '11irou~ thia mile4 eclidoa wo have uso4 1111 figvRa Ill
.· ~- :~!~:f ;:ry~~edext;p~i!~~:: .<~of our~ ODelt .-.ver poaible. .
 . .,
. :.:~~---- BEAT· THE DB A X. E i "·c~:JflMing ~
.ttategy, -with. one.diffei.ence. It had to solve-~ prob~
with a de<:k fiom which ~ four ./v;es were DU$SU1g.
-~8)' promptly should plan to use the point-eouut ~
tV'Of the next chapter as their first winning approac4 ~
: - - tbo ,,.me. ~t o1e.rs many adftatages owr tbe Five-cOunt
4'7.

·· · The resu.lt was noteworthy. Wh= playing with a deck , ·; 1trareg with ODly a moderato increase in the level of diftl.
t.bat has four Aces missing. the player is at a disadvantage i c:alty. These leaden pmbabJy should not spend a great
of 242 per cent, unJ,ier best play•. It may seem that the . ~- deal of time .practlclng the Five-count strategy. Howevere
removal of the four Acer. should affect matters much more · iinco the various dJscusaloDS in the remainder of tbiJ cllapo
~-the remov'al.ofany·other four cards, since Aces play tee ate important to the Jacer strategies, it should still be
such a unique role in the game. They are essential for a th0iougblytea4 and UDderstood. by those who are PI Oil
natura111,nd ·for soft. bands, and they mak¢. the .most faV9r· ~ them~ powerrw strategies. ·
able pair. Wherever they appear, they seem to help the
_player. Thus some players may $UpPose that fluctuations - A First Winning St'l'alegy: Counllizg Fives
in _the proportion. of Aces in the deck would have a muc~ Table 4-1 shows that when four cards of one kind ate
greater effect on things than fluctuations in the propprtion iemoved from the deck. the greatest shift in the relative'
of any _of the other cards and that we ought simply to advantager. of player and house is caused by ,mnovfng the .
study Aces alone•. However, we will see that Aces alone four Fives· from the cteck. The e1fect is even greater .tbaa
aro ~ot overwhelmingly important. . _ when the four Aces are removed. More important,.~
· 'I'he computer was now asked to compute the p~.s 1ng ·the Fives gives an advantage of 3;6 per cent ~ tho
adv.anta.ge or disadvantage, using the best -s~tetrr~en player. .
playjng With decks from which were removed m --~ "~ · , .· __ Now, suppose that the depleted deckcontaiDs no~
Twos. four Threes. etc. The reslllts for the$e: qj(i~· -- IJ.ut· does contain enoup cards for - next round of p]q.
o~ speclat decks are listed in Table 4.1.·The COli·--·-~_\ aD4 :bat therefore no Fives will appear during tho neXt
ing ~t strategies •were computed but have been_ , ~ It caa be abowD that theso ~tuatioDI may ~ c:Oa--
to sa\re SJ*e. .
·_· T~ble~.I suggests that a $ortage of--,_
· ,"~-- ~. lille.red as mathanatically identical with those that arise
.-handsaredealtfromadectwhichiscompleto~
. iaJues 2 tlu"ough .8 might give the player ~- ~ _·, ·_ · Cbat the four F~WS have been remoftd. Without ~
- .wbile a relative excess of such cards might hurt the' ~· · tO gms the cfetaiJed cxplaDatioD. for_~ we simply point
Qmversely, a shortage of Nmes, lfent, and Aces ough~ to :JUt that this meaus that if the player knows that no F~
lj hurt.tbe play~. while an excess of~ _should help him.
A variety of winning strategies may be based on counting
caa appear on tho _am round of play. and.if he tileD fof
lows what we shall can the "FJve..count'" strategy, on that
.OJIC or ~ore type!! of cards. A good, simple: winning ltra&- ~of play be Will enjoy the 3.6.per cent advantage~
I
{
~gy is based on counting the Fives. It. will' be described .ill
clotal1 in the rest of this chap~. The readers who find the
IIJiveli in Table 4-L ·
'=:'. ''Tia8 P'~ ~ is given in Table 4-2._ TlJo
baaic strategy in Chapter 3 di1Ucult should plan to-~ · ,..,._ tstt.aiofTable 3·S. · _.. ·
~ Five-count strategy as thc;ir &st winning approach ~ · ~.i';;<O'bserve that the Fi~t strategy is Very similar to
l).c ~e. . . ,.· , thOiirlsio fWl-deck l&rateg, whieh eases the burdoll on ODe'&
· ·On the other· tumd, readers "'bo kamed the -~- · :-::.. -:· ·

1.
\
r· ~---··--~~--

i~
li
48 BEAT THE D.EALEJi.
memory. In particular; note that the soft standing ~'bets
i: _:

:; i
II D
~ are the ~e, that all the· basic doubling.:ctown 1ituati0ns
also call for doubling down when the Fives are gone, ana ~~
.t;O
it '!!'§
·'
~~ .
tbat the same statement is tiue for pair splitting except that 65
I'
~
a pair of Sixes is not spllt against a dealer's up card of
Seven. It
I fl Jl!J .
I
f
ll If -~

l~ !I Ut
ii,, TABLB 4.1. Pltrytr'z Advantage or Dlstltlv11111age lor Certain
l: Special Decks.
10 II ~ii
~
Description Advantage (in per cent) '2~
0~ deck With best strategy
It t ~~;

~ ~·
c:ompleto 0.13
Q(l)=O
Q(2)=0
-2.42
1.75
'• 9
.- "11

Q(3)=0 2.14 *I
Q(4)=0
Q(S)=O
2.64
3.S8 ·
la
.h
Q(6)=0
Q(7)=0
Q(S)=O
. Q<9)5oe
2.40'
2.0S
0.43
-o.41
u
ma
!
.'"!. !
Q(lO}=O
~ cleck
two.clecb
four' dec:ks
1.62
o.ss [093]
-o.lS
-oAt
j lfl!lf
• ri~.
I ·h ~& !
'· sooo dec:ks -o.ss
l t f!lfj' i
. -- Q(10)=4
. Q(l0)==8
'Q(lt>)=l2.
-2.14*
-3.13-
-i.as
l~89D.21l
'
Ia1
10 1Hfi~
10 ~~.:J!l
1
[
~~u •
Q(10)=20'
Q(10)'=24 3.51£4:241
Q(I0)=28 5A>6• [6.10*]
J~ iUf8

lj'il~ 11 1
Q(10)=32 6.48• [7.7S*l
Q(10}=36 7.66{9.11) l!l,;l! ..
Q(9}=Q(10)=0 9.92* a l'la
Q(8)-Q(9}=Q(10)=0 19.98•--'
Q(S)= ••• :;:QOO)=O
=
Key: Q(X) Y means that a panicular deck -
78.14
altered by cbaDJing 0111}1
~I -
t ~I
die quantity Q or carda that haft 1111medcal 'IIIIUe X so that there are now Y
!! IUdl cards. For aample. Q(2) =3 woulcl mean that in the deck there are a111J
~; ~ Twos insteacl or the ~ toar. "'TWo cleeb" - the cana. aro deal& bolia
, _ ordinary 5l-<:arcl decb 11tat laaft IIcea miXed IOielber as oae. Tlae ~

r!1i ,.
wbh Insurance Is O.ll per cent J11U1« for Q(l) :::0 to Q(9) =0• 1'be player
lasures only If neither or Ills bole canll Is Ten. For· Q(l0) E; » the adYan&alt
wbh Insurance folknls Ia squua ltrllcbll. ~ ' - Wllill'·QUO) ii;Z.
.
ii
~ ..
f-1,
• Apjll<llllmate. .. . .
' "·--
·~ l;
,,,
,;>.
;\\'·. ~;,:i~.
.• BEAT THE DBA1.1Ul
· As a matter of fact. when all the Fives al'C gone it is
ped~tly acceptable to use ~nly the ..chaD~~ in the ~
standing -numbers llDd otherwJSC play ~ccording to the bwc
strategy. The errors thus in~uced p~arily invo~e·
-neglecting to split pairs o~ double down m several _m-
stances. Their effect is quite small. The player's a~vantag~
is decreased from 3.6 to 3·4 per cent. I suggest this to de-
crease the load on yo}lr memory. We shalt adopt .this
· the long run at a rate of above 3 per ceDL With your aaia1l
"'silnplified Fives strategy" in all our calcula,tions and dis-
tussions of the Fives m~od.
We now outline a simple method for winning at
_casino blackjack. Begin by making "small" bets and using
the standard strategy. Watch the cards that are played and
keep track.of the Fives. When you see that all four of them
liave been used, check to see that the next round of play .
will come entirely from the remainder of the deck, and
thus that no Fives will appear.
Now, you must place your bet before any of the cards
lre dealt in this next round. However, you know that you
ha\re better than a 3 per cent advantage on wl1atever you ·
bet. Therefore. place ·a bet 'that is "Jar~· ·in comparison.
to the ones you have been placing. When the cards uo
d~t, employ the simpruied Fives strategy. . (6) How much capital is required to start?
We have been recoinmending tbat -if the FIVes are
used up before a certain round is dealt, the pla~r should
make a large bet and usc: the simplified Fives &triite8f. ~.
it may happen .that some Fives remain w~en a round of
play begins and·that all of thtm appear ~unng that round.
At the mstant tbis happens the player should change to the
simplified Fives strategy. For example, s~pPo.e he is dealt
llllrd. 7 and the dealer shows a Two. Suppose that when
the player draws he receives the last remaining Five. He
now has hard-I2. Tho basic strategy says to draw. How-
ever, the ·Fives strategy Jl()W applies, and according to it
be sbPUld stand. ., .
.This 'is to be considered a refinement and Ja DOt es-
__
A .Winning Stmtegy S:t
.·Seadal. for .Wbmbig wl1h tbe Fives strategy. It improve~ tho
player's dJances ohrioning some of his 8111all bets, uam.ely.,
some of those placed at tbe beginning of the round oa which
the last FJVeS appeared. .
Suppose that you continuo over _many deals to placo
=
large bets when Q(S) o, and small bets otherwise. Ia
those situitiona in which you made largo bets. J011 w1n ill
. bets,-you Joso ill a rate of about -o.2 per cent.• If.tllo largo
bets are big enough c:om.pared to the small bets and if tho
favorable situations occur often enough, the profits from the
big bets should both otfaet .the losses from the small bot&
and leave a comfortab1o overall'profit. .
There are several questions that we must now ~
In detail in order to make our instructions complete. ..
(1) How can you tell whether the remaininJ.CIIda
wiJl·be adequate for the next round Of play?
· (2) How often do favorable situations arise? · ~
· (3) How much larger than the small beta shoWd tho.
large bets be? . ' . .
· (4) How fast will you make money?
(S) How much risk is there?
~
We will take these up in the order listed.
Counting the Cart/a
The check as to whether the remaining cards aro acfeo.
quate can be made in several ways. The SURSt ~ s ~
actUally coUnt how many cards have been used ·lll_paJ-
• Oue migftt 'WOJlder why, fD tbo Rvea strategy. die small ..,....
::.::a--=
110& fDstca4 win at'tfae rate of o.JO pw CCDt. the . . . 'Wia.rafe-.
......
..u -- ..
. .~·bide atrategy. The ·ftiiiOII .. tllat
===-==-!!r~~-
~-,:~~~-=- ~par-;:.~= ..
. . .~_-·. of pta,_. at dill_·tate. W. telectol{a liDj1e milalllr
• ' ... --~. w. . . it pesaimt.tic.
- \:·
.~ BBAT, THE DBA~ER d Winning Strategy 53
For. example, after each round, you might ~y to yourself TABLE 4.3. ,,.,. t1ie Dd Prohlb JVIli
something like "Eleven cards have been played, and I have • ~tktpulte tor • Fall Rot.~.
of Pltzy. JC«ordbtg to •
seen'~ Five... Count every card that is used as. "played" Coltlll of UMd CGnlr '
but only count the Fives that you have seen. For example, Remaining carcJa Ula8Jly
if a card iS burned, be ~ure to count'it whether or not you Number of adequate if caaat of mecl
see what it is. It is not necessary that you see every card player~ cards fa DO more thaD:
that is used in play. If, however, you miss seeing any of the . l ~

played cards, some of them may be Fives, in which case I 41

you will miss some favorable siwations. For example, sup-
pose after a certain round you see that seventeen cards
have been played and that three Fives have been used.
Suppose also that a Five has been burned and that you do
·~ know this. nen, as far as you know, one Five may
yet -aJ>Pear, so you will make a small bet and miss the
oppOrtunity of exploiting a favorable situation.
_- If· your dealer habitually conceals the burned card,
~ may. wish to request that lle show it to you. It is
acimetimes difficUlt to know whether to make this request.
It shOuld not be made jf you think that it will arouse the
asino's suspicions that you are playing one of our win-
aiDs, strategies, for they may_ take countermeasures that
...0 01ore costly to you than not seeing· the burned card.
If the casino does not use the last card, _incorporate
thiJ into your count from the beginning. The reason.for this
ia that the particular count, when subtracted fr<>m 52, is
IUpposed to give the number of cards yet to be played.
Tab.!e 4-3 is a rough guide as to when the remaining cards
• will fail to be adequate for the next round. . during the secand half. In the strong form of the mmover. ·
· Counting the used cards has other advantages· besides
Jelling the player whether the unused cards are. adequate
for the next round. FirSt, the training in card counting is
pMparation for the more powerful, and also more difticu1t
winning systems to be presented in succeeding chap~•.
Secon4, the count is an inValuablo asset in the detection of
chea~g. because a common device is to ·remove one. or
morecaros from the deck. (One might wonder at tldJ pojnt
s 38
"5 34
31
6 2.1
1 24
whether casinos have also tried adding Cilrds to ~ dect.
When two or more ~ are being used, this can be doDo
easily. I have only seen it done once when one deCk wil
in use. That was risky. Imagine the shock and fury of a
player who picks up his hand and sees that, not onlY an
both his cards Fives, but they are also both S~) ·
Another well-known method of cheating which· can
·often be detected by a card counter iS ca1Jed the' -mm<mll"."
Though the name is apt. the experienc:O is not. a cfes1a;t
treat. In the weak form of tho turnover, the-dealer Wlltche8
to see whether the first half of the deck seems to fMor tha
.house strongly. If. it does not, he continues nonllaJl7• lii:Jp--
ing that the latter half will. However. if tho deck'dooslnor ·
the house during the first half, he secretly turns ·the do4
o\rer SO· tlult the used cards are on top and are lepJayed
the dealer stacks the used cards from tho first 'half of tbo·
deck -as he picks them. up after' play. When tho decl: ft_
about balf-used, he turns it over and deals out stacbd
haJKJst .
· ·...The unwary player generally doeS not remember w11fc1l
cards he has just seen. Howo~ if the us_ed portioa ·c:oa-
taill$ a number other dian 2lJ ·cards, the total deck will
. . toone who counts eatds, to contain twice tho DUJDblr
 54 BE AT .THE DEALER· .
in the used portion instead of 52 Cards. Further, even .if.
the_ used portion contains 26 cards, 'the. fra~!d. may be de-_
tected unless it also contains two Fives. For the number of
Fives in the total deck also seems to be, to. one who is
counting them, tWice the num~. in the used portion.
For readers who do JlOt want to count the used cards,
there is. a less satisfactory method for determining about
bow many cards remain to be played. It can be used if the
dealer checks to see bow near the end of the deck he is.
He does this by pUshing the lower car~ slightly forward
so that the upper edges of all the cards show slightly. Then
the J,JSed cards, which are face up, appear ''whiter" than the
unu!fe(l cardS-provided that the unused cards, .which are
.face down, do not have borders that make their edges white
also. Th8 relative thickness of the two portions makes it
easy to estimate the number of unused cards remaining.
If you have a deck without borders, place a portion
of tlle deck face up· underneath the remainder. Then skew
the deck ·by pushing the bottom cards forward slightly.
There should be a clear line of demarcation between the
tw(). portions. From this you can estimate the amounts in ·
each portion. With a tittle practice you can become quite
skillful. If you attempt the same thing with a deck having
borders it is harder, since the clear line of demarcation
usually does not appear. . The rate. at which money is won depends upon hoW ·
1 Here is a warm-up experiment that can be done with
any deck; it should convince you that estimating the number
of ·cardS in a portion of the deck is not so difficult. F'J.rst,
square ibe deck by striking its edge against a smooth table
tep~ N;ow try to ,break the deck into two equal portions.. If
neeessary, transfer cards from one portion to the other until
they appear equal. Do not place the two stacks side by side
, . . on the table top and match their height. That would~
the purpose of tbis experiment, which·· is to introduce you
to estimating by_ eye alone. After a few attempts you ~11
find that rarely, if ever, are you "off" more than tvlo carck •
A Wlnnlng Stiatttgy 5~ ,-
Many peop1e soon learn to divide the deck iJlto· ~ pte-_·
cisely equal parts almost every time. . .. . .
An Imprpvement in the Fives Method
Suppose you keep track not only of the number of
Fives remaining but also of the total number of remaining
unseen cards. Then you can estimate whether or not the .
deck is Five-rich or Five-poor. One way is to diVide the
number U of unseen cards by the number F of unseen
Fives. Normally U/F = 13. When U/F is greater than 13:
=
the deck is Five-poor. (In the extreme case where F o, .
· that is, when the deck bas no Fives, U IF doesn't make
sense~ But you already know what to do filen.) - ·
The larger U fF, the larger your edge. When U/F is ·.
26, for exampl~ the edge ·js about 1.9 per cent (balfw~y
from 0.13 per-cent to 3.,8 per cent. You should bet 2 ~ 3>- -;
units. -
When UIF is less than 13, the deck is FIVe-rich. The
casino bas the advantage and you should make SDUl11 bets. __
The advantage of using U IF is that you find and ex-.:. ·
ploit many additional favorable situat!:on5. The method
works without change against any number of decks. ·
Frequency of Favorable Situations
often favorable situations arise and is influenced by how
many players are at the table. This dependence !II shoWn
in Table 4-4- ·
It clearly strengthens the player's advantage, when be. -
is Using the Fives strategy, to play iJl·games iJl which there ·
are no more than five players.
Y tll'.ii:ldotv in Bet Size
· ·1fte institictive answer to the questi~ "How mndi ·
tarp,rlt.n the small bets should the· large bet be?" is "As
JaJp·aa poSsible." for· it _is the 1arge favor~ bets that ·
 •,
56 BBAT.TllB D'BAt.Blt 4 .Winning Strategy 57
. are responsible for the profit. However ·lh~ are some cir- I~ o.oo2 x 90 x $x, or xu,. 011 the uofalozablo situatioua.
CQmStances that· need to .be considered. and gaiD. o.o.34 x io x Ssoo, or $170. 011 the favorable
situations, for a net profit of $16g.82. If iDstead we bet
TABLE 4.4. Variation ln"the Number.of K110wn Favorable $125 in the Ullfavorable lituationli, we would lose 0.002
Situations, When Fives Only Are Counted, u a . x. 90 X $1~5 or $22.50 in theae instances bUt would again
Function of the Number of Players. ·
wm $170 m the favorable situations for a net pro& of
Approximate $147-50.
number of times Average amount iD .. · It should be emphasized that these profit 1ig1m:s are
Number of ·Fives are gone ta:rge units, won
players per hundred hands per hundred hands rough avc:rage ~ounts for ~,very large J1UJDbe.r of .bands.
1 9.8 0.33
In-any brief series of a few hundred hands, there will
2 5.9 0.20 JikeJy be considerable deviations from these figmea. WZJ
3 6.5 0.22 We can now use these figUres to estimate the awnge
4 3.5 0.12 hourly wage for the F.wes system. ~ that we. are
. '6 6.0
0.9
0.20
O.o3 playing ~ead on at the rate of xoo handS per hour. We
7 1.7 0.06 saw preVIOusly that we average about $140 per hour when
our bets range from $125 to Ssoo. 'I'herefcmJ wellioal(t
a
If player goes along steadily betting $ r and then make Ss.6o. per hoUr when we bet from $5 to $2o;. 1be · "'
suddenly, every once in :a while bets S,soo, he may soon be player who only bets from so# to $2 will make a modeat
the object of study by the casino operatoG. If be is win- s6f per hour. .
ning, they are very likely to take countermeasures. One· One sldlled player whom I know asserts that he caa#~
simple and effective method is to shuftle the deck after •· play 3SO hands per hour W,hen playing head on. Betting. •
the player bas made his large bet and before any cards are from $x to $5oo, he wo1lld ave.tage $170 x 3·5 or about
dealt. Although the player can then remove his large bet, Ssgs per hour. It is. in the sy.stem player's beat iDfaest 10
his favorable situation is destroyed. be able !'>
play rapidly; When more players ate ..,._..
·.Thus it·seems judicious 'to reduce the size of the bet. the tnu:tion .of hands that. are favorable dwindles. Futthet-
variation to a level that does not attract so much attention. more, .BUlCe -1t takes longer to play out a 1'0UJld. each pJaJer
The first edition of Beat the Dealer has made the casinos getS kwer hands per hour. . ·
very cautious. Consequently Jbe large bets should be no
more than three or four times the size of the smaller bets.
Cap~l Required, Extent of Risk, Rate of Profit
Let us run through a simple calculation to see haw costly We will now answer the questions:
this is. · , How mttCh capital is required to start?
Suppose we are playing 100 han98 per hour head on .llqw much risk is there? . '
with the uealer. Then, aceording to Table 4.4, there are · .What is the average rate of profit?
about 9.8 favorable sitUations at 34. per cent in favor ~. . .• Yust you must 4ccicto. how much your iDitial capital
!he player and about 90.2 unfavorable ones at 0~2 pn- cent_ Will.~ You must NEVER.Ni'VBa play with~ that
ucfavor of the house. If we are betting $1 and $500, we it.. you to lose. Besides the usu.l.~ ~
!lillhurt
 58 BEAT THE DEALER
this, there is one more: playing with money that you can..
not afford to lose produces psychological disintegration,
bad play, and cOnsequently a greater chance of defeat.
Conversely, playing with money that means little to you
lead~ to cool confidence and devastatingly accurate play.
Now you have cut your stake to a sensible level. Next
you must decide how small to make the chance of ever
losing your entire stake. For any stake, the player has many
I!
I
choices. If he plays boldly, taking a large.chance of being

l
T
ruined, .he can make a comparatively large amount per
hour. Instead the player may divide his stake into so many My Ideas Are Tested
t units that there is virtually no chance to "lose it all. But ·
i the price paid for this is a considerable. reduction in aver..
in Nevada
l age profit.
As an indication of what to expect, suppose that smal~
.

.bets are 1 "unit," where a "unit'" is an amount determined

by y(,u, the player. Suppose that big bets are 3 "units."'
Then with a stake of 150 units, the chances are less than
1\...
1

:I in. 10 that you will ever lose your stake. They are more
I thought that the strategy based on counting Fives ~-.
£1

1- ~"(.!laD 9 in 10 that your capital will grow indefinitely. If

. • jour stake is only 75 units, the chances are about 3 in 10
of eventually losing it and 7 in Io of its continuing to grow
· as long as you care to play on.
Before we .get on with learning practical winning
strategies, we take time out in the next chapter to describe
' the original casino test of the first of these strategies, the
,j Jl()W famous Ten-count method.
;:
•I
· inquiring about the abstract. The paper sent a photographer-
make an interesting paper at an upcoming Annual M~g:
of the American Mathematical Society in Washington, D.C.
I planned to fty down from the Massachusetts IDstitUte of
Techllology, where I was then teaching and where I made
my blackjack computer calcUlations. A few days before tho
meeting. the society, as is customary, published abstracts
of the two hundred or so talks that were to be givea. In-·
eluded was my abstract describing the Fives strategy, ..For-
tune's Formula: A Wmning Strategy for Blackjack" [67].
Two evenings before I left for the meeting. I was sur-
prised by a call from Dick Stewart, of the Boston Gloh
out to take my picture; meanwhile I explained the basic
ideas of my system to Mr. Stewart over the telephone.
Tile next morning I was amazed to see a picture of
myself with a story on the front page of the BoSUN& GloH
• st•
 -,
~~: 60 BE.AT THE _DEAJ.E~;-
[1. [4]. Within hours, the story and more pictures were released
[' by the news services to their thousands of subscribing news-
,, papers across the ·country (6. 27, 39, 43. 57. 7.8].
1' . Following my paper in Washington, I wu. forced to
\: give. a press conference. After this ·I was· televised by a
'7! major network and interviewed on a number of radio pro-
j\ grams. When I returned to my office at the Massachusetts
il Institute of Technology, my desk was heaped with mail
h and phone messages. spurred by the continuing publicity
!i·. .· too.- 6sJ. . .
During the next weeks hundreds of letters and long
distance~ phol)e calls rained in, the bulk of which were ri>
~- for copies of my paper and any .further available
information. Interspersed amQng this correspondence were·
l a ~blc number of offers to back me in a casino test
\1 of my system. ThO amoUnts proftered ranged from a few
~ thousand dollars to as much as $100,000! Together they
l totaDed a quarter of a million dollars.
i ' - CarcfuJJy, I screened the offers. I reject«:~. an off~ if
lf.e
~or persons putting up the money could·not prove
! that they could dcml to Jose tbeir total investment. The rea·
11 sonfs, of coune, that there is some aman risk of a very bad
11 streak even with wiJming Slrategies. as we discussed earlier.
!i1 . I was also worried about the poss1"bilities of be~ cheated.
· Since the $100,000 was the most attractive, I con-
aldered itfirst. It was offered jointly by two New Yu-kmulti-
n millionain:s, whom I sbaU tefcr. to as Mr. X and lvfr. Y.
\1 TheY are both large-scale gamblers. Mr. Yonce lost $Ioo,·
~ ooo in one of the casino games without being ~ly hurt
·r finandally. Mr. X's gambling actiyities involve hundreds of
i! thousands and even millions of dollarS in profits; he has
·jl been famous for years in gambling ckc1es from M"aami to
•' Las VegaS. I later 1eamed both that he was famUiar with
:;: thc'exptoits of "thO little' dark-haired guy" (Chapter 3) and
\: that he had ~ade large sums himself at blackjack. Th~ he
·; was thoroughly "sold" in ad~
1
-- ---~--~. ---~--·-·-----.---- ~··,··--···--·---~
My ltktu A.re Tuted iia Nevada · . 61 , l
. . . ' l.
Prtparation8 . '
When I told Mr. X of my interest, he drove up frOm
New York One Sunday. He showed mo enough of his pJ&<>
tical gambling knowledge and c:ard skill to persuade me that
he could qu~ckly detect cheating. At tile invitation and ex-
pense of"Mr. X and Mr. Y, I lew from Boston to N~
York several times to discuss the system and to plan a trip
to NevadL
As the reader may have already learned from practiCe
at home or in the casinos, the FIVes system wins "too slowly"
because the good situations that it locates are fairly rare.
Fortunately I was already working on a far more powerfUl
system when I announced the Fives system. This was the
. ten-count method, described in detail in Chapter 8. It was
this method that I piatmecl to use in the casino test. To mate
the story easier to follow, I describe this method briefly.
The player keeps track of two kinds of cards, TeDI
and non-Tens or "othen." 'Ibele are 16 Tens in each deck
and 36 others. The player's edge is measlited by tho ratb'
of others to Tens. For one fun deck, it is 36/16 or 2.2$.
When. the ratio Js betow 2.25, the player has the edge..
Wlleft it is abOve, the casino has the edge. Roughly speak-
ing, the farther the ratio gets below or above 2.25, tho
gRAter is the elfect. .
The player has the edge half the time and his edge
ranges up to IO. or IS ~ cent. The casino edge only
ranges up to about 3 per cent! ·
There .were two main approache$ that we c:ouJd adopt
for betting. ~ which I shall term "wild,"involve$ betting
the. casino limit whenever the advantage to the player ex-
ceat.· some sman figure, say 1 per eent. This method ~
dnCes, on tho average. the greatest gain in the shortest ~
However in a short ron of a few days the fluctuations in
the· player's tc)tal capital· generally are violent. and a large .
baDkroJ1 is required. Mr. X and Mr. Y said that they would
 62 BBAT THB DBAJ.Blt " Myldeos A.r~ Tested in Nevada 63
back this approach to the extent of $Ioo,ooo and that the,. •· lisluJieqt closed for three. hours beca~ of Good l1riday,
would go farther if necessary. ·· ·· we returned to Reno. During the evemng we investigatecl ~
; .llUDlbel- of casinos to determine which had rules that were
The $zo,ooo BankroU . . most ~voribJe. As the best spot for practicing, we selected
I was not in favor of the wild approach since there were ' a casmo. that dealt down to the last card and allowed the
too many things I did not know about the gambling world. ; player_~ ~ouble down on any hand, split any pair, and m.
l· also had no idea how I or my backers would rezct if I ; found. sure. This IS a more favorable set of rules thaJl is ordinarily.
. .
were to get behind, say, Sso,ooo. Furthermore, the purpose
of the trip from my point of view was'· to test my system After a sumptuous dinner and a rest, I returned alono.
rather. than to m~e big money for Mr. X and Mr. Y. So to the casino we had chosen. It was then about 10 P.M. Mr.
I preferred being certain of a moderate win, rather than at• ·X did not accompany me because he is·wen known·to that
lemJ>ting ·a probable. but sotttewhat uncertain. big win. I casino's owner and we did not wish to attract attention. I
therefore favored another approach, which I .shall call"~ began by alternately playing for fifteen or twemy minutes at
servative" play. 'Ibis involves betting twice the ~aunt of a time and then resting for a few niinutes. Whenever.I
·the minimum bet when the advantage is ·x per c~t,.four .would sit down again I would always choose the table with
times tho minimum wheri the advantage is 2 per cent. and the fewest players. My· behavior pattern-1 pauSed for
finaDy leveling off at ten tim~ the minimum when the ad- thought and stated at all the cards played-made it appar-:
vantage is s per cent or more in the player's favor: I deter- ent that I was using some "system." But systelli players aro
mined that if my bets would range.from Sso to Ssoo.(~e •. frequent. if not common. in the casinos.IQ. fact, they &Je
· highest casino maximum generally available), then $6.opo welcoDie as long as they are losing, and gradually I feD .·
or:$r;ooo would probably be adequate ~pital. To be safe, further behind until. by S A.M., I \vas down $100. ·
we took along $xo.ooo-a hundred one-hundred-dollar At this time, business fell off sharply and I was finally
bills. .able to get a table completely to myself. My new dealer was
.,When theM. I. T. one-week spring recess came, Mr. X : 'ParticularlY unfriendly. When I asked to be dealt two~
ud I flew on_ a Thursday evening to Reno, where Mr. Y was . .she refused. saying that it was house policy that I must bet
to join us later. We checked into one of the large Reno ' $2 per hand to play two hands. Since this change in the
hotels at about 2 A.M. and immediately went to sleep. Early 1•acale of bettinJ would confuse my records of the evening's .
the next morning we began investigating casinos. . play. I refUsed. Besides, I was getting ~ and irritable. ·
. I pointed out to this dealer that at least eight ~
Thtt Warm-up dealers had let me play two hands without complaiut ad
Out. plan, titsisted upon by me, was to proceed with tllerefore it could hardly be a house policy. She said that the
caution. We would -start "small," betting $I to $10, and reason was to keq» other players from being crowded out.
would gradually increase the amount of the bets as I gained remarked dtat there were no other players at my table,
experience. Eventually we planned to bet Sso to·Ss~ ber.reason did n~t seem.to apply. She became angry'at
Fm;t we drove to a casino outside of'tOWD. m·.an hour·- .and dealt anap1clly as she could. .
or s0 of play I won i.few dollars, and theD when the estab- , :~::\'A few hands later, the ratio of others/Tens dropped to
f4 DBAT THB Dlh\'Lif My ldeasAre Tested In Nevada .65
2.0, a I per cent advantage for me. Being 'thoroughtY- ~- •-Mdl ·again visited the casino outSide town. Within minutes. .
aoyed by. now, I broke my self-imposed discipline. I ado.~ playing the' $1o to $100 scalo, I won $200 or $30o.
vanced to ~e $2 to $20 scale and ·bet $4- I won and the ,Mf', X joined me and we played for a couple of hours. Wo
ratio advanced to 1.7, a 2 per cent advantage. I let my ~ .accumulated $650, aild the house began to shuft'le tbe deck
ride and won again. The ratio obligingly diopped to 1.5, .a· .~eral cards before the end. Since the favorable situations
4 per ce11t advantage. I let my $16 ride and won again. I arise with greatest frequency at the end of the deck, shuf- ·
Jeft-$20 of this $32 on the table with the remark that it was :ling up can sharply reduce the rate of profit. Because we
time for me to take a small profit. The ratio fluctuated boo ' cwere only practicing,. it seemed discreet for us to leave now
tween 1.4 and ~.o and I continued to make $20 bets. By and hope that we could come back later fora few fuU-scale
the time we came to the. end of th~ deck, I had recoupect llourS. _
my $100 Joss and had a few dollars' profit besides. Mr. X and I were still expecting Mr. Y in Reno. On
As I picked up my winnings_and left, .J noticed im ~ Saturday evening Mr. Y arrived. After dinner Mr. Y and
mixture of auger and awe on the dealer's face. It. was as :1 set out to seek our fortune. We first visited the famous .
though iho had peeked for a brief moment through,a famil- Harold's Club, ari enormous building in the center of down-
iat door i!tto a familiar room and, maybe, she had. glimpsed :town Reno. We began to play at the Ssoo-maximum tables.
aometbhig ·strange and impossible. (The maximum. generally ranges from $100 to Ssoo in
' This ·~g session bro'!lght mixed blessfhgs. I wouid Nevada, varying from casino to casino and frequently from
-agree my rash behavior in a few days, for the casino's opera- table to table within a glven casino. With our capital, we
tom:toet apeciaf notice of me. On the other hand, my attenio preferted the highest maximum possible.) In fifteen minutes
Cion was drawn to the doubling-up betting pattern that I had }1{e won Ssoo, warming up at a .$25 to $250 scale. Our
used in the last few minutes; it c:onsisted of betting I uni~ ,dealer decided to alert the management of the casiao. She
winning and letting the 2 units ride, winning and letting the pressed a concealed button with her foot. Within minutes
4 units ride. etc. This pattern of play resembles· the well· H~ld Smith ~r. and Jr•• arrived. They eJtchanged plea&-
known doubUng-up system, or Small Martingale, which is antnes and politenesses With· us, but they made their point:
widely used-~ almost every gambling game. The pattern J ~ deck ~~d be shuflled as often as necessary to prevent
used above JS not senst'ble for those gambHng games ill ··PI from ~g. • .
wh~ the house has the advantage; but in blackjack, with. . Most casmo owners had learned, over the last decade.
the player's use of counting methods, it is as profitable as ~ some players would wait until very special combina-
any other way of putting·down money at favorab~ timeS. tions of cards arose, near the end of the deck, and that
Forthern\Ol'O, since the system is so. widely and so unsucc~ ·thea they would sharply up their bet, sometimes going
fully practiced, it makes an excellent disguise for the count1 from $I to Ssoo. These players were stopped by shuflHng
ing player. Also, the casual touch of leaving your • -t» deck five or ten cards from the end.
untouched between hands seems nice. Therefore, to be safe Harold Smith, Sr., instructed. our
•"'ll'~' to shuflle no later than I2 to 1' cards from ~e end.
• 66 B BAT. THE D.BAL,Blt.
Fortunately for them. they waited to see the results. We were
not .planning any ulterior moves; we conti~ to use the
. same Tens strategy that we had used all evenlng. This strat·
eg locates favorable situations after the first hand.has been
played. even if only four cards have been dealt.
A few minor yet favorable situations appeared and
were exploited by us. Thereupon the deek was shuf:lled 25 ·
cards from the end. Some favorable situations still arose.
F'mally. the de8ler began shufDing 42 cards from the end,
that is, after only two hands bad been played! This fencing
went on for twenty minutes or so, and in that time a com·
bination of bad luck. the club's unfavorable rules, and the
sbuftling allowed us to squeeze out only an additional $So.
It seemed useless to continue playing at this casino, so we
stopped.
·We then visited a casino in one of the .large hotels.
We had been told that they used a "cheat" dealer on "big-
·money" players. After being cheated on the very first hand,
in-an incident descn"bed in detail in the chapter on cheating, .
we m~ on.
Nine Hululred Doll({rs Bet on a-Single Hand·
Ia the 'next casino the maxin~um was only $300, but
this .limit was compensated for by excellent rules: the p~ayer
coukUnsure, split any pair, ~ double down on any set of
cards. Wi( purchased ·$2,000 in chips from the cashier and
selected a table at which there were no other players. I lost
steadily, and at the end of four hours of play I was almost
$r,700 behind. I was quite discouraged. However !followed
the pattern of countless hapless players before :me (with, I
hope, ~reason) ~d decided to wait for the' deck to bC-
come favorable "just once more" so l could recoup some
of my losses.
In a few minutes the deck obliged, suddenly producing . · ~g to bar us. The casino, he said, had fearlessly played
aiatioofothersjTensof 1.4,a S percent advantage, which 'c ·~all cam CO~ he reeled off a series of
caUed for the maximum bet of $300. Curiously, my rettl&illlo"'.& .'--~--· rbat JJJeailt JJOthing to me-and bad beaten 1hem
ing chips amounted to preciiely $300. As I tried to
·My ltktu A.a Tested In Nevada
·whether to quit if I lost this one, I picked up my hand and
foUnd· a pair of Bights. They bad to 1» split. I tlung three
$too billdrom my wallet onto the second Bight. On one of
tho Bigllts I was dealt a Three. I had to double down so I
tlung three more $xoo·bills onto this hand. There was, now
· $900 lying on the tab~the largest bet I had yet made.
The dealer was showing a Six up an~ turned out to
have a Ten under. He promptly busted. Now I was only
$800 down. This deck continued to be favorable and the
next went favo~le after the first band. In a few minutes
I wiped out all my losses and went ahead $255. With this
·burst of good fortune, Mr. Y and I decided to quit for tho
_evening. .
Again the Tens system had shown a feature that woul4
appear .repeatedly: moderately heavy losing strea.ta. JDixcd
with "lucky streaks" of the most dazZling briUiance;
Theaext aftetnoon Mr. X, Mr. Y, and I visi.ted tbe:ea- · ·
sino outside tow1i a~. BefOre sitting down to play, I
made a phone call. WbeD I c;_aDle back my friends told me
the casino bad barred us from play but that it would be
only too happy to pick up our meal tab. I called over tho
tloor manager and asked him what this was aU about. He
explained, In a very~ and courteO~ manner, dlat tbe
staff had seen me play:ing the aay before~ that tbq. were
very puzzled by my steady whining at, a rate that 'Was large.
for my bet sizes. He said also that they could not fi.gore out
.what was going on but that they had 1ina1ly decided, ia tho
light of their previousexperi~ that a card-counting sy&-
tem was involved. My ~ was becoming hanl to
detect.
Evidently they were discouraged when .they esthtWecl.·
the power of the system that faced them, for ~ 1I09f lball-
ager said that the owner had deliberated at length befoie
·. · '-al\
- _-. .. cme exception. He described the oaly piaF that
VitJl
 68 BBAT T~H£ DB~LBa
had been previously barred as "'a little dark-Juiired guy
from Southern CalifDm~" We have- already mentioned
this . individual and wiD say more about him and other
fam.ous early players later on. . both in the customaryse~ andd )in the mMathdema~~ l!
We returned to our hotel, and while my friends took
. CJU'C, of business for a couple of hours, I passed the time
away by betting Ss to Sso at the blackjack tables. Despite
· the annoying presence of a shUl, I won about Ssso. At this
point, the pit boss asked me to stop playing at the hotel
and to tell the same to Messrs. X and Y and any other
:,friends I might have. He did say, however, that we could
. enjoy iuilimited drinks on the house. Immediately I had a
Moscow mule and then went to tell my friends that they
Jlad been banned from this casino without their ever having
_-played .there. ~ win-Mr. X joined me. In forty minutes, I won $1,300, and ·.
It was almost suppertime Sunday when the three of us
revisited the casino at which I had made the $900 bet. I
was warmly remembered as the rich playboy Qf the night be-
J,~ who had. been down $1,7cio before wriggling off the
book by some quirk of fate. We were invited ·to dine,
courtesy of .the bouse, .as a prelude to the evening's gaming
festivities. After two $4 entrees of baked oysters on the half
~1 and yarious supporting dishes. ca~ with wine, I set
out ~ewhat unsteadily for the gaming tables: I was truly·
a lamb readied for the slaughter. Within a few minutes. how-
ever; I was at peak ale~ess. After four bouts' of betting $25
to $300, I was ahead $2,000. Since I was beginning to tire,
. with the utmost reluctance I decided to return to my hotel.
. I remember that casino fondly: the courtesy eel hos-
pitality, the spacious, attractive modem dining room with 'its
.fine cuisine, and the.. casino with its juicy little clusters of
.blackjack tables, the favorable rules. and last but not· leas~
the free money.* · with.f:l:i&tUy.",he explained that, in general. tlie club did ·not
· •niS casino had its revenge. Nine months tater lrevisitecUr. A
lki'UM cheat separated me from $6oo in tOn minutes (at $25 pei ~
Wore I realized "times had changed.• · -
My ld«u .u.· Tutetl fn N.,.g;, ·159 ·1
t
The Twenty--Five-Dollar Minimum Game ~
My friends and I were again ready for. action·(~ I
of the .SJlDl total of all bets·ma e ear1y on ay w.~~ ~
We drove to the south end (Stateline) of Lake Tahoe. ~
About 6 P.M. we arrived at Harrah's large, brightly lighted I
gambling factozy~ It was jammed. I was barely able to get
a seat at the blackjack tables.
A few··minutes after I plated on the table the $2,000
worth of chips I had purchased from the cashier, a pit bOStl
rushed over to invite me to dinner and the show. I in tum
requested (with success) that my two friends be included.
I began a game and within a few minutes-as I began to
Mr. X. who was betting wildly. won $2,000. Then we .took ,:,
time out tOr our free dinner. which featured filet mignOn ana .·
champagne. Within hours, destiny would present us ·With
a bill for our "free" dinner. The charge? Eleven thousand
dollars! ,~
· After. dinner we strolled across to Harvets Wagoia
Wheel. There were both the $500 limit and acceptable ruleS.
As usual, I purchased $2,ooo in chips from the cashier and
selected the least b\isy _table. From the beginni~ I Waa
plagued by $r bettors who came and went, generally slOw-
Ing down the game, who concealed cards so that they were
hard to count. and who created many other small annoy-
ances•
Whenever a small bettor arrived at the table I pointedly
reduced my minimum bet~ $50 to $1. After a few~
utes the pit boss "got tho message" and asked me if I wouic1
~ a private. table. When I said it Would "transport Die
.like ihe psychological effect of a private table qn the other
-a
~. However, with trace of a smile. be said that a
~ gam~ could ~ arranged, and wondered if
70 BBA'I' TH.B nEA:LBB.
that .would be satisfactory•.J promptly agreed, and a sig.n to
that effect was installed. which cleared th~ table of aU cus-
tomers_ but. me. A small crowd gathered: quietly to watch
their·. somewhat plumpish fellow lamb go to the slaughter.
Seventeen Thousand Dollars in Two Hours
After I had won a few hundred dollars, the pit boss
was amazed and delighted to see another ''well-heeled"
laml;).wandet up and sit down at my table; it was none other
than my friend Mr. X, who thereupon "jumped in" the
game. 1 then took the responsibility, for both of us, for keep-
ing the count and calling the signals. Within thirty minutes
we had emptied the table's money tray-the blackjack ver·
lion of "breaking the bank." The once smiling pit boss trem-
bled with fear.
- Otl1Cr- e~ployees began to panic. One of our -dealers
bleated to -bee boyfriend higher-up, "Oh, help me. Please.
Help me." The pit boss was trying to explain away our win
to a -nervous knot of subordinates. While the money_ tray
wu being restocked, the crowd swelled. They began to
chc:er. on their David again the casino Goliath. , duces about $250 per hour, and the risk of bad fluctuatiOns
One bystander blurted out rather loudly that he had
seea 1,1S off to a roaring start in Reno two nights earlier and
wondered if we had done there what. we were now doing
he~ As the pit boss listened attentively, we quickly hushed
up the bystander with tales of woe.
. .In two hours we broke the. bank again. The great heaps
of chips in front of us included more than $I 7,ooo in profits.
I bad won about $6,ooo and Mr. X, betting wil~y. had won
$n,ooo. I was tiring rapidly. The aftereffects of our-huge
dinner, the increased effort in managing two hands, and the
S!I'ain of the last few ~ys were telling. I began to ~.it
•very difficult to count properly and saw that Mr. X ~
·ecpaU,y·· far gon~ I insisted that we quit, and I_~ in
my $6,ooo. As I did so, I was startled to find three or four
prqtty girls wandering baf:k and forth across m1 patlutnft..
ing a1fectiQDately. · ·
My Ideas An Test.etl"Jn.Nevada 1i ·•·
After wending my Ulyssian way back t9 ~e ta~ -I·
watched,· horror-stricken. ·Mr. X. 1laving refused tO.'stop ·
playing, was pouring back thousands. In the forty--A"* min- ·
utes that it tOok to pel'Sllade him to leave, it cost:tfte two
of us about $n,ooo of our $17,000. Even so, when we_
to
returned our hotel that evening we were ahead $13,000
so far on ~e trip. · . .
On Tuesday we paid ·a series of \'isits't9...a downtowJI
club that had bad rules and shuftled five to ten cards from ,1
the end. We ~dually but steadily lost about $2.ooo, ptar- · •~
ing Sso to $soo. The player could dou?le down on 1:0 mid ·
II only, cou1d not insure, and the ~ler bit soft 17. As will . ·'
be seen in the chapter on niles variations, the player is
whittled down at an average .rate of slightly less than 1 per
cent while awaiting favorable situations. Although these sit-
uations dO 8rise, they are reduced somewhat in botJ:l ~
queney and favorability. Playirig Sso to Ssoo, the Teas
strategy p~duces. perhaps Ssoo •.per h?ur• ·with favorable
ru.les and about $400 per hour Wlth typical rules. t With the·
unfav9f'&ble rules- just described, the strategy probably· pro- .·.·
rises sharply:t . ·
The new and powerful po~t-count strategy works qutte· <
wen on these unfavorable casinOs. That strategy, presented .
in Chapters 6 and ;, allows the player to couht aU the card&.
It i$ no more difficult than the Tens strategy. ·
My friends and I recalled that the club in .which I ~
practi~ed so lengthily had excellent rules and made a prac-" ·
tice of dealing down to the last card in the deck. We d~ .
to pay it a Tetu.(n visit. Mr. Y and I purchased $1,ooo-.m :
chips and begatl to pl~y. We immediately begatt to wm,
but within minutes the owner_ was on the scene. In a panic.
he savo_ the dealer and the .pit boss instructions. . .
. 1?illli· aa amazing perfotmance began. Whenever I··
 72 B B AT . T H B'. DB A L BIt'
changed my bet size, the dealer sbufBed. Whentwer l varied
the p\lmber of bands I tOok (by this time I could play from
-one to eight hands at one time and faster than tho best
dealers could deal), the dealer shulllecl. The dealer against
wbom'I had played last in my practice session was standing-
1
_in the background (had she ..fingered" me?), saying over
and over in reverent tones how much I had advanced in
akill since the other night Finally I happened to seratch my
nose and the dealer shuflied! Incredulous! I asked her
wb.ethc:r she would shuftlo each time I scratched my nose.
She said she would. A few more scratches convinced me she
m.eant. _what :sho said. I asked whether any change in my
behaVIOr pattern,-no matter how minute, would cause her to
lhuftle. She said it would.
., I was now playing merely even with the house, • as the
ihuflling destroyed nearly aU tny advantage (except that
pined from seeing the burned card). But by chance I
~ ahead about $300. I then asked for some larger-
denomination chips-$ so or $1oo-as aU I bad were twen-
ties. The owner stepped forward and said that the house
ymuld not sell them to us. He then had a new deck brought
m ~d carefully spread, first face down, then face up.
Curious,l asked why they spread them face down. Although
the· practice is a common one in the casinos, seldom do they
examine the backs of the cards for a couple of minutes, as
these people were doing. The dealer explained that it was
believed that I had unusually acute vision (1 wear glasses)
and could distinguish tiny blemishes on the backs of the
Q8fds. This, they surmised, is what enabled me to foretell
what~ were going to be dealt. lsco1fed, bitt the house
stiJl panicky as my wins continued, brought in foui ..;
tfecks in fiVe minutes. - - . ·
My Ideas Are Tested in ]llevada · 11
A.fter. disposing .of that particular . h~. theory., I .
p~ them to tell us What they thought about my "secret."_
The dealer claimed then that I could count every card as
it was played. an4 that therefore I knew exactly which cards
bad not yet been played at each and every instant. Now, i~ is
well known ·to students of mnemotechny (the science of
memory training) that one can readily learn to memorize
in proper order part or aU of a deck of cards as it is· dealt
out. ~owever, · l am familiar enough wi~. the ~ ~
volved b41 to know that the informatioP, when so memor-
ized, cannot be used quickly enough for play in blackjack.
So l challenged the dealer by rashly claiming that no one in
the world could watch 3S cards dealt quickly off a pac~ ~
then tell me quickly how many of each kind of card re-
mained. . . '
She answered by claiming that the pit boss next to her
could do just tbiit.l told them I ·would pay. Ss on the.tpot
for a demonstration. They both looked down.~ishly and-
would not answer. I made my offer Sso. They remained
'silent and ashamed. Then my friend Mr. Y .increased the
offer. to Ssoo.There was no response from these "'sports-
men." We left in disgust. . _
At the next club that Mr. Y. and I visited, the bllick-
jack tables were packed, so we inquir~· about a privatO
game. A balding, effeminate man scampered· out and ~
nervous high tones told us that he knew What we were up
· to and they were on to ~ aQd "No, thank you... Ano~
sportsman!
Since I had proved the system and the D}illionaires W
busiDess elsewhere, we agreed to terminate ®.f. little .gam•
bling experiment. In thirty man-hours of medium-~ large-
scale play, we had built $1o,obo intq $21,000. At. JJC)I·
did we have to go into our original capital-more than
· _expenses). Our experiment was a su~ and
pertonned ~ practice just as the theory on \tJlic~
preaicted lt would. . . , ·
·- hour to kill before leaving for the airpoit.
_....._.
 BEAT 'tHE DBALEll
we visited a friend of Mr. X at the Primadonna, a casino
the friend operated. I was in favor of having a Jastbig round
6
of play, but Mr. X did not want his friend "hurt." Rapidly
bored by the conversation, I wandered to the blackjack
tables. I found three silver dollars in my pocket, inflicted on
me as change by the last local merchant I had patronized.
I decided to dispose of the silver dollars at the table. Soon
a great sequence of favorable situations came along, and in The Simple Point-Count

________
five J,Dinutes my $3 became $35. Mr. X's friend never knew
that a word from Mr. X had saved him more than $1,000
in that few minut~. Sys~em
My trip to Nevada gives an ironic twist to the words of
a casino operator Vf}lo was being interviewed on a national , ...
television program. When he was asked whether the cus-
tomers in Nevada ever walked away winners, he said,
· "'When a lamb goes to the slaughter, the lamb might kill
the butcher. But we always bet on the butcher." · edition of Beat the Detlln' were
. The day of the lamb had come. Many readers of the first · · " int.;coWlt" sys-
able to discover for themselves vanou~ .pothe .fidt edition
tems. • These systems were n?t present no:been completed;.
both be~

=
because the needed calculations had
The point-count systems Will be .:;u:fu~in dealing with
:!:x~~:n=~;?;~~ ~untermeasures a~
· successful system ,riayers. This c~e~~= ~e S:
version of the potnt count. You · the Puerto
of how one point-count player won Sso,ooo ln cllan&C
Rican casinos and single-handedlY forced them to
their rules.
The Simple Point Counl
When the deck is poor in high cardS' ( IO,A ), Table 4-'1
indicates that the casino has the advantage.1
., =::rd:Ck is poor in low cards (2.3.4.5· >• Tab~ '
6 4

. . . c • It is permissi'ble also to caB (,, J, ~ s. 6, 7) low anc1 (9, zo• .C)

~- 'lbo_ ·results are pradkallY the same.
,
~~
ld.ll_.
•fl• .
f/;
t , .• 76 .Jl~,#.T THB J)JAJ,-
iudie~- that the player has the advantage.t 1'bi& ~­
a JYS_tem in which the player semehow ~~.
'the deck has. an excess of :mga cards (good) or low- cards-
~). and bets accordingly. The simplest method is to
COI1Qt low cards + I as they are seen, or "fall," al1li .to
~uutlligh~rds- 1 as tlleyfaU. Sevens, Eights, and Nines
• RQt counted. Cards which arc not seen are not-counted.
W'Jlh one. full deck ,and typical rules, the c:ount statts at
, zero. . - - .
For example, if cards from a full ~k are .seen ill.
the order 4,2,J,6,g,s.4r?.· the point values are A(- I),
'2(+.1), J(+t), 6(+ I), 9(G-), j(+ I)o 4(+·I), 7(0} •
.,.. to&al-~ of points at any given time-is the.1111Dlber
we ~· For ~pie, with the cards in the order descn'bed
~---~be point tottt& are: before any cards are dealt, o;
ilfter Jf, -- 1; after 2. o; after 3 +I; after 6, + 2'; after
s.
g. +a_; _after + 3;..after 4. + 4; after 7· + 4-
, .··,To p/lq._ the .simple point count, all you do is keep ·
~--·of.JM t<>tlll polnta. seen. Plily your cards using the ·
basic 41trl(egy. If iM point-count Jotal is :.ero or minus
· when you mau your bet, bet only I. unit. If it is pluS, bet
~-lflllR1.un/ts_ u . . point-count total.
· ·., 111 the·. . . above, if it were tim,e to bet just after
)'011 had seen -~ 6, you should have bet 2 units. If you
,. tA 1110r0.receat ~ ot ~·•,potbapl ~a
· JIOiakount a,}'lt.ca.forhimsilf Js giveala tbe San F..,..
Clqofticff
Oi lune l.f. 196J, A ~story -card Seereta foro sate'" tellS .of a·
._..who • Hid lo-••lleeomO Jateidesl-·.ia blackjack "pUreey by
Ia ){arch of •..v't~-By ac:urious ~ lhe U/eatory t!)at
=tr_h.._eJa
~1 ~But tilt Df4lw ~In MatCh of 1964
~'111tllliUl olfCNII w..a,stem 1or ~a~o. &O san PraDciicui tor s~~
Huakl ead:l ~ ID dlo..deck fa aSsfped oae of four \'lllueat·--IO.
-.s• 5.:..or_. 10 (.of~ lit~-
u -WBJ.•
· , -z. ~~. J, or 2 WOaJcl Jaau_~
fti\i"H*IIt of sucli point -values (ono_ of leYeral pGISible
'tlie.
,._:: .,.. ... otltQa &1ft.~ -the ~ re.ulta) can reiCIIly- 1re
derived fMtQ Tllble "''· It Ia: .c. -1~ s fa' lo; ~ .3. 4· 6, • , ~
.s;•~a.•tor-s. bot o fa:tialtern 9.111ill~«J are ~·no.~ .a
Polllf-- ~ ~~U ~ a& . . .'IDI'rafale citJ*_.·. . . CIIllill
~•..-111-.-.-.!Jfdlc~.~- . . -
lelde\t' m ... w ~- ···nat·-:_
poilina11101 b'tlluardi.JiSJIJ&tU z.~a ·ew_p··· "·_ •·
. . fil Ta\u · " ! ~c·
Shnp-le Pbtni-Cotint System
·· l'Jij: 'fl'
ha4-·Jpsl seen the s. ,W ~ld have. bet ~ Utdo.lf "*
half just seen- the· 4 -or tbe 7, )'<)U should have bet .4 units.
otherwise you shoul(J have bet I ultit. . . · . ·
Notice tba:t when aU four Fives are. gonct, ·the point•
COUDt total is (on the average)·+ 4· The poin~ cans
for- a- 4-unit bet in these situati6nL So the poinfcount·and
tbe·Fives system agree ~tit is good to have~ all tho Fives'_ ·
out. 'Die. itdvantage of the point count is that it ~eli m~ ·
more favorable situations than the Fives system. and· it
fiJlds them -earlier. You win several times as fast. •
You should now ·stop reading and take tiJJiec Olit co-
practice the simple point count. If possible,· have a. friend
deal· to you. Play slowly enough so that you do not :maJaj
niistak-es. Do this even if:you are ridiculoUsly slow at~: ·
~ yOu· practice, y~-will gradually speed up. Pl!ly. . ·. _. . . :
chipS. This will add a touch of realiim, and ·it wm~4
give you·an idea Of how rapidly you 'will win· When' )'W
are playing ~e simple point count accurately and at a
normal speed and feel quite comfortablC With_i~ ~ on.
R.,efinementl . - •, .
After you are completely comfortable with ~ peiiir· •
count, there- arc several refinements which make it stroager.
If the point count is, say,+ sand the deck·is aeailJ.
complete, the deck is not as rich in high car4s as it it_if.
for example, the point count is + S .mel on_!y-m, ~ am
left. 'Then they are an high. So the advantage or ~
tage to dte player ~ependS I10l only on the;point ~· fi.tat c
aJso.on how niany ~~-.re left. If ·we take this intQ accouat.
we can play more preciSCly., The'c:ortectway tO do t1dS is to
cn~-:the point total by the Jl\mlber of decks left. "J."he..auuJi.
bet. We 8et is·a stiU •better- one ~ the ~ to~ !D' JISt •
for ~pq~ For ~le,jf the poutt ~ 1fJ + 1.
tbe ·
~~deck remai~ we-can bet I +(*) =1 x(:a/~)
.
i::·1~)1stead ~. OIJly·'t.-.ut MOte iUlportant.
~-adjUstS th8' point coiQit lor playing . . . casiDOJ
--cor-.
 78 B'EAT THB DE'ALJfit
using 2 or more deeb. In a two-cieclc game ·the point Cbuitt
for the ahpost complete two decks should1>e + 4 f~ a 2-
~; unit bet + 6 for a 3-unit bet, and s6 on~ However, once the
l two deCks have been played down to one deck. the betting·
l should be the same as for one deck. · teach him the point count. But his jokes ~re so m~ moro
Ij- · Later, in the advanced point count, or high~low, strat-
egy (Chapter 7), we shall learn to keep a precise count of
j the remaining cards. This will allow us to compute our bets
1
!
still more exactly. ·· . ' •
J' It is also true that the strategy changes as the pomt
l count changes. As an extreme example, if only low cards
~ Wt, the player sh9uld always draw on~d 15. • Since
he eould draw at most a Six he could never bust, and draw-
l ing must itnptOve his Iiand.
· Roughly speaking, when the point count is plus, stand
more bffeil~ double down more often, an4 split more often.
·When the point count iS minus, draw more often, double
dOwn· less often, and split less often. The .details will be
covered ill Chapter 7. With this background on the strategy
r
chtiriges.- can describe my Puerto Rican advcnmre and
-the Salmon's" great Sso,ooo win.
Henry Motgan and 1 visit Puerto Rico_
After the first edition of '{Jeat the Dealer was out, I
apj)eared on ~'I've Got a Secret'' (April. 1964). My "secret"
was, of course. that I coUld rapidly and consistcrntly win at
casino blackjack un<ler the· usual playing conditions. But
Gary Moore, moderator of the pr~m, had a secret for
the panelists too. Hi~ secret was .that Henry ,Morgan was
to.try out the system in the Puerto .~can casillO$. on a bank-
roll .of $200. Henry was to report back to the program
the following week. .. . .
·x ·decided to go down, too.. and see. \;Vhat tlte,,.,~,
RiCitn_casinos we~ like. Messrs. M,ancJ N~-1:WO yollQg~:
YOt-k entrepreneurs (also the promoters of_ an;:~~
. •To ezpens: 1 ~ think..., ~"HfoA situ~Jii...,.
lie shoukfDl, but to pvo them llcii WOII!d-O!Ily c~utWupa. ;~,!fl~~
. . .. --'~"''''"~ _·:, '~"'->f;:;-;:c~::;>'
1'"~ Simple Point-Count_ System 1~
\ S~s.ooo cluillcnp JD.atch with 8 wen-known Las V~
: casinO),. bankrQUed my play. -· . . ~ • :
· . 1 spent an enjoyable afternoon with Henry Mo~ Jll
the New York offices of "I've Got 8 Secret," attenq>ting to
interestiftg. and he himself so uninterested in the dry rQUdno
of "trainirig," that I settled for showing him the maill parts.
of tho basic strategy. Hopefully, ho would manage to break
even. (Profits would go to charity, of course.)· ..
I sta~ with Messrs. M and N in the luxurious. La
Concha hot~L It is one of about ten in San Juan that bavo
C&$inos. Henry _settled •where. Casino hours were
erallY from 8 P.M. to 4 A.M. N and'! arrived about~
gc:n-
nigh~ got settled. and played for ll couple of hours.
get the feel of things. M had come ~ several days ~Uet
and bad won about $1.000 so far. He showed us a~
and it soon became appar_ent that there were signiftc8Dt
~·
differences between the Puerto Rican game and the Nevada
game. . -
· First, the Puerto R1can casinos were government _re_g.-
ulated. This meant that ofiicial printed rules of the-game~.
·' blackjack were posted on tho wall of each casino. in plaiD
! sight. The same was true of many procedu~;es. The cas~._
couldn't suddehly change the rules .on m~ as they had ~
Nevada. You may recaJJ. for example, that in the test of the
Ten-count system (Chapter S) Harold's Club ~ed. up_
; on me and another club refused to sell me Iarge-ssze chips.
The· two ot:11et games that were ~erally played, roulette
and craps. also had their rulc;s and reguliltions posted. Tho
rules for the games were unitotm (a f~ optionJ were at--
lowed) for the several 'casinos we visited. ·
As lin added protection for both customer and casino. ·
a govc.t'DDlCDt man was on duty ill the casino playing area _at
·1, aU1imes. &ld. every ~lo etfort was made ~ infoml
/ ~=~ these.facts.'lbfs CODti;asts with _tho, situation_-
·"! · ..,
\ {~,~i»~ ~-itself was dealt face up frQm two.
J .. ~-~:cje"'···
- .· . · · ·
 80 BBAT TBB ·D.BAL'Bll ... The Simple ·Point-Count System Jt.
deeka. 'l'he. cards were dealt from a dealiDg box, or "shoe." .. The rules \VCI'C Jike the typical rules of (llaptet 2; with
This makes the sleight-of-hand card ·lriCltely- 5o· oftett ._ one important exception. Doubling down Was restri~~ to·
COPntere&Hn Nevada (but so seldom noticed; see Chapter totals of hard u only. When questiqned, tbe casbioe said
10 for clctails) much less likely. Don't think you can'( be that soft 21 could also be counted as 11 and doubled down
cheated from a dealiDg box. You can, as we'll see ·shortly. (m (the printed rules seemed to imply it.also). They were
:&ut the Wrlety of cheating methods are fewer and the quite aniused by the question and wondered w)lat f9ola
chances of catching them are higher. So they deftnitely dis- , would ever double down on soft 21.
C)Qurage cheating. · Here's an example where doubling down ou soft 21 fa
To further discourage cheating, two decks with dif. the best play! Suppose you are keeping track of totalpoints.
ferent color backs (e.g., one red deck, one blue deck) were total remaining cards, and total rem~ng Aces. Suppose
geaerally used. The top of the dealing box was tnoStly open you have just been dealt (A,Io) and the~ shows a.zo.
ai1Ct you could seo the color of the back of the top card. If Suppose also that the point total is riow + 3, there are tbNe
~watched closely you could sometimes also see the.oolor cards left, and no Aces left. Then the three cards left unseea
Of the back of the card dealt to you. The dealer's hand often i are all Tens. So the dealer's hole-ard is a Ten. He has 20;<
oo'Wered the .card so wen during the instant before the card he can't draw, and you.will win one and a half times yo\11'
was-turned face up that the color couldn't be determined. If : original bet from your natural, or bladcjack, if you stOp
you saw a red card and got a blue one, you would know. you fl'. now. But if you double down, you will get another. 10 fQr
wore cheated. · a total of ordinary 21. Your 21 beats the dealer"s .~ and
. . Another nice feature of the Puerto Rican casinos Is you walk away with twice your original bet, instead· of oa1y
that no liquor is served in them. A favorite device of the l one and a half times iL ..
Nevada casinos is to ply their customers with "f~" liquor. 1 Admittedly this is an expert· play. You would not bO
This is often done deliberately, to impair the player's judg- ; expected to do it after learning only the simple point count.
JDODt and to remove .his inhibitions. It works. I have seen However, once you have masJered Chapter 7, there is_-&
1'/ell-heeled -drunks who pay their employees one dollar an good chance you will be capable of such feats. The point _
hour fting thousauds across a blackjack table in a few l of the story here is that precision play of this sort was ·be-
min~ And l have seen poor drunks Write checis ~ey t yond the imagination of the casino personnel we met.
~dn't cover. The last am perhaps tho saddest cases. The 1.. There was one other important rule in PuertQ ·Rico.
Puerto Rican casinos willingly serve unlimited snacks- ! The betting limits were $1 to Sso. compared with $1 to
sandWiChes. Cokes, etc~ 'lbo•1ltm0Sphere is f!uiet and re- $500 in most of the larger N~ada establi$hments. The
)axed. Evenmg dress is the rule. - maximum win rate in 'Puerto Rico would .only be about
The blackjack rules allOWed the player to play as one tenthwhat it~ in Nevada. So M'.s wiA of.$1,000 in
many initial hands {before pair splitting) as thete 111010 three ore fou! days would--correspond~ a win inN~
i-
empty places. There were~~ so a , . _ _ . _ l (multiplyins .U bets by IP)-.of $1o,ooa. .
ji
l: could play seven hands at a time. Ttle:patet.- • .. ~-.".-·-.•.Ia' t~ . .After the·evenin.. g.'sw.arm-
.. ~wetJI~m.about. S A.~J;F.
J :_
of hands per hour, the ~ the ~ ~ 4ch,._ . One~ the grea~ stratns of thesoli~tle v~ IS teadjnstmg
i: used. so we goD*II1y playe4'this ~ Witlf!JP-10 , ,the body~ sch~Qle toJbe rev.eraecUsourubat gamblers~
aeVes\hands. . - .. ·. ·. --~~,> t ·to keep. ..
' · -J. ,·:.

BBAT TB;B I)BALB&
Bnfer the Salmon ..
Before we arrived, M had noticed a system pta~ ~o
.was having great success, playing e'!ery night and WUlDUll
steadily. He and M ~~ acquamt~.. . "But we'll get him in the end," a casino boss said. ''We Call
. The casino personnel nicknamed him the Salmon (pro-
nounced Sal-moan, with the stress on the se<:ond syllable).
lnspired by the first editi~n of Beat .the D_ealer, he had
. begun to play about six months earlier, w1th a s~ of
$200. I said in the book that this s~e ~o~d 81": the
player a 99 per cent chance .to go on wmmng Jndefinitely.
There was only a I per cent chance that an extreme run . would sometimes hit a blackjack again and again until it
of bad luck would ever wipe out the stake plus acc.umulated
wimWlgs.
. . The Saltnon took me at my woro ~-got to .wor~
J1C found that the Tea-cQWlt was too labonons, so he dis-
covered for himself the simple point count plus refinement&
··When we met him, his original $200 had~ to $20,000.
· The Salmon put on a splendid and effecti_ve show. He
would come into a casino, spot an emp!J tabl~ ind purchase
leveral-thousand dollars' worth of chips. which he stack~
in several great irregular. columns, up to a foot or two 1D
-< height. Th6 colu!Jlng of~~ like m~ suc:;
kings in checke~ ~e scattered his great columns of c ps
an over the layout,_like pieces Jn a game. ~ut he always
lllanaged to scatter them so .that they effectively .bloclced
anyone else from playing. While he played, the Salmon kept .
:up a disarming and amusing line of patter with the nearby
casin~after ~ag­
I arrived; recent copies of Life
azine [491tdached Puerto Rico. In them was a ~page
story, with picture$. about me and Beat the· Detiler•. ~
book had alSo moved onto the NfiV York Times _non-,fiction
was.
best-seller list. I theJ1 ~ by the casmo petson· Sa:Imon's" first hand is (IO,IO), his second hand is (A,IO)
aeL After the casinoJ shUt down at 4 A.M.. M, N, nc:l ~ ~
· a snack with some Of the people from one of the .caamos. •
_The Slf!2ple Point-Cf:!unt System
We learned that the salmon had been winning regularlyfor
several months, but oo one knew the trqe el(tent o~ his
winnings. ,.
t asked why he was called the. Salmon and was t9ld
tliatit was because he was like a fish that swam up stream.
it a Ia larga [in the long run]," he said. "And we call it 'in
the long run,' " I said. Salmon later told me that "Sabnop"
was Puerto Rican slang for "jerk."
The casino view that the Salmon was a jerk was furth~
reinforced by the way he played sqme of his hands. At the
end of the deck, ~n apparent recklessness or disgust, he
busted. Likewise with a pair of Teris or a pair 9f.Aees·
Other times he would stand on a pair of deuces! Surely this
was madness, the casino personnel would. say to _n'l.~ again
and again. . . . . · ··
I coul(i only smile and ~y that it certainly was difficult
(for them, that is) to understand how su~h playing oould
lead to anything but disaster. I pointed out that my b~c
Strategy, the Fives strategy, and the Tens strategy, all forbid ·
such plays. Was Salmon mad? Far from it.
'fhe Salmon was· using "end play," as. described in the
. first edition (see also Chapter 8). Let's start with an ex~­
ple. The Puerto Rican casinos dealt two decks ~11. the way
to the end. The last card of the two decks was pulled back,
unpllfyed, however. Suppose now that the simple point
count is, say, -8 and there are (roughly) about l6 caJ~S
left to be played. Recall now that the Salm~n has blcicked
~ff the table with great sta~ of chips. s_"mce there- are
&eVen places, he can play from one toseven baruis on each
deal. He now takes, say, four hands a~d bets $i on each
hand (remember, the deck is btid). He and the dealer be-
tween 1,hCm get ten carets on, the deal: .Suppose that the·
.a:ild.~ rest are 5D1all cards, He hits the (zo,IC)) until
 - ,~--
_-----:.
84
..
. .BEAT TRE DEAI,.~.lt
it busts. Then be does the same with· the (A,IO) if pos-
sible. Then· he draws to the small-card hands, witho1Jl
busting any of them. When the deck is exhausted, the
used cards are reshuffled. The (IO,IO) and (A,IO) cards
are in this reshuffled group. The table is covered with small
cards wliich are not.
The next deal comes from a shoe which is pOor in low
cards. The Salmon bets $50 per hand and ~as the advantage.
On the average he will have_ the advantage dqwn to the end
of the two decks. At that. time end play is again used to
exert control over the composition of the next shoe.
The Salmon deliberately lost some $1 bets so he could
Win some $50 bets. And the operators decided that he was
a jerk.
. . We promptly adopted the Salmon's tactics. And for
sevetal evenings the casinos would see one, two, and some-
times _three master players march up to the empty tables
just after opening time. The "masters" would cover the
tables with great irregular towers of chips and then begin to
play one to seven hands at a time. The Puerto Rican dealers
were very fast (on the average much faster than the Las
· Vegas dealers, in my opinion). Yet each of us could play
still faster than the fastest dealer while we were supposedly
counting myriad cards.·~ ment~lly computing at a great
rate. ·
At the end of a shoe one evening, I had been losing
·for an hour or so. My dealer had a ten up. I had -seven hands
with various totals. I was using the variation of the point
count where 2,3,4.5.6,7 are +1, 8 is o, and 9,10,A are -I,
when they fall. The deck had run out on the deal, and the
point count was zero. Therefore the one unseen card, which
was the dealer's hole card, was a "zero." So the dealer had
an Eight in the hole for a total of 18. · ment man. Nothing appeared to be wrong.
. . · As the play of the hands developed after the reshuffle,
I bad to hit several totals of hard 17. They all busted.
The dealer looked up scornfully, saying to me with a
-~ '
"
·'!ire· ~~ple Poilu-Count <System · 8~
laugh, "So you count the ~ar~s. amigo. Why (ha,. ba), 'Iii
bet you even know what I ve got under here." A couple of
t~ other dealers grinned. So I said, "Why, you have. an
Eight under there/' The dealer laughingly summoned sev-
eral of the other dealers and the pit boss. He explained
contemrtu.ousl~ that the Americano "expert" said ~at he
bad an Eight m the hole. A babble of uncomplimentary
remarks in Spanish passed back and forth.
I w~s tired and about ready for a break. I had made
an oce;as!onal counting error over the last hour.• There was
a chance I would be wrong (~tter for me if I was, prob-
a~ly). Then the dealer turned over his hole card. It was an.
Eight. An.d the babble in Spanish raged anew. .~
, . We played on for five nights.. During this time our
c.ap1tal fluctuat~ rather violently, considering the small bet
SIZe: At o~e tim~ we were a couple of thousand .dollat$
behind. nus made us redouble our playing efforts. DUring
these f~ days I was playing at my peak. I would cou~
Aces, pomts, and remaming cards, or Aces, Tens, and uon-
. ~~ns, and some~mes not just three but four or five q~
tities. I was making perhaps one or two counting error$ an
evening! Yet I was having difficulty pulling abead. ·
I looked f~r cheating and found -only one incident. M
and I we-,e playmg at the same table in one of the crowded
clubs (not La Concha). Our dealer seemed extraordi-
n~ri~y clumsy. Two cards kept trying to come through the
sht m the side of the dealing box. \fhey would jam and he
would fumble around. We finally got tired of this and
moved to another table. Then that box was moved to our
table! w_e moved a~ain and the box.moved again! Masked
tO examme the deahng box, and we summoned the govern-
· But we knew shoes that deal seconds have been'tnade.
• •It is an important and interesting fact that errors in card count•
aug; .if !,heY are "ran~om:' .i.e., have_ no intrinsic "patterns" or "ten-
cleDcies; do eotnparativcly little harm to a system player!. ·
 36 BE. AT. THE 1)_1) A L.~tt
~' They were commonly used, for _example, in faro as ~layed
"'i
).; in the old West. A clever mechanism was concealed m ~he
. thin sf<;le panels. If this were such a shoe, one of the s~de
. panels might be hollowed out. There was one long stde
panel and two shorter end panels. We tapped both end
panel~ with a chip. They sounded the same. Then we tapped
the longer panel. It gave a higher tone. By the la'Ys of
physics the tone should have been lowe:. We t~ted other
~parently ide:ntic_al dealing boxes. Thetr l~ng side panels
. gave out the expected lower tone. ConclusiOn: we would
avoid this club from now on.
·. · Why didn't we ask that this box be confiscated and the
·matter be investigated? Mainly because we w~re ~nable to
cpmmunicate with this government man. He dtdn t seem to
understand. English and he dicfn't seem to know wh~t we
were driving at. Of course, any effective action would have
to be initiated there, on the spot, wjth the evidence at hand.
Once it disappeared, so did the chance of makin& an effec-
tive complaint. · .
· We ended our stay with a joint win ()f a li.ttle under
$2,000, which barely covered the cost of a l~unous vaca-
tion for four. This would correspond to a wm of almost
$20 ooo in Nevada with its higher betting limits. :aut we
sho~ld have won much more. Playing conditions were ideal,
'and dealing down to the last card enabled us to ~se end
play very strongly. Also, in the same amount of time the
Salmon piled up $7 ,ooo with play that was not as stro~g
as ours. We found very little difference between our wm-
nings when we used a point count and when we used a Ten
. count.
An Interesting Idea for End Play
· Finally, the day before we left, 1 realized how we could
make a fortune in Puerto Rico as long as they dealt down
to the end of the deck. My idea had begun to form a couple
of evenings earlier. M was very impressed with the- courte-
ous. friendly, relaxed atmosphere in the Puerto Rican
·~-.----.,..--~
.''The· Simple Point-Count System
'casinos•. It was ·so different from his ~ences in Las
Vegas and the other Nevada gambling meccas. He asked N
to count Aces for him with chips. This worked fine. NeXt
it was Tens and Aces. This worked too. F'mally, N would
take turns fully relieving us of our counting chores by~­
ing With the chips. Surpri$gly, what N was doing appeared
to pass unnoticed.
This.made me realize that it wufeasible to count all
the cards so that, every so often, we could know the deaier'8
precise bole card. The profits could be spectacular. We
practiced with a miniature tally sheet in our rooms the next
afternoon. My idea was that the player could be assisted by
a helper who counted all the cards with a tally sheet. We
Would start at the beginning of two fresh decks by ~
· &even hands at $1 each and playing them out with the basic
strategy. This would be repeated, to use up most of the . ,
two decks quickly. Now, 102 cards are actually played out
of the 104 cards in two decks, since the top one is burned
and the bottom one is pulled back. About three cards are
used per hand. So in a round of 5even bands plus the
dealer's, about 24 cards are used. In three such rounds.
about 72 cards are used, leaving about 30. .
Suppose that this in fact happens in an .actual game.
We would next take some number of bands that guarantee.
that the box will run out in the following round. Bufit
must run out after the dealer gets his hole card so we can
then tell from our count what that hole card is.
We take enough hands so there will be 16 or a little
fewer cards left after the round. The reason for- the un- .
certainty ·at this stage is ·that we can't control in advance
how many cards, if any, the dealer will draw. In this case,
five player hands plus two cards drawn or six player hands
·plus no cards drawn would Use up 12 cards. Since the
dealer's hand uses up 2 more cards of the original 3~ this
WOUld leave 16 cards less the number the dealer dra-ws to
his }tote card. - .
SupJ>9SC it ·turns out that he draws two cards. Then

·88 B E AT· .·T H E I) B·A 1.:1~
there will be fourteen cards left to play on the final deaf of
the box (plus one card that will not be played). We now
take six hands and bet the maximum of Sso on each of
them. The fourteen cards are just enough to deal out aU our
hole cards and the dealer's two cards. Our~ards are face up,
we can see all of them, as well as the dealer's up card.
We now tcy to hit the first hand, no matter what its value.
The dealer pulls. out the last card, notices that it is the last
card, and refuses to give it to us. Once we have seen and
eounted this card, the only card left unseen is the dealer's
hole card, and we now know from our count what that
card is.
After the dealer shuftles the used cards, we get on with
playing out our six hands. He asks us whether we still want
to draw to our first hand. (If the casino rule is that we had
to draw to this hand because we had requested a card
. before the shuffle, we would have countered by only betting
$1 on this hand.)
l'lllying Strategy When the Dealer's Holl CtUd Is Knou'll
We play this hand and the five others with a new
..basic" strategy. The term "basic" means again that (for
simplicity only) we are not considering information about
any cards other than the dealer's two cards. and the hole
cards of the hand being played.
Instead of a separate playing strategy for each dealer's
up card, we now have a separate strategy for each pair of
dealer's cards. There are fifty-five such pairs. The strategies
were calculated in detail by Julian Braun and forwarded to
me some months before the Puerto Rican trip. The results
are given in Table 6.1.
Note that the strategies are yery much alike against
dealer's cards of the same hard total.
Braun calculated that the player's advantage in a one-
deck game·with typical rules, when he knows the deaier's
hole card, is 9·9 per cent. (Just as a matter of general inter-
- - - - ----
ll 'Phe~ Simple Point-Count System
' est, Braun found that if the dealer also won all ties in sueh
a game, the player would still have an edge of 2.1 per cent.
We omit the somewhat different player strategy for this
situ!Uion.)
Value of Knowing the Dealer's Hole Card
We could have averaged $25 ($5.0 per hand x 5 hands
:X to%) or so per box by using the complete count of all
the cards to determine the dealer's hole card. We played
at least six boxes an hour. At six hours per evening (rest
·two) this would have been $900 per evening-a "living
wage"! But we were unable to become proficient enouoh
c '
as. a. ~eam, to get started \Jefore we .left And the Puerto
.Ric~ rules were changed soon . afterwards, as a result of
:the Salmon's exploits, so we never. had the opportunity to
take advantage of the method. •
. In an ordinary game the player sometimes. finds out
.what the dealei"'s hole card is. The first time this bappened
to me was at one of the big strip hotels in Las Vegas. One
·man was playing alone at a $5-minimum · table. He was
' bettin.g $200. to $500 on each hand and winning :rapidly.
~hats !~'ore, he and the dealer seemed to be getting along
JUS! ~~e. I sat down and bet $25 to $Ioo, figuring that my
actlvlttes would go unnoticed alongside his bigoer bets..
I soon noticed that when the dealer had 1;
or more, ·
the player always hit hands of 16 or less. Once when the
dealer had a 10 up and a 6in the hole, the player stood on.
12! Then I noticed· that ·the dealer was tipping off the
, p~ayer as to whether he had a "stiff" (I 2- I 6) or a probable .
t1,fl (4-6 ), by looking unnecessarily long at his hand. If .
e had a pat hand (17"'21) or a probable good hand (7-11
• There was little chance in any case that I penonaUy could have
~on. r_nuch ~oney in Puerto Rico. The intense public interest and
bc:ity which ~f!OUnded me at .the time made the casinos acutely
ware of my activities•. As soon as my winnings became impressive the
. ~ W9ll~ have been changed. The Salmon's success deperide4 o~ tbe
that he .concealed the ~ extent of his winnings for a tong time.
heil be "opened up." the CI!Sinos diil change the rules, as we shall see.
 ·BEAT • t ll 8 D
8
A L F. R · .· The S.i(tlple Polnt:Count System
90
.·,
~·. O.Oie • • .very. quJckly~ If •t IS small, they must bend the bole card up
.!!
. ..
9,10 [19 19 9 months his winnings rose to Sso.ooo.
10,10 20 20
or soft 12 to soft t6), he looked at his band only for an
instant. He was telling the player what to do. Play for 17
(or more) if he looked only briefly at Iris -card. Stand on
hard 12 if he looked a long time.
, Of cou~ the details only became· apparent after a
while. But I ~aught onto the "stiff'' or "pat.. part right
away. In the next twenty minutes the player w.on an addi·
tional $2,000. He tipped the dealer $300. I won about $50<1
in the same time. Then the dealer went off duty and the
Situation broke up. ·
When a dealer in Nevada bas an Ace or a Ten up. he
~becks his bole card before giving additional cards to an)
of the players. If he has a natural, the hand is settled the~
and there. If the. dealer. is inexperienced, be may give awa,
some information abOut· his hole card. For example. if the
up card is an Ace, and the hole card is. smaU, some in
experienced dealers see very quickly (from the lack ol
.. paint") that it is not a Ten, and pause only briefly. If the
91
up .card is a. Ten, the reverse happen~; Mw they wonder if
. they ba~e an Ac~ ••If the bole card is large. they can see this·
qutte a lot before deciding it is not an Ace. Mr. F ($ee
. Chapter 12) gave me this tip in gratitude, after I bad won
· $1,600 by standard me~ods for him and Mr. X at the Las
~egas <:Iub in a couple of hours one evening. Mr•. F and
. hts cromeS call this dealer giveaway the "telL"
. A La Largo: The Salmon Wins $5o,ooo
We left ·Puerto Rico with fond memories. hoping to
return on another plea~ure trip after school was out in the
~mmer. The Salmon was fearful that our visit and impend-
mg return would ~peed the day when the Puerto Rican
· goose w~ul~ ~op laying golden eggs for him. He began to
· . bet the hmtt tn all favorable situations. Within another two
The Salmon ha~ played an average of five or six nights
, a. w~k. seven or eight hours a night, for .nine months.
FJgunng forty hours a week for forty weeks, that•s 1.600
.hours. At 150 h~nds an hour, he played 240,000 hands.
And he won Sso,ooo without ever making a bet over Sso
per hand (except in the comparatively few instances when
. he. doubled down). This is the longest casino test of the
~mt count that I know of. It is a spectacular demonstra--
, lion of our methods in action. ~
,· In Las Vegas, with a $500 limit (and an honest
ga~e!) t~e result..would have been $500,000 instead! De-
: ~pite the 'modest amount that he wo~, the ~almon's win
,.,as one of the great marathon feats of gambl~og history.
,,A Ia larga~e long run-showed the Puerto Rican casinos
,. the handwriting on the wall.
·: fh R l ,
;. e u es A~e .Changed" in Puerto .Rico
'_:-, . . The casmos then s!opped their prac~ce of dealing to
i;the-end of the box. Agamst good eiaye~ (the Salmon, M.
 92 BEAT THE DEALBll
and N, for example) they reshuftled as often as was nec-
essary. .
· I learned the sad news when the Salmon called me to
see what could be-done against this. 1 advised him to hunt
7
for greener pastures. Try Panama, Curacao, Aruba, and
(cautiou~ly) the Grand Bahamas. Stay out of Haiti and the
Dominican Republic: it may take the U. S. Marines to get
your winnings (if any) out. 1 told him that Las Vegas
was a harsh, pitiless place. At that time there was a par-
ticularly severe cheating problem. But he could win heavily The Complete -
there if he could dodge the cheating, or if he adoptecl
the "paper-route" . technique described in Chapter 9· He
tried Las Vegas and was sobn stripped of $2,500. Point-Count System
The last 1 heard from the Salmon was that he was
waxing prosperous in balmy Puerto Rico. He was the proud
owner of a fleet of taxicabs which paid him $100 a week
each in rentals. He dallies on the beautiful warm beaches
and in the night clubs, living the life of a playboy. Every
onca in a while he hears of a "good" blackjack game in Like the simple point count, the complete point count, or
the. Can"bbean and rushes over to "kill" it. But he longs 'high-low system, had ~urred independently to many read-
wistfully for the good old days when money grew on trees, . ·ers of Beat the Dealer. However, it was first announced- to
an
and be had to do was go out and pick it. the scientific public by Harvey Dubner, then of Simmons
Precision Products Corporation in Tarrytown, N.Y. Dubner
presented his results at a panel session of the 1963 Fall
Joint Computer Conference, a national semiannual meet-
ing of thousands of computer experts. This time the con-·
ference was in Las Vegas, Nevada. The panel session was
on the use of computers to study games of skill and chance.
The leading experts in the field talked of their work
in analyzing such games as blackjack, baccarat, roulette,
and go. Besides Dubner, the panelists were: Julian Braun
of-the IDM Corporation (Braun's detailed blitckjack cal-
culations, based on his. extensions and refinements· of my
. original computer prbgram, are the most accurate in ex-
. istence, and he has kindly atlowed them to be used through-
• 93.

,.
 94 BEAT THi DEALEtl
out!his revised edition); Richard-E. Sprague, directot;of
eomputer systems, Touche, Ross, Bailey and Smart (author
of Electronic Business Systems); William B. Walden, then
of tho Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and now dii·ector
of the Computing Center at the University of Omaha (he
and 1 jointly developed a system for Nevada baccarat, and
otlr winnings forced the casinos to remove certain formerly
profitable bets from the layout); and Allan N. Wilson
(author of The Casino Gamblers Guide, a recent coverage
of the principal casino games; readers of this book will be
interested in comparing Wilson's lengthy coverage of black-
:-
jack). Theoretical remarks were made by Robert E. Ka-
.,i laba, ·a mathematician from the RAND Corporation and
an expert on gambling systems like the Kelly system (.see
P· :23). ' the total if you see the burned card or if the dealer flashes
I was the moderator of this panel session.
· An enthusiastic Dubner made great claims for the
complete point-count method. His calculations supported
his claims. And his play in the casinos (for low stakes)"
during the computer conference was very successful. The
interest of the other experts was aroused. Braun then made
detailed calculations. (His computer techniques were based
on the methods developed and used to work out the Ten-
count strategy fof the first edition.) Although these showed
that there were some inaccuracies in the details of Dub-
ncr's results, Braun found that the complete point count
was a powerful and effective winning blackjack strategy.
Exactly how much ·better or worse it is than- the Ten-
count method is not known. But they are of com~rable
power. In an era of casino countermeasures; tightening
rilles. md dealers who are finally learning to count cards,
the complete point count .is a wekome new weapon. The
beginner should probably read through to the TeD-CO\J.Dt
chapter and then choose either tho complete point count Of
the Ten~count as the first powerful winning strategy to be
mast~red. For those who are already proficient in the Ten
· «nul~ the COJD.pletepoint«JUnt is a valuable alternate 8tra'-
eg and should also be learned, if possible. .,
(;.~nting· the Ca~ds
_In the complete point cOunt, ·we simply perfect the
~ents of the simple point count. The first sfep is t9
have an exact ·count, rather than a rough idea, of the
numb.er of unplayed cards•. So we will need to r~member
two numbers, total points, as before, and also tot~l unseen
ards. The count of total unseen cards is quite simple. For
one deck, start your count at·sz. Each time you see one of
the cards used in play, .subtract I from the current totaL
If a card is played and you do not see it for one reason or
.another, do not change your total of unseen cards. Adjust
the bottom card.
When we were only. counting total· points, the cardS
could be counted any time during or after the play of the
hand. The only important thing was to have the total pomt
count available in time to decide how much to bet ·on the
. next deal. You could even wait until a band was over and
then count the cards all at once. We can still do this whca
we are counting both total unseen cards and total points,
provided we use the information merely to arrive at the
proper bet size. We still play our hands with the basic
strategy.
When we want to use our card-count information, to
vary the strateg for playing the ·hand&-to improve on the
basic s~tegy-we can still count this way. But it will be
still better to adjust the count as soon as we see a card,
wWiout waiting. This method of counting is called tht
~running count." It is something b'ke a full-court press in
basketball: ·your count totals are ~ways ready. You don't
Jet ~· except when the cards are completely reshuffied, or
the ttea~ers change, br you change games.
~y the running·count is more tiring. If counting
r-c-_c··. c.~- ~'=o--~

f "96 ·The' Complete Point-Count System iyr

,j: is -easy for you, use it; it is best. If co1.i1lting iS bard .for that tlie game is being dealt from four well~sh~ffied decks
you, don't worry. Figure out the easiest w;q. to count and and that the only cards left are Fours or smaller. Then tho
Use that. Your results will be almost as good. Perhaps they player should draw on hard 17, no matter what th~ dealer's
will even be better because you will be less likely to make up card is.. This is in sharp contrast to the basic· strategy~
mistakes. which recommends standing on hard 12 against an up card
Here is how we use the new count to decide on the of 4, 5;or 6.
bet·size. Divide the point total by the total of unseen cards.
For example, in one-deck game, if 5.5,3.8 fell, the point
total would be +3, 48 cards remain (unseen), so we get
Advantace
3/48 or about o.o6. I find that the easiest thing to do is to 15i
estimate the nearest per cent. In this case· it would be 6
(per cent), because to change to per cent means to multiply
1091.
. by 100. I call this final number the high-low index.
If the same cards had been seen from two complete
shuffled decks, we would have +3 points and 104-4 100 =
· unseen cards and a high-low index of 3· If there were 4
decks to start with and A, 10, 10, 9, 8, 8, 10, A; A fell, the
high-low index would be -6/199 or -3 (per cent). .
I
L The Bets
I Bet 1 unit for a high-low index: of 2 or less. For a
d To use Table. 7.1, you look in the square correspond-
I high-low index of 4, bet 2 units. In_ general, bet half the . ing to the dealer's up card and your hard total. If it ·says
!
index in favorable situations; index 6, bet 3; index 8, bet 4; ..draw" or ..-stand," things are easy. Suppose instead that
index 10 (or more!) bets. For index values between these, you find an index number. Then you stand if your index is
you can shade your bets up or down, at yolir pleasure. For . - greater than the one in the table. But if your index is less
example. if th~ index is 5, you can make the bet correspond- · ·than or the same as the one in the square, you draw.
ing to an index el :either 4 or 6, that is, either 2 or 3 units~ For. example, suppose the dealer shows a Ten and
s
The reason f91' llettin'g no more than units, even when the you have hard 13. The table'says d'raw, no matter what your
index is over 10, is simply that the casinos get too excited index. Now suppose you get a Three. You now have hard
if you do. - 16. If your index is o~ or less, draw. If it is more than 02,
stand. (Warning: Minus indexes are less than plus indexes.
Drawing and Standing Using < for ':'Jess than," we have in general • • • < -G3
· The basic strategy is the best way to play against ·a · < -oo <...;.or < oo < 01 < oo ••• and·so on. So a large
. complete deck. But if some cards are missing and we know . index with tl minus is less than a small index with tl minus.
something about them, we usually can HnJ»(OVe on tlte basiC · 1his may be news to readers who are not used to n~gativo
strategy. As a simple (and unrealistic) example, suppose aumbers.)
 The Complete Polnt.;cozmt System 99
Table 7.2 gives the drawing and standing strategy for
soft hands. It is read in the same way. as Table 7.I. Notice
that the soft strategy is the same as .in the basic strategy
except for three ~.
J. With soft 17 against 7,. and an index greater that}
29, stand (the basic strategy says draw). ,
c7 ll'!j 2. With soft IS against 10, and an- index greater thaD
~
.~ . 12, stand (the basic strategy says draw).

.• !!:
-
"'
3· With soft I 8 against an Ace, and an index of -o6
or less, draw (the basic strategy· says stand) •
The first two exceptions are quite rare in actual play
J· ~ ...
- and may be neglected until you become an expert. Si~ce
l
,j J:. - f4J"' -o6 is fairly close to oo, we can simplify the third eX-
ception by saying: bit soft I 8 against an Ace if the deck is

. . - ~ I ~
r717 ' moderately unfavorable. So the results of Table 7.2 can be
simplified to: For drawing and standing with soft hands,
!a
co ~~ play the basic strategy with just one exception. With soft
II ~~ -:::~~
= 18 agafdst an Ace, hit when the deck is moderately un-
1J
- favorable. ·
I
.
1
I
Doubling Down
The doubling-down strategy for hard hands appears
~+:-:,,...;-j! in· Table 7·3· Note that doubling down with a total of hard
1-o;..,.J;;;.:.L...L.J A 5 is sometimes best play! Such facts were undreamed of
until only recently. Notice that the more favorable the deck,
the more likely- we are to double down. Double down if
,your index is larger· than the table entry. Do not double
do~ if your index is less than the table.
Table 7.4, which gives the strategy for soft doubling.
is read in a similar ~y. Once again, thtt more favorable the
deck, the more frequenJly we double down on Soft totals
(and the greater the profits).

Po.ir Splitting
Table 7·5 gives the 54ategy for pair splitting with the
high-low index. ,
RD1204 13664
r~oo­ ThB Complete ftJW-Coant System 101.
~~
\~ Insurance
;1
If the .index is greater than o8, insurance sh.ould be
. 3
I
taken. Otherwise it. should not be taken. A more detailed
discussion of insurance'will be found on pages 106-1: I. ~
~ .-
00
~ ;t ":"!
In j
Advantage and Frequency of Favorable Situations
Figure 7.1 illustrates bow the player's a4v~ntage
.changes as the index changes. Notice the gain insurance
--
l":go,o
N

~ •S"'"'=
'"<oi ""0"'
~~V\

.....
"'0"' .,~::i~~
- ...
.-:Vl"'!O j
J.
·f1s -. .
~
N
produces. It is also interesting that the player gains more ~ :.i 1
when the index is positive tl)~ he loses when it iS! negative.
This is because the player ean vary his strategy. Therefore
.•2 .5
;; 01
.§.g
.., ..
.... a\
.,..o.,.
f'ol ..... "l ~
-t
l'f.'OI; C! ""':
......... _,..f'ol

~
--
'01; .... 110~'01;"\"'!0
be can to some extent reduce the disadvantage he gets from
.....
.!! -~
g
"'!oN
~ .. r-:
:!S~ coi\ISV.CI\1"10\
poor decks. He can also increase the advantage he gets from
good decks. ·
::! ..
() ::>
,. 0
~·5
.
=~0"1
11_ .. ..,. "'0"'
o .. - "l oq .ttl "' ~ <'1 "! oq "'!
Cl\.,...,...,...,.oo,..,...., lt
The figur~ gives the imp~ession that if the index is ..,.C'IC'-.&N..,.C"'..,..,... <~r
_.>- Po .;"'
negative enough. ~ player regains the advajltage. This 0'0! -5 5 ~C!\C!"l~t'!\1:!"'!~0.
" ... e8
t-o:! ·~ ::; s:; ~"'O""
bnptessic;m is correct but the ·situati~ns are rare in play.
Table 4.1 slu>ws some of these situations. For example,
when Q(Io) = o, giving'an index of -16/36, or -44
a: ..
!..S
. -s.,
~ =·
..
·c:l·
u
s.."lo~
M'i' .. o
-8
.!a
ii:"'o"'
-
8 .....
~'"'-0\
..... \0\0t9''11101'00
00\0C'I\Cf\lf\Ctf\ .........

VlOI!Vll'fC!"'!f'!CII!f'!
-ig
Sa.
.s•
n
per cent, for an otherwise f~.~:ll ~eck, we have a player edge
-.:s· ... 4JC"\ .......
8' I
,3i .. 'i' o.:::~~~:!l~~~
r: 0
u .. . I
:;V\ §9
....
-of 1.62_per cent. However: the average situation with an
index 9f -44 is still disadvantageous for the player, as
"~ ~ "'!· .s "l
·&o-
- c a"' ~
~~ ...,
..
=~si

.,s,
"'
> 1-
I
V\
"'t::i:l~~~~o 8'ii
-- 3J
indicated in Figure 7.1. When the index iS -Ioo, in which
case the remainder of the deck consists of cards having
values of Two through Six only, the player always has an
advantage, averaging something like so per cent, and de-
-.:s8, <Q)
~

. ..
'()£
..... <;;;
!j= ~s:l
""': "'o"'
'i .....
"'O"'
T.. 'i
"l~:!~~::i

.-:.-:::i~::!
- ]!...
fli
sf
I I
=.!!
~~
pending on the· precise cards remaining.
Table 7.6 gives an idea of how often various values of
iS~
... i.s1
.,
'1'"'o"'
.. 1 . e:
~ -
.-:Vl<'\0
~ ..
t•
"'. ..."' '2....
the index, and various advantages, arise in actual play. "' .,.s
....r-:I t-:ffl
"' .!11
-..
Notice that. the chances of various negative values of the f) .2
~ .R h.
index. ~tly balance the chances of the Corresponding- 0 8'lS
positive values. To illustrate the use of the table, note for
sa :l~Hl ~ ~ ~~ ~~
example that after five cards have been dealt, the index ~
. ~o"'
is between 05 and IS, 9.S per cent of the time. It is between
-sand os, 81 per cent of the time. It ~betw~n -xs and
-os. 9·5 per cent of the time. ·
 _._' '-l'
8 hit bard 17; other times he should stand on hard 12!
A Winning Strategy
Based.on Counting Tens
l
!
i·
The strategy to be discussed in this chapter, the "'Ten-count"
strategy, was. the "workhorse" winning system i.ntroduced
in the first edition. It is comparable in power to the com·
plete point count. The expert should know both .systems.
The beginner should atten:tpt to master only one ~t firs~
Readers who. know the point count may either skip
chapter or read it through qu1ckly.
The adva~tages this strategy finds for the pl~yer gen·
erally range from I tQ 10 per cent. The large adv~tages
yield heavy winnings. The smaller advantages g1ve ~e
player camouflage: it is natural in this .s~, as w1tb
the point count methods, to vary·the bet StZe Wlth the ad·
vantage in small steps all· the way fro_m _small waitin~ bets
to a size several times these bets. TJus lS less· conspicuous
lhan just two kinds of bets, "large" and "small."-
Another camouflage advantage of the detailed Ten-
count ~ategy is that the player's ·decisions greaJ:ly depend
on the composition of the unused deck. Suppose for example .
• 102•
A Winning Str.ategy ·Based on Counting Tens 103
. that the dealer has an Ace up~ Sometimes the play~r should
One might wonder, in view of Table 4.1, how a strat·
egy based on Tens could give greater advantages than one
based on Fives. Card for card, Fives have more effect than
'Teris: four Tens add~d to the deck give the player an
advantllge of I .89 per .cent, whereas four Fives removed
from the deck give an advantage of 3.58 per cent. The
solution is that there are I 6 Tens in the deck and -only four
Fives Therefore much oreatet' deviations from the average
can o~cur in the n~mb~r of Tens than in the number of
Fives.
Effect on Player's Advantage as Proportion of
Tens Varies .
The richer the deck is in Tens, the better off the player
is, generally. We shall now think of the deck as divided
into two kinds of cards, "Tens" and "others." During play,
we shall keep track ot the number of others and the num-
ber of Tens that have not yet been seen. Thus, with the
· Tens strategy, we take into account only the cards we see,
as we see them. From these two numbers we shall deter•
mine "Ten richness" by computing the ratio "othersftens"
·(others to tens). For example, suppose the complete deck
is shuffled and prepared for play. For the complete deck,
the "count" is 36 others and 16 Tens, or simply (36,16).
the corresponding ratio is 36/I6 or 2.25. The approximate
advantages for·several ratio values are given in Table 8.1
for. quick reference.
Learning to Count
Our first goal will be to learn to keep count of the
others and Tens yet to be played while also playing with the
standard strategy. Here. is an exercise which should be done
as a preparation in learning to count. Take a shuffled ~om~
·ptete deck, and turning cards over one at a time, "count"
 - 1
~· ·BEAT THE n.·E~LE'R ~':Winning S~gy Based on Counting Tens lOS
'

TABLE 8.1 Appro~imate· Ptayer Advimtage In the Tin-Cbu'itt to twenty~five ·seconds to ;.tum over the cards whether .1
Sttategy. · count them or not. For th98e who want to push this exercise
Normal to the limit,. there is a way to break this twenty-five-second
approximate /
barrier. Remove a few unknown cards and spread the reo
advantage maining cards face up in a row, with enough of each card
Others/Tens (in per cent)
showing so that it may easily be identified. Then ~ount. by
J.OO -2.0 .. reading fr.om left to right or from right toJeft. You should
2..25 +0.1
2.00 1.0
· learn to be equally at ease reading in either direction. Your
1.15 . . 2.0 count should check against the unknown cards that WefO ;
1.63 3.0 removed.
1.50 4.0 ••
/
1.35
Shortly after I had practiced spreading the cards for
5.0
l.i5 • 6.0 rapid counting, there was an opportunity to use this skill•. I
1.16 7.0 was examining a certain casino to see if it cheated and
·1.08 8.0 began, ·:naturally, by watching the table_ where the ~~t
1.00 9.0
money was being risked. After the shuffie, 1t was the casmo s
practice to have the dealer place a joker face up on the
them and drop them face up onto a discard pile. For ex- oottom of the deck to separate the used cards from the
ample, I have just picked up the deck on my writiqg desk. unused ones. At the end of one deal the joker had vanished!
I count, "(36,16); ·3 of Spades (35,16); 5 of Clubs (34, The amazed players asked to examine the deck. The dealer
I.6); 3 of Hearts (33,I6); 4 of Diamonds (32,I6)-the spread it in the standard fashion and then scooped it up
ratio is now 2.00 and the hands. dealt now give the player ·again in about four seconds. Even with the rapid count I
·a I per cent advantage (Table 8.1); 3 of Diamonds (31, coUld only count the first 12 cards.
16); 6 of Spades (30,16); Queen of Diamonds (30,15), · .The players demanded a closer look at the deck. This
etc." A few cards from the end of the deck, stop and record. time the dealer gave them ten or fifteen seconds. When I
your count. Then see if the remaining cards agree with reached 38 cards (28,10), the dealer began to scoop them
your count of them. In the example above. when I stopped, up again slowly. I quickly counted the number of cards
my count was ( 2, I) and the last three cards were the deuce remaining, without regard for denomination. There were 20
of Clubs, the Nine of clubs, and the King of clubs, in agree- left: the deck had 58 cards! Of course, the dealer still had
ment with the count. not allowt(d the players enough time to examine the deek.
The first few times it may take you two minutes or They called for a new deck and requested that the pit boss
more to go through one deck without any mistakes. How- examine the old one. He counted the old deck off to one
ever, you should be able to drop your time, in six or eight side, holding it in such a way that no one else eould count
fifteen-minute practice sessions, to between twenty-five and ajon:g with him. · ·
fifty seconds. Fifty second& is more than adequate and · When he finished counting, an odd expression flickered
twenty-five seconds is excellent. I had trouble getting below across his face. Then, without offering a word of ex.plana-
twenty-five seconds until I found that it takes me twenty . tion to tht;· players about the recent puzzling events, he
•U)6 BRJ\T 'rHE -I)EAL'BJl ;ft~lnnlng Slnltegy ·BaS«l on Counting Tens 107
left.· ~king the old deck with- him. The trusting playerscon- : ~yer's ·bole cards- too) before' insuring.. You :have a1sO
ti,nued the game and -soon forgot the matter. The pit boss • seen the dealer's up card. All this can be taken into account,
had accurately judged their narvete. if you wish, before deciding whether to insure. ·
While you are increasing your counting speed with . We can c~lculate either the player or the bouse ad-
this exercise, you should also practice maintaining a count vantage from the ·insurance bet wheMVer we know tho
while $0meone deals to you and you play the basic strategy. , number of Tens and non-Tens. We illust{ate this calculation ·
Have them deal slowly enough so that you can count easily. ~ forthe.case in which bands are being. dealt from one com-
Play with chips and start with 200 units. Before each han~ plete deck, a situation which represents the average bouse
use your count to estimate the ratio. Theq vary your bets : advantage. In this instance, the dealer's up card is an Ace.
according to the scheme given in Table 8.2. Since thv dealer's Aet; is visible, there are 51 possibilities
·; .Roughly speaking, whenever the ratio is between 2 and for his hole card (assuming at the moment, for simplicity,
that we do not use our )Cnowledge. of O_!Jr own two bole
:'l"ABLB 8.2. A Conservative Betting· Scheme for the Ten.Counl cards as well), 16 of which are Tens'. On the average, ~
Strategy. player wins twice the amount of his insuranCe wager 16
Ratio Bet (in units) times out of 51, or 314 per cent of the time. The bet is
above2.00 1 (minim11111) . lost 35 times out of 51. The average house edge· is 3SfSl '
2.00-1.75 2 - 2 ~ 16/51, which is 3/SI or 5·9 ·per cent.
1.75-1.65 4 If you wish to take into account your hole cards, thero .
bdow 1.65 s are three~ to consider. If your hole cards are (Io,Io),
the house edge is 35/49 - 2 X 14/49, which is 7I 49 or
1.65, we-are betting about twice as much, in units, as OU!' 14.3 per cent. If they are (Io,x), where x represeilts a·nOn...
adva.ntage i$ in per cent. We level off below 1.65 at 5 'unit$ Ten, the house edge iS 34/49-2 x 15/49. which is 4/49' .
so the variations in our bet size will not unduly alarm the or 8.2 per cent. If you hold (X,X) the house edge is 33/49
casino. You do not need to perfonn division in your head - 2 XI6/49. which is only I/49. or 2.0 per cent.
to figure out the ratio exactly. Rough guesses, say to within Insurance was originally introduced by the casinos as
o. I or even 0.2, ~e very satisfactory. just one more way of fleecing the player. It is ironic that a
bet providing such an average advantage for the c~in~ can
Insurance be turned against the bouse. The trick, of course, is simply
There is one important change from. the standard strat• more of what we have been 9oing all along. The average
egy. that you should take into accoun~ at once. ·Whenever hoUse adVantage is 5·9 per cent, but there are times when
the ratio is Jess than 2.00, take insurance if .the ~pportunity the advantage is in favor of the player. At these times we
(dealer's up card an Ace) presents itself. If the ratic;» is · insure and otherwise we do. not. For example, wlien the
2.00 or· more, do not insure. This is reasonable. If the deck. count before the deal is (1o,1o} the-player's avetage IJ!Ofit
is Ten~rich and the dealer ,sllows an A~e. lie is more likely on an insurance bet is 2 X I0/19 ~ 9/I'):. which is
th~ usual to, have· tilackjack. You are allowed to check 11/19, a healthy 58 per cent of tim amount of the insurance.
y.our hole cardsc (and you. may have.been able to aee other . Once when I played in a large club in Reno. I nQtited
108 BEAT THE DEALER
that it had no insurance bet. Since one of the ·owners was fl
standing at my elbow (for I had begun to win rapidly and c::;j ~~
they had rushed up to stop me), I asked why there was no
=~~
insurance. He said that because it hurt the players, it was
Cll::l~
taken out for their benefit. As a .large'? bettor (large bettors ~

·~ .,;~
generally are humored and given little privileges), I asked
that I be allowed to insure, explaining that it gave me a
feeling of security when I made large bets (when the count
jh ~~ ~~ .., ...
..... "'"' ~"":
.
... .,;.,; ..;...4..-i
was (IO,IO) for example!). My request was refused with· j- .,"'"'
criui :1~ ~...;~

~ an explanation. I later learned that one player, using

."'t :: «!::1 -~3
end ·play (discussed later), the insurance rule, and card "'o~ ~:s ltl..;
counting, had taken at least $40,000 from this casino before
"' ""'
N"l .,;c-~ "'"l .....
be·was stopped. .
~~ ::lCII .. h~!l
Many dealers and players alike share two widespread
misconceptions about the insurance bet. They often become .
annoyingly insistent in their attempts to "correct" ~ player
who does not share their view. The first misconception is
that a player should always take insurance if possible when
dealt a natural. The argument is that if the _dealer has a· .
natu~al also, the hands themselves will tie but the insurance c"!
"'
""!~~
~ ......
bet wins one unit. If the dealer has no natUral, the player's ~:::1 ~ :;}
natural wins 1.5 units and his insurance bet of o.s unit is
lost. Again the win is I.o unit. In either case the player .. "' '~

.. .
~

has a ~ure profit of one unit. Why not take it? -~ . :~

First, I will show you that there is a case in which the I~::~ ~ .: --'!~ h
...
I:~"!~,., ...
10:
~

msur.a_nce bet is wasteful: Suppose that you ate eounting ... -~ 19

q<'i ........
...
Tens and non;.Tens, and that after you see your hole cards ·10

!: "!

..
=•·
~

.·l'i.
and before you decide whether or not to take insurance. you !! ....
"'
find that aU Tens have been played. In this evenr the
dealer can_not have a natural. If you 'insure your natural, N~ ·~ . ~~
"!"

·. ~
I"'......:! :J~~
"!

you have a sure profit of exactly 1 ;o liJlit. -1lS discussed -~1 ~~; ~1
N
f'Ci.C <!oi:C !~
above. However, you know that your natural is a winner,
so if you do not insure, you have a sure profit of J;S units. . ·. ~~
In this instance, to jnsure is to-throw away o.s unit.
Now, suppose the ~k had only one Ten and, say,
eight . non~Tens left. Should you insure? No, ~lfSe .even
 . -~ Wfiiiilng. Stii,zlfgj BtiSed on ·Counting T~ 1U
though your insu«tnce bet may win, yon are probably
throwing it away. On the other hand, if all the remaining
.t:! cards were Tens, the dealer would be certain to have a
Ji~ natural also, and insurance wins x.o unit for you. If in
·~ [· ....,~ ::l I! t:~ imagination we let the deck get richer and richer in Tens,
"' .. •, ~~·~1<'1~4-1-1 j fc_ "".e:j•_~ there ought to be some critical point beyond which in-
1:
l
.... .. ...

!i: jf !:i
5 -

J
c! ..1--ll!!l+-14+-liiil.. j
• f
"'~!1--J.....j....!.-w.i... l'.:.j;;l ~ Lfl -~
t--""~H-14-P"!~l<'lH"'
~J "'!!! ~~~~ ~~
I<
J! i!
e _. s~rance is profitable and below which it is u~profi:table. It
is the ·same point we recommended above. When the ratio
ta.l!ll falls below 2.0, insure. When it is above 2.0, do not insure.
!~ ~ When it is exactly 2.0, there is, in the long run, no gain
·• ~r'.l j~- or loss on the average, so yo~ can do as you please.
i it
_Actually, in this one instance, to insure a natural will re-:.
'"'Jll · duce the fluctuations in your capital. Thus if you havo
f. . ~·b limited capital there is a minor advantage in doing so for
a ratio of exactly 2.0.
The same arguments apply, with greater force, to the
second misconception, which is ·~nsure a good hand and
do not insure a poor orie.''
· Strategy Tables
There is a complication in giving the Ten-count strat·
egy. For the best possible play, we must vary our strategy
as the ratio varies. For each ratio there is a corresponding
strategy. Fortunately, all these separate strategies can be
· cqmbined into a single chart, given in Table 8.4 or, better,.
jp Table 8.3. The player using Table 8.3 keeps a "runmpg
~·;that is, he keeps track of the cards as they ap~.
· \Vitll.his up,to-the-second information, he is able to play
his hands. with great precision. Many readers of the first
edition became experts with Table 8.3 (Table 5.j· in that
edition). Tables 8.3 and 8.4 have our usual format, Witll
one exception: some of the squares, instead of simply beo
~g ·shaded, have numbers. In the case of doubling down
.and pait splitting, these numbers are to .be interpreted as
foll~ If the ratio is equal to or less than the number in
the square, consider the square shaded; thaf is, split the
 iH DEiT·!f"HE 'UBA:tB'iL
pair or double down. If the ratio exceeds the number in the .)'Oll. most of the theoretic.al advantage. However, if you.
square, consider the ilquare blank; that is, do not split the ,wish to add other parts ()f the strategy, the order of im-
pair or- double down. There are two numberS· marked with portance is the .same as in the standard strategy: firsHe<Ull
an asterisk(*). These numbers have an opposite interpre- hard doubling. then pair splitting, and =>Oft doubling last.
tation. H the ratio is greater than such a number, ~ider Memorizing Table 8.3 in its entirety seems like too
the square shaded. Otherwise, consider it blank. . much work. When I began play in the casinos with the
Referring to Table 8.3, read the minimum standing Ten-count strategy, I only knew approximately the standing
number c~rt as follows. The soft standing numbers are . number and doubling down parts of Table 8.3. For soft
,,
,;,- the same as for the basic strategy except when the dealer•s doubling. I knew even .less. I played the standard strategy
up· card is an Ace. In that case, it is 18 as usual for ratios until the ratio fell to 1.4 and then I doubled down on all
of 2.2 or less. It is 19 for ratios above 2.2. The hard soft totals from 13 to 20 against cards 2 through 6. Tune
standing number against an Ace is 17, as usual, if the ratio ·and time again dealers have smiled as though I were iJt.
is less than or equal to 3.1 (but greater than 1.4). For sane when I doubled down on soft 2o and turned it into
ratios above 3.1 it is 18. The hard standing number for a poor total. J;lut their smiles have disappeared when they
up cards of 2 through to and for an Ace when the ratio is bust themselves.
1.4 or less, is read, as follows, from the chart. For a given The nmning count sometimes yields gains at the end
ratio, ·shade all squares having numbers greater than or . · of the deck because the player can figure out frotn. it what ·
equal to that ratio. The lo\;VeSt shaded square is the correct the dealer's hole card is. I played a hand in which this made
•tanding number. Alternately, one might think of all the a difference of $250.,I had bet '$125, I had glimpsed the
squares. with numbers greater than or equal to the cqrrent other players' hole carets, and so when my turn came (I was
ratio as the goal. Draw until your total equals or exceeds the knew
the last to- pl~y), I twO cards remained, both Tens.
totals represented by these squares. For example, if the dealer The dealer's. hOle card was therefore a Ten and only one
shows a 4; the standing numbers are: 12 for ratios of 2.2 card, a Ten, remained unplayed. HI were to draw, it·woold
or less; 13 for ratios above 2.2 but less than or equal to be offered, then the dealer would see it was the last c:.ro.
2 •.6; 14 for ratios above 2.6 but less than or equal to 3·3· and as was customary he would pull it back and shumt.
Notice that the hard standing numbers against cards The dealer had a Ten up, thus he had 20. I haCl hard: 18;
2 through 6 have all dropped to 12 by the time the ratio If I did nothing I was sure to lose.
drops to 2.0, which is the point at which we begin increasing I attempted to draw a card. As predicted, there. was
our bet size. You may recall that the hard standing numbers only one more card, a Ten, so the dealer pulled it back and
for cards 2 through 6 were also aU equal to 12 for the ahufiled. I attempted to draw again. When I saw the card
Five-count strategy. As the ratio becomes larger, which cor- I almost fell oii my chair. It was a 3 for a total of 21 and a
JeSp<>nds to a shortage of Tens, these hard standing numbers win. When the dealer turned up ~y cards he was astounded
~- They reach 17 against a 2 when .the ratio is above by my draw on hard 1-8. I was. barely able to explain it
3-9 and against .a 3 when is above s.o. . away by seeming dazed and saying that I had added my
The Ulost important part of this strategy to inC()rporate cards to IS. When the same situation ~rose half an ·hour
into your plan is the standing numbers chart. This gives later, except that I held: ha:rd 1_9 against a sure 20, I did'
,.
I~
II4 BEAT T.HB DJL\1.ltlt
not dare draw seeking an Ace (to tie)~or a Deuc.e (to win).
When there are other players at the table and-you have
not been able to see and count some of their cards by the
·time it is your turn to play, it is profitable, particularly ~
the end of the deck and when big bets are involved. to
make inferences as to what these cards are and to use these
inferences to modify your behavior. For example, suppose
the count is (9,6) after you have seen the dealer's up card
and your own cards, you are the fourth of four players, and
the firSt three players stood {without hesitation) on their
hole cards. Then the inference is quite strong that they each
hold one and perhaps two Tens. Estimating their hole cards
to be four Tens and two non-Tens, the true count, for pur-
poses Of your draw, is perhaps {7,2). Hence, if the dealer
is shpwing an Ace and you hold hard 14, IS, or 16, you
should draw, rather than stand. It is even likely that you
should draw on hard 17 in this instance!
Learning the Strategy Tables
During the writing of this book, I taught the system to
several people ,with diverse backgrounds and interests. One·
purpose was to see whether the card-counting methods and
_charts of this chap~er, the key chapter in ~-first edition
and the. most. difficult one, could readily be learned.
Witbout exception, everyone was discouraged when he first
saw Tables 8.3 and 8.4 and when he was told he would
have to count the cards. Nearly everyone was surprised at
the speed with which he learned. A couple of one-hour
practice sessions, with someone else dealing, was generally
enough to fix the basic strategy. Two more one-hour .ses-
sions were enough to teach the simplified Five-count system.
By then almost everyone gets impatient with waiting for the
relatively infrequent favorable (Fiveless) situations. Two
to five additional one-hour practice sessions, plus some
counting practice, are usually enough to teach the players to
c<>unt the Tens and non-Tens~ and to vary their bets accord-
J:j;~4¥ilirilng'Sttatigy'Baied on Counting Tens Its
. mgly (see· Table. 8.z), while they still play the basic
· strategy. 'thesingle·remaining problem is memorizin& one
of the tables. We illustrate a method of memorization that
has been worked out by experience. · .• . .
. The first logical step is to learn the parts of Tabltf~.3
that have to do with your big bets, namely th~se parts m-
volving ratios of 2.25 or less (favorable decks). This in·
formation is given in Table 8.4, an approximation to Table
8.3 in which the precise Ten-count strategy is played for
big bets and the basic strategy is played otherwise. One
might think of Table 8.4 as the basic strategy plus .some
modifications.
Learn Table 8.4 in several stages.
Begin with the standing-numbe:s table~ it i.s the m~
important. Like most tables in thlS book, th1~ t~ble 1S
more easily learned if one looks for patterns m 1t. ·For
instance, against 9, the change in ratio between squares:
is three tenths. Against 10, the changes are not very reg-
~ ular; in tenths, they are two, three, three, four. Note,
however, that the standing number drops from 17 to 16
if the ratio drops to 2.2. A very slight excess of Tens is
enough to change the standing number. In the Appendix
we shall see· that in the basic strategy the hard standing
number against Ten is generally 16 !or hands of 3 or more
cards and barely 17 otfierwise. ' ' . .
The table next in importance is hard doubling d~
- · There are not many pair-splitting squares to learil.
However, the Ten splits are quite important. A player is
ordinarily dealt a pair of Tens on about I hand in II. 'Jlte
frequency. is even higher when the ratio drops. Note that
Ten splitting (and also Four splitting) occurs only against
the favorable dealer's up cards of 2 through 6. Once ag~
there is a sharp division betweep. 6 and 7· . ·
· The soft-doubling-down table is the least important. It
ean. be omitted or learned only approximately,. if desired.
. .W'Jten most {or all) of Table 8.4 has been learned, th~.
· next sta&~:.is to get an approxinuite idea of the hard stand-
 n6 B E AT THE i> J! ALE 1\
•k Winmng Strategy ·Based on Counting Tens 117
ing numbers against 2 through 6 when the ratio is high. You
probably already will have been ••leaning" in these situa-
tions.
Further proficiency in the details of Table 8.3 are
for the expert.

Rate of Profit
By this time the reader should be wondering whether the
Ten-count strategy will win enough faster than the Five-
count strategy to justify the extra work involved in learning
. and playing it. Table 8.5 illustrates the rate at which the Ten-
count system wins. The ratios were calculated and recorded
by a computer for Ioo,ooo hands, and ihe results are
i typical of what ~rises in actual play.
t
II
j!.•
f~
Table 8.5 is read as follows. If 25 cards are dealt off
the top of a well-shuffled pack (and counted by the player),
the player will find that a ratio of I .o or less will occur
-
'i

' ·only o.I per cent of the time. A ratio of I.7 or less, but -:"l
00
above 1.6, will not occur at all. A ratio of 1.8 or less, but
above 1.7, will occur 14.5 per cent of the. time. A ratio of -00
1.8 or less· will occur··24.0 per cent of the time. (This last 00
figure is obtained by adding all figures in the 25-card
column up to and including the ratio for 1.7 to 1.8, namely, _..,
o...:
O.I + 0.5 + 2.0 + 6.9 + 14.5'= 24.0.)
Note· from Table 8.5 that a player counting Tens has
an advantage of I per cent or more (i.e., a ratio of 2.0 or
less) about a t~ird of the time. It turns out that the advan·
tage ranges between I per cent in favor of the player and
in
I per cent favor of the house about a third of the time,
.. and· that the house has an advantage of I per cent or more "' 0
-
~

..,.. N tf"a ....,. .n \0 I""" co 0\ C ~ f"! ff'!

about a third of the time. ~ c;;...:...:_:..,:_;..;..,.:....;_;_.:rtNNr-1
· When more than one player is at the table, the Tens
strategy loses somewhat in efficiency, but the decline is not 'tn 0 ..- N """ V "" \0 .r-- ~ 0\ <:::! """': f"! "'!
Q...:..;_;....;...;.-...;....;..,....;NNC"o\N
nearly as sharp as it is in the Fives strategy.
Study has shown that a scheme for betting that gives
very good protection against ruin while also providing a
 --------·~~- ~--~-
'
II8 B E A:'l' T'li E DEAL B1l A Winning- Strotegy Based on Counting Tent 119·
large yield is to risk a percentage -of your initial capital. We usc some extreme cases to illusttate how Al;es can. -
equal to your percentage advantage. For example, with -!feet your advantage. Suppose the unused cards consist
$:zoo and a 3 per cent advantage, bet $6; witlr a 10 per exclusively of Aces and Tens. (I have seen the last eight'
cent advantage, bet $2.o; with a I per cent advantage bet cards happen to be all Aces and Tens.) How much shoultl
$:z; with situations less favorable than I per cent, bet a you bet? If possible. bet one half of your capital; sa~ tBe,
minimum $1. other half for pair splitting or insurance. If the dealer has
In the test of this system which I described i_n Chapter , an Ace up, you can insure and prevent him from winning
s, modified proportional betting was used: I-unit minimum in case he has olackjack.
when my advantage was below I per cent, 2 units with a If you lost your insurance, the dealer must have a pair
l per cent advantage, 4 units with a 2 per cent advantage, of Aces and must bust when he draws; therefore you will
and so on, up to I o units with a s per cent advantage. · win your main bet. If he has a Ten up, he may have an Aco
Above S per cent all bets were leveled off at 10 units to · under and, consequently, have blackjack. A part Of tho
reduce the possibility of frightening the casino. This pre- time you, too, will hold blackjack and the game will be a
caution turned out to be insufficient in several of the casinos. stand-off. The rest of the time you will lose, but this is ~ -
, In the present era, with the widespread successful use . dnly time you lose. If the dealer has no blackjack, he haS a
of our methods in the casinos, bets should be limited to Ten under also. Then with (A,Io) you win; with (Io,Io)
ratios of I to 5 or I to 3, or even kept constantt . you can tie or, if any Aces remain; you can split your Tens
, There is a variation on the proportional betting · with the chance of a net gain. With (A.A) you can split
schemes of the foregoing discussion that is mathematically · for a sure win if there are cards remaining. If the deck is
sl:lperior to them but involves. a little extra mental work. · exhausted, splitting (A,A) ag~inst the dealer's (Io,Io) keeps-·
In it, the player bets an amount approximately propor- your average loss fairly small.
tiona! to his current capital. The amount bet should be The foregoing discussion is included to make it seem

l
!l.:.l

equal to the player's percentage advantage. For example, reasonable that w®n hands are dealt only from a collection ·
suppose a playeistarts with $200. In a IO per cent·situation of Aces and Tens, the player is greatly favored. A detailed
,f he bets $20. Suppose he later builds up to $300. He would mathematical analysis confirms this.
1: - n_cjw bet $30 in a to per cent situation. As you become comfortable with the Ten-count strat-
[l · It is not necessary to bet the precise amount called . egy, you can begin to keep tra,ck of Aces. When the c;leck
t! for in any of our betting schedules. The results do not vary has an excess of Aces, increase your bet somewhat over that·
f~ significantly,. even Vtith considerable deviations from the which is called for in the straight Tens strategy. On the·
suggested amounts. other hand, bets should be reduced when the deck· has a
scarcity of Aces (is Ace-poor.)
· Including Aces in the Count · .You must be more careful than ever, when counting
Your results improve further if you adjust your bet Aces and T~ns, to avoid letting the casino know that. you
size for an excess or shortage of Aces. When all the Aces · are keeping track of the cards. The story of Junior illustrateS _
are gone, subtract 4 per cent from your estimated advan-. what not to do. He was countmg both Tens and Aces and
tage. When the deck has twice as many Aces as normal,· . betting heavily. After. a while, he made a maximum (for
add -4 per cent to your es.ted advantage. ··. :him) bet of $200, since his count showed a. very favorable
 l20 B BAT T lt E DB 'A'i:'l! ll ,.4. WiiJning Strategy Based on Counting Tens UI
· ~~sed cards. A negatiye figure means the deck i$ Ac~
sitUation. He was dealt a pair of Tens;; There was still orie
' pO<>r· and the player's advantage will be .reduced (perhaps
Ace unseen. The dealer bad a Ten showing. but did not
even eliminated altogether) by the negative correction.
have a natural. · .
It is difficult to make these additional calculations while
Junior bad seen the burned card and knew that it was
playing the Tens strategy. I recommend that the ~eader
not an Ace. Since there was only one unused card left ~
who is countina Aces as well as Tens merely "lean "In the
the pack, it had to be the remaining Ace. Furthermore, thts
casino was at that time dealing the last card (the customai?'
indi~ted direction" rather than make a precise calculation.
practice now is to withhold the last card and to place It The Remarkable Gain /rom Proper End Play ·
with the used cards and shuffie). Now, placed in a situation A few years ago, a now legendary figure, sometimes
such as this, knowing you would get the last card, an. Ace, described as "the little dark-haired guy from Southern Cal·
if you requested it, what would you do? Draw? Spht the ifornia'' (we purposely avoid giving his name), approached
pair of Tens? - . . . a large and famous casino in Reno. The story goes that he
- Junior asked to double down on }Jts $200 bet. Ptty-: explained he would like to play for large stakes--the J:ouso
ingly the dealer attempted to explain to this "foolish free limit or more,- if possible-and that he wanted a pnvate
spender" that he must have wanted to split his Tens. They game without publicity because he had tax problems. He
argued until finally the pit boss was called over to settle the . · &et down carefully stipulated playing conditions that prob.-
confusion. Now both the dealer and the pit boss pleaded aoly did not deviate from the spirit of the game. As a
with him, in an attempt to "save him from himself." By bachelor "steadily earning five figures," he had accumulated
this time a. crowd. of e~ployees as well as spectators had . appreciable capital and w~s able, no doubt, _to convince the
gathered. Fmally, mfunated and exasperated from~: long_.. casino that he had constderably more still. The house,.
haggle, Junior yelled, "Give me the g- d--d. Ace~ ~e · thinking it had its usual advantage, was probably more
card was dealt. It was ~n Ace. The amazed ptt boss patd . than happy to accept these conditions: ..
the $400 and then escorted our ~ero to th~ door. Of course - ·_Although I do not know the detatls of the proposttiott,
11
he was barred from further play m that casmo. · it is not hard to make a reasonable guess as to what they
r
The effect of Aces can be taken int~ account. rather were. From what I have learned through the grapevine, it
precisely. The idea is to estimate the ~elative ~ce nchness · seems likely that what I call end play (to be described ·
of the deck and then to add a correction to the advantage below) was the main ingredient of this particular coup. If
that is computed. from the ratio of oth~rs. t? Tens. For sc)~ the conditions for the game would be as follows. ~he
example, suppose there are 26 cards rematrun?, all four casino's usual rules, as to drawing and standing, doubhng
Aces flmong them. The average number of Aces IS two. The down, splitting, and insurance, are to be in force. In addi-
average number can be computed from (26/52) X~· Thus tion, from deal to deal, the player may vary at will both the
in this case the number is double the average so you mcrease number of hands he takes and the amounts he.bets. Further-
your estimated advantage by 4 per cent. The general for-. more; the casino will deal down to the last card before
,mula for the correction to your per cent edge, due t~ Ace shuffling. At first sight, this set of conditions seems pretty
richness or Ace poorness, is: [I3A/N-I]X 4 where AtS:the" harmless. But before we see what happened at the casino
number of still unseen Aces and N is the total number of
- BEAT ,"'f Jf:B D·B·A'&Jill· ~ 5 WmningStrottgy BaSed on CoUIIting Teill U3
122
in question, let us examine play under these C91lditions We now. return to the story of what happened. at tb.e
more closely. . · · . casino. The little dark-haired guy is said to have played for
Imagine, first, that seven cards. all Aces and Tens, re- several successive nights. The first njght he won. ten or
. main to be played. What happens if you decide to take fifteen thousand dollars. Then, on successive nights he lost
exactly three hand.s? Then when you pick up your three and won similar amounts. When the casino became ao-
. hands you find each one consists of either (A,A), (A,IO), customed to these. large surges and when it was clear tb.at
or (Io;Io). The dealer, however, receives only one Ace or they were primed to hang on even though they were 'Well
one Ten, and since the deck runs out, he must shuffle before behind, he began playing to win. Hour after hour the money
getting his next card. You now have thre_e powerful hands piled up. It is said that somewhere between $40,000 and
facing him, and besides, he must draw h1s next card from $86,ooo,the:casino "snapped" and called off the game. Th~
a deck that is poor in Aces and Tens. Generally, all three latter figure is_supposed to be the authentic one, but there
of your bands win. The advantage ~requently is IO to. IOO ~re varying reports, probably because there were only four
per cent in these situations. Money 1s won at a truly dizzy· witnesses to the game-the player and three casino people.
ing rate. . , . His idea of no publicity paid handsomely. During the next
, Here is an alternate variation. Suppose there are five two years, the little dark-haired guy sold his proposition to
cards left, mostly Aces and Tens, and that you decide to other Nevada casinos. He was finally barred throughout
take five hands. Then you get all five of the cards in this the state after he had won· more than $250,000•
. favored group, and the dealer gets none of them, for he Of course, since nearly every casino in Nevada now
runs out of cards and must shuffle befor~ dealing the first . . refuses to allow end play, the method is nearly dead. Many
card ·to himself. If you now get a Ten as your first card ·. casinos are so intimidated that they will not set up private
. this gives you a 15 to 20 per cent advantage; starting with games; But keep it in mind. It paid off in the Puerto Rican
an Ace. gives you a 35 to 40 per cent advantage. casinos for several alert readers of the first edition.
If it happens instead that the end of the deck is very
poor in Aces and Tens, this too is to your advantage.
Suppose there are twelve small cards left. Take five hands
and- place very small bets on each. All. twelve cards are
used up in dealing the hands, and since mostly small cards
are involved, some cards will be drawn, forcing a shuffle.
When the deck is shuffled, twelve small cards are -missing
and therefore the new cards will be dealt from a residue
whose ratio is 24/16 or 1.5. A few cards will be drawn,
but, although the ratio fluctuates in individual situationS,
on the average it will also be 1.5 at the end of the round.
Thus by taking five bands to keep the small cards on the
1

table during the shuffle, the player has created a series of

highly favorable situations.
 , -,-,
~,
9 ·The best you can do, it may seem, is to use the basic strat-
Beating the Casino
Countermeasures
There is an abundance and variety of casino counter-
measures. We cannot discuss all those in use at the time of
this writing. Furthermore, as the players become more re-
sourceful, so do the casinos, changing their countermeasures
to meet new situations. The discussion of the principal
l countermeasures should make the player versatile enough
to cope with new developments. •
Slwffle up
When I wrote the first edition I had the mistaken im-
pression that the casinos could stop a system player by
frequently reshuflling the deck. Let's consider the extreme
case in which the game is played with one deck and that one
- cleck is reshuffied at the end of each and every deal. Suppose
- • An interesting book in connection with casino countermeasures
Is Inside Nevada GambUng-Adventures of a Winning System Player by
Glenn L. Fraikin, Exposition Press, New York. $4.00. It tells of
Fraikin's being barred, harrassed, forcibly ejected and embarrassed.
You can generally avoid these problems if you are careful.
•t24.
'''-Beathig the Canno Countermeasures
a player is alone at the table, playiug one hand at.a time.
egy. Against the typical rules of Chapter 2, you will have an
edge of about 0.13 per cent. For practical purposes, the
game is even. ·
But suppose now that you take six hands, playing the
whole table at once. On your first hand (if the cards are
dealt down), you have seen only your hole cards and the
dealer's up card. The situation is the same as before. But
when it is time to play the second hand you have already
seen the cards for the first hand. If you use the playing
strategy for the complete point count or for the Ten count,
you are able to play this hand better than if you stuck to
_ the basic strategy. Naturally your advantage increases. You
will win at an average rate that is greater than 0.13 per
cent.
Things are better still on the third hand, and they are
very good indeed, by the time you get to the sixth and last
band. You. ·now have seen at least 13 and probably 18 or
zo cards. If you split some of the earlier hands, the figut:e
could run much higher. Your average advantage, due to
improvements in playing strategy, is roughly 1 per cent.
This is about the same as the casino's edge in baccarat. You
can make a big bet on the sixth hand of every deal. In
. fact; you could make a small bet on the first hand, a little
·larger bet on the second, and so on. The largest .bet would
be on the last hand.
Sitting in the last seat at a crowded table, you can
make a .big bet" all the time if you generally see most of
the cards played ahead of you. With cards dealt face up,
as they are in Puerto Rico and in a number of the Nevada
games. you see plenty of cards. There, in· fact, from every
seat you can see at least the players' hole cards, for an
edge of 0.5 per cent or more.
In a casino where the cards are dealt face down, it
may not be easy to see most of the cards before your turn
 U6 ll BAT 'l H·E D E AL. II'& .,
· to play. In fact,. some casinos now use shills and have them '· ,· • know .yet that this first bet of yours is going to turn out
conceal their cards. The dealer rakes in their cards without
ever showing them. You can prevent the shills from play-
ing, and make sure you see everyone's cards, by filling the
table with your cooperative friends first. (They can play
the basic strategy, have fun, and break even, if nothing
else.)
.Dealers Who Count
After Beat the Dealer became a national best seller ~d
several hundred thousand people read it, some casinos had
their employees read it. Then some of the dealers. were
taught to count. There were two ideas behind this. First,
these dealers could help spot count players (more on this
later). Secondly, these dealers could shuffle up when the
deck went good but keep dealing if it went bad.
Suppose a dealer does this. What do you do? The only
solution that I have found, besides looking for another and
better game, is ~o sit in the last seat. Bet heavily on the
.6r$t deal and hope you win with your I per cent edge.
Bet lightly otherwise. If ·you pull ahead (and the odds
favor you, but not tremendously), your dealer may give up
his tactics.
Strike When the Deck Is Hot
We have just seen how dealers can shuffle away the
good cards and )Feep playing with bad cards. You can do
very much the same thing. Suppose you are about to enter
.a game. Stop. Don't sit down. Get your count first. And
be sure you have some casino chips in your hand. Now
wait until the count is good. Then pull up a seat and tOss
your large bet down. This way you always start your game
with a good ~eck. You are striking when the deck is hot.
This is a very nice way to pick up extra change when
you are on your way through your hotel's gaming areas.
The dealer generally doesn't reshuffle on you: he doesn't
E0' ;Beating fbe ·(!dn() COUntermeasure# ··127
, to be "large."
Punishing Fakes
.Many dealets reshuffle when you increase your bet. A
few of these are legitimate Ten counters and know that tho
deck has gone "good." :aut most of them are not. They just
reshuffle to be safe against system players. And a good·
many of the ories I've played against are out-and-out fakes.
·That is, they pretend (either to the players or to their pit
boss) that they are counting Tens and non-Tens. When a
big bet goes out, they reshuffle. But actually they have no
idea what the count is.
When you find a fake, stay with him. He is "money in
the bank." Here is what you do. Start by making a big bet
s
(3 to units). When the deck goes bad, increase your
bet, and when he reshuffles, pull back the extra amount. ·
When the deck stays neutral or goes good, keep your bot
the same. The result is that the dealer shuftles away tho
lr.id decks. You always play against av.erage or good decks.
·You have a consistent advantage and probably wiD.
Multiple Decks
There'has been some increase in tho number of black•
jack ~~·played with either two or four decks. Some
casinos believe that it is much more djjicult to count several
de<:ks. You will find· it a little more work. But if you aro
lairly~ with one deck, you shouldn't have much trouble.
'l'hC most serious drawback to two or four decks is
that the· advantage for various values of the high-low index
or ·the Ten-count ratio are not quite as large. They· are_
roughly 0.4 per cent less for two decks ando.s per cent less
for four decks•. Also, the deviations from normal deck com-
position are smaller. So there are .somewhat fewer favor.
able situations, and the ones that occur are less favorable.
If the casino were to reshuftle two Qr even four deCks after
 B.~ AT T H B DB Al. Ell .·~ r~ ~tlng th~ Cdno Countermeasures
every deal, even sitting in the sixth seat wouldn't help. But . th:e good players went right back the next day arid COn-·
the casinos won't do this. The game would Slow down to tiriued w.inhing. True, their rate of winning was cut some-
such a crawl that bored players would keep drifting away. what. But it wasn't enough to cheer up the c~inos.
Multiple decks have one big advantage for the player . Against casinOs with unfavorable rules, the betting
who strikes when the decks are hot. When two decks, or scale should be adjusted downward. Perhaps the simplest
better fou.r decks, go good, they stay good much longer. So method is to decrease all large bets by one unit. Alternately,
when you sit down to a good situation with a big bet,. things if you •Use the point-count system without. strategy. refine-
are likely to stay good for a while. This partly camouflages ments, you can simply decrease your initial count by one
your actions. point per deck in use. For example, in a two-deck game
Rules Changes with poor rules (such as is played in Puerto Rico an_d in
some spots in Nevada), start with a point-count total of -:a
The gambling world was electrified on April I, 1964- instead of o. Then play precisely as before.
The Las Vegas Resort Hotel Association announced that the
. TABLE 9.1. The EOect of the (Temporary} Las Vegu ·Rules Chtmgu.
rules of blackjack were being c;hanged [34]. This was the
first time in history that the rules of a major casino Basic strategy Basic strategy
gambling game had been sigpificantly altered. The rules old rules new Las Vegas rules.
changes were made to combat the winning blackjack sys- Player's
overall .0013 -.0089
tems (primarily the Ten-caunt) introduced in the first advantage•
edition of Beat the Dealer. In the words of Gabriel Vogli;-
Player's A# -.0847 -.0853
atti, a spokesman for the Las Vegas Resort Hotel Associa- a!fvantage A• -.3603 -.3607
tion [45]: "In the last 15 years there hasn't 'been one plane when 2 .1011 .0888
~t landed without at least one person in possession of a · dealer's 3 .1376 .1219
system. This guy [Thorp] is the first in Las Vegas history up 4 .1844 .1626
to have a system that works." .
card s .2369 .2073
is 6 .242S .2121
The specific rules changes forbade the splitting of Aces 7 .1464 .1374
and restricted doubling down to totals of hard I I only. As 8 .0547 .0490
9 -.0437 -.0471
you see from Table 9.I, the effect is to reduce the basic· to• -.1706 -.1717
strategy player's advantage by roughly I per cent. The re- tO# -.1032 -.1044
duction is somewhat larger in favorable situations and
# Excluding the possibility tb&t dealer has a natural.
somewhat smaller in unfavorable ones. Thus a situation • Including the possibllily that dealer has a natural.
which was a I o per cent advantage, for example, is reduced The casino operators had read as far as Chapter S
to a littl~ le~ than 9 per cent. Clearly the point-count and (Ten count), but they had not read as far as ChapterS
Ten-courit methods will still uncover favorable situations. (Rules Variations), which explained how to counter their
But there won't be quite as many. and they won't be quite rule5 changes. Further, I predicted when I wrote the ~
asgood. . . edition two years earlier that rules changes would be trted
. How did the rules changes affect the system players? and· that they would not be effective. But the casinos hadn't
130 . B EAT T H ~ DE A L 'B~ ~ ~Hflli.~ the Cll8liltJ C.ounler'metiSW"t!6 .. 131 .

read that far yet. It took them two or three weeks to throw . c·option·ofsurrender. At any time, unless the dealer is 'Show-
in ~ sponge and go bac~ to th~ old .rules•. What was ~ . big an Ace; the player ma'y ....surrender" his band, retaining
trouble? A sharp young JOUrnalist named Jude Wanniski · one ball of the anioUnt of his bet alld losing the other half.
explained it very clearly in a by-lined article in the Na- Braun estimates that with best play surrender gains· about
donal Observer: 0~15 per cent for the player. This is more than offset by the
Overnight, play at the Las Vegas blackjack tables player's.~ of about o.S. per cent ~?ecause of the restrictions
1fen off. In fact, play at all the gaming tables declined on dou61ing down.
as the ftow of tourists into the city diminished. Casino TABLa 9.2. Approxlrnllle E6m of Cmnmon Ruin YariDtiou
employees, whose income depends in large part on the tm Play~;·, Advantage Wilen tile Basic Strategy I• Used.
number of tips they receive, began screaming that the Player•• Joss or pia
new blackjack rules were a bane to the industry. Rules variations (in per cent)
First one casino, then another, quietly scuttled · forbid donbling down on
-o.S9
the new rules. By last week, Las Vegas gamblers threw bard II
-o.s6
in the towel. They admitted they'd rather have all their :::
0
! -o.l4
-o.oo
business back, even if it meant putting up with the liard s
system players. all soft totals -o.t4
all totals after pair splitting . -().13
allow doubling down on any three cards 0.19•
Rule$ Jlariations allow doubling.down on any number of cards 0.20•
fOil!' decb -o.$1
In fight of the attempted Nevada rules changes and ; two decks -o.JS
the considerable variations in blackjack as .played through· dealer draws to soft 17 -{).20
out the world, the reader should be prepared to estimate dealer draws only to soft 17 with Ar:t: up -o.23
dealer drawing to soft 17 Is op&ional -(0.23+)
the effect of any deviations from the typical rules of Chapter
further splitting of. pairs
2. You can do this by consultil)g Table 9.2. To the basic· all pairs, one cleck 0.053
st.rategy edge of 0.12 per cerit for the. player, add or sub- all pairs, two decks .08
tract the correction indicated by the table. for each ~les .all pairs. four decks 0.11 (est.)
all psirl. except Aces. two decks .04
variation being used. The final result is the overall player all paq, one deck. and unlimited draw to split Aces .037
advantage (if positive) or casino advantage (if negative). all pairS. two decks, and unlimited draw to split Aces .06
At various points in the book we discussed tlie varia- and double on hard 11 only .OS
all pairs except Aces 0.024
tions in England, Puerto Rico, and Nevada. One rule, which · drawing any number of cards to split Ac:Cs 0.14
is apparently peculiar to the Far East, has not :been con- no splitting of Aces · -o.t6
sidered. It is called "surrender." DO splittiaJ of Aces aad DO doubling down on ioft 12 -o.l6
forbid pair splitting -1).46
• In the Far East, particularly in Macao (a Portuguese 2.32
two-to-One pay-off for blackjack
colony that is a short hydrofoil ride fro~ Hong Kong)· and Puerto Ricaa rules, one deck -o.71
Manila, the blackjack rules are like those of Chapter 2 ex- two decb -1.()4
cept that doubling down is permitted only with a two-card Surrender (Ma~o, Manila) o.ts (est.)
total of u. But the player is offered the additional-strategy
 ..._ :~- ~~~~-~ -
Dll .~:t ~~~. '!#!tlllg tlr8 Cilsino Countermeasures 13~-
Camouflage ~,, ·. · impossible to get a reasonable game. As a last resort. I grew
a ~rd for the summer and got used to contact lenses. Then
. The casinos hav.e become painfully aware of tlie thou-.
fapent four days in Las Vegas, Reno, and Lake Tahoe. In
sands of basic~strategy players who do not lose money. Even. ~the beginning I wore the full beard. My usual glasses wero
worse, they are infested with hundreds of good Ten-~unt
~aced by conta~t lenses and s\veep-around sungl~~·
players who carry off money. These good players, particu- After I had won for two days in Las Vegas, players w1th
larly, have a problem. When they become known to the
casinos, they find shuffie up, or the dealer hiding cards~
beards began to receive most unfriendly treatment. Twa
COI.Jlpanions and I went on to Reno and Lake Tahoe. We
Sometimes they are barred (asked to leave the casino). Or
walked into a crowded casino on the north shore of Lake
they run into heavy cheating (sometimes undisguised!).
'fahoe (~ed for gangland connections). T4ere were no
Clearly, if you want to be left alone to play a good
sea,ts at the blackjack tables. Then a boss looked up ~d
game of blackjack, you must disguise your pta~. First, do
.,aw the bearded apparition. His jaw dropped. He called 111_
not start at the beginning of every fresh deck With a small
bet. With one-deck games and typical rules (so I have a
a dealer and opened up a table. I sat down. Two toughs
trotted up and plopped down on either side of ~e. .
..slight edge off the top), I get best results by betting large
My companions (I NEVER travel alone m Neva~)
off the top of the deck almost half the time. Of course, if
thought I was about to be hurled from the casino••
you glimpSe a burned or bottom card, you can choose these
. The two toughs, the dealer, and I _played on 1n com·
times more effectively. Dealers think, "If he's going to bet ,
plete silence for ten minutes or so. When I was absolutely
big off the top of the deck, shuffie up is a waste of time.",
sure the dealer was a cheat, I walked away. The two toughs
· In casinos with two or more dealers or less favorable
immediately trotted off. The dealer closed u~ the table and_
rules, you ought to bet big off the top much less ~requently.
went off to wait for the next problem. A mmute later, an
The. size of your bets is also important. I have played
was. as before. The throngs of happy, fun-loving tourists
against dealers who thought it was natural to bet a $5 chip
went on with their merrymaking. Not one of them had been
or a $25 chip but not natural to carefully bet$_?, $10, $15,,
the least bit aware of the little drama that had taken place
$20, or $25, depending on the deal. So I bet $5 except when
before them.
things were moderately good. Then I bet $25. In ~erto It looked as if bearded players were through. But it
Rico I bet $1 while waiting and $50 in all favorable situa-
had taken me four weeks to grow the beard and I was
tions, since nothing bothered them! You mtist learn what _is
determined to use it one more time. After further adventures
best in your situation. A ratio of 1 to 5 or even I to 3 m we-arrived in Reno.
bet sizes might be a good beginning while you e~plore the
At about 3 A.M. I began to play at a club in downtown
sitU;&tion. A ratio of 1 to 2 is acceptable. Against: one deck
Reno (about 50 or 6o miles from the scene in Tahoe). The
and typical rules, a ratio of I to I is acceptable (all bets the
club was well known for its fair rules and for dealing down.
same!) if you sit in fifth or sixth seat at a full table and can
to the last card. I always collect a few hundred dollars from
see most of the cards before your tumr
this club whenever I am in Reno. whatever befalls me else-
Disguis~s where. This club doesn't seem to be "in" with the other
As a result of the intense publicity and the wide ~rs. In particular, I thoJJght they would not have heard
distribution of my picture, I have lately found it ·nearly in adv~ of the bearded threat.
'~134 BEAT TRB ~BAL~;. T~"!r th6 .Cflsbro CountermetlSIIIW
·.:My table was· !Ull. There was ~ opp<)rtunitytor · ~8foiui~ sunglasses
enc!
phty. :But I kilew fr.otn past experience that this casino . :test.
wouldn't allow that anyhow. I played on, b~tting Ss to $25,
tbe maximum size and spread of bets that I felt would be
tolerated here. I won steadily. The casino pU~ me h"berally
with strong drinks. I gave the casino people the impression
that l'was .careless, woozy, and a bad player. "Doubling
down on Five:...:...ridiculous; and winning, too. What can you
do about luck like that? But it will run·out. It's bound to."
But the cards ran well and instead of Winning an ex· . at the same table, and there was one vacant seat. I sat
pected $25 to $75 in an hour, I piled up $300. So the
casino personnel paraded by, one after another. They·
SC{Utinized me, watched my play, and examined my face.
At the end of an hour they had all examined me. They had
bad enough. A hostile brunet pit boss (the same one who
. saw me practice for eight boors in the same club when I
·first played in Reno; see Chapter S) now took over as
.dealer. She smiled pleasantly. She dealt_ the first hand:
t;lackjack to- herself. l was .watc~ng for the second deal
(see Chapter 10) and caught it, and ~. got up. Purring
Cattily. she invited me to stay on and play. .
During th~ previous hour of playing, I had a single
dealer. (This casino leaves the dealers on at one table
interminably, but this firstone couldn't cheat). She was a
youno blond, lonely, emotionally troubled, and in search of
a ma~. When she glimpsed the stack of $100 bills in my
waliet, she became exceedingly friendly. She was disap-
pQinted and upset to be so abruptly parted from her fish.
The blond told me (wonderful fellow that I was) that
she. bated beards and "everything.would be all right if I
.shaved it off." So it occurred to me that I could later make
a 'perfect test-of my disguise.
The next evening I shaved off the ragged full-Jength
beard. The only clue to my having bad, it was an unusual
paleness about certain parts ·of my face. Instead of careless
. casual clothes, I now wore a suit. I removed the sweep-
• 135
and wore only my contact lenses. I
~cOmbed my hair son1ewhat dilrerently. I was ready for tho
.
- I called for my companions, who had nevet seen me
·sans beard. When they answered the door, they did not
cfticognize me. Instead Of an aging unkempt JOan of forty·
'five. I was a springy, crew-cut young executive of twenty-
five. out for an evening on the town.
When 3 A.M. approached, I left the game I was in an,d
went to the caslno where the blond dealt. There she was,
down and began to play. There was no glimmer of recogni·
"tion on her face.
Again I bet Ss to $25, with chips I had been careful
to purchase in advance froxn the cashier, with a few care-
tully preserve<f small bills. There was no evidence of the
previous evening's stack of hundreds to give ·my dealer a
due. I did not talk, I only gestured (not too unusual a
behavior paltem). When the. waitresses- came to ply me
with· drinks, I whispered •milk." The dealer could not hear
.my ~ce. After two milks, the waitresses didn't bother me.
So far, my disguise seemed to be worlOng perf.ectly.
But chance soon put it to a real test. The cards ran weU
again and I began to pile up. winnings at almost the same
rate as the evening before. Next, the player on my left (I
was in fifth seat, my usual choice, since the casinos expect
"S}'stem players to be in sixtb seat) turned out to be a cheat!·
He would pile his bet carelessly ~n the layout. Then he
would check his hole cards. Then he would try to sneak
some extra silver dollars onto the layout if he thought he
had a good hand. If he thought he had a poor hand he
would try to remove some of his bet. The dealer didn't
know what to do. Then the same parade of casino person-
nel filed by to examine the cheat.
· · The ·bosses watched him play for a few minutes. He
was such a bad player that, even though he was cheating,
-- . ' .
-
........
~
------~~---~~--··
."13v
he was barely breaking.·e\'en. They
·~~·
BJfAT TBB bBALB&. --~ !'! ~.~
ga\re ordera to Ieaw
hiiii 8Jonel ' ~· · · '· ·. ~ ~ ·
. Both the cheat and I had been carefuUy scrutinized bJ
the same. g~g that had studied me the previous Dight. ~o
· one recognized me. But after an hour, and another $300,
. their patience wore thin. As on the night before, the~chea'"
~g dealer eame in. I left.
~ Disguises do work. They are a lot of trouble, but they
can be fun, too.
I'M Automatic Blackjack Mochlnu
One of the most interesting casino countermeasures is
the recent introduction of automatic (electronic)~ blackjack
machines to replace the dealers. The machines have been
•or are being tried at several casinos. The text of an adver-
tisement on pages 137-8 gives the details.
Let's use our. meth~ to analyze the form of automatic:
bJaC?kjack presented in ·the ad. . cally until. it has a score of 17 or more-at this tim(.
. Notice iirst that the machine deals a one-deck game
and reshuftles after every deaL This goes a long way toward
aegating the gains from card counting. Our fiist impulse is
·.to sit in the last seat and use the.~ we see to get an
edge (as explained on pages 124-126). But there are only
four IC&ts. So the advantage gained will be considerably
less. probably about 0.33 to o.s per· cent.
. The next thing to notice is how the rules differ from
our typical rules. First, doubling down is restricted to hard
totals of 10 or n. Secondly, pair splitting is not allowed.
~Both these restrictions on the player increase the house
·edge: By Table 9.1, the lOSS due to DO pair splitting is. 0-46 per
.cent, no doubting do~ on hard 9• hard 8, and the soft totals,
~ costso.14 + o.oo + 1.1401'o.a8percent, and there is ao.zo
.per cent loss because the deal4r hits soft 17. Thus the usual
basic strategy player advantage of 0.1 J per cent seems to be
+
reduced by 0-46 o;z8 + o.zo or 0.94 per cent, for a ·net
casino edge of o.Sr per cent.
.
· ·:- •·
.·A~O~TIC BLACKJACK~ ..
.'
Is a gam.ng machine manufa~red in the sfclte of:
Nevad~.
'"AUTOMATIC BLACKJACK" is electronically oper- ·
oted us1ng a fuU simulated fifty-two-card deck-
a_!Jtomatically shuffled and ·dealt. Play is initiated
. upon the deposit of a coin, or coins, in any or all
denominations of quarters, halves or silv.er dol.Iars
••• to a limitation of five coins of each~ denomtnation.
The sequence of the game is in accord with all stand·
ard 118LACKJACK" or 1121" games.
The player has the option of "hitting or stailding"
on the hand and score dealt. All SCORES ARE
NUMERICALLY INDICATED IMMEDIAmY.
The "dealer'' will continue to draw cards autOmati-
the score of the player is compared to the "deOlet"'
and payoff is automatically made CICQ)rding to the
score and the amount of the beJ' made•. If the player
P~akes a "BLACKJACK" he receives double his ori-
ginal bet ~nstead of the usual one and a half payoff..
"AUTOMATIC BLACKJACK" is fully approved by the
Nevada Gaming Commission. All card dealing is
ab$olutely uncontrolled and based upon chance.
Any player, after receiving two or more cards show-
ing a score of 10 or 11 may elect to "DOUBLE
DOWN." Simply press the yellow flashing light but-
ton, increase your bet in the same denomination up
to double your original bet, press the ·"HI'P" buHon,
•and you will receive one card only to complete your
hand.
 111! AT T11 B b B A"L lit
' vided he knew the hole cards of at least one of the other ·
• lnsert coins on 11MAKE BET.11
• ''HIT or STAND'' when buttons light. (Automatic
stand after 10 second period).
• Deafer stands an 17 or over (must hit soft 17);.
·· • Aces count eleven or one.
• "BLACKJACK'' pays double, "PUSH" pays money
' back.
~ Flashing light indicates 10 or 11-press button and
immediately increase your bet, one card only will
be dealt to your hand.
• Nu~erical score supersedes card display. 0
0
• All coins rejected when game is in progress.
NEVADA
ELECTRONICS
INC. hno, Nevada
- the player should.only bet in multiples of so; against suCh
Notice also that a player sitting in the fourth seal-would
ordinarily have an· occasional profitable insurance bet, pro-
. three people at the tabl~ (The player must see at least five
cards of a complete deck before there is a possibility of a · .
ratio below 2.00 3Dd a profitable insurance bet. Two play-
. ers' hole cards and the dealer's up card are sufficient.) But
this. little advantage does not apply here, for insurance is
aot offered.
. There is one more rules change. If the player ~
· blackj~k and the dealer does not (the ad doesn't say this
but presumably it means it) he wins twice his original bet
· instead of the usual one and a half ~es it. Cleatly this
helps the player. How much? The chance (in a one-deck
game) that a specified player will get blackjack tmd the
dealer willoot is 4.649 per cent. But the player now :wias
an extra so per cent each time this happens. So the •
, gain to the player, due to this rule, is SO% X 4-649%, qt
2.32 per cent.· So the player's gain with the- basic atrate&Y.
· is increased from~-o.8• per cent to+ 1. 51 per cent.
This is a tidy rate of profit for each and every hand. So
a basic-strategy player should make a steady profit. One
drawback is the fact that the machine will accept bets only
up to a total of $8.7s per hand. But at 100 hands per
hour one should expect an average profit of $8.7S X IOO·X
•·s•% or over $13 per,hour!
The ad reproduced here. was picked up in Reno and
in Lake Tahoe. Recent information from Las Vegas is ~
.s
the machines there all pay I to I for blackjack. Further.
this is rounded off to the nearest quarter, against the player.
For example, a 25¢. bet reCeives only 2S; for a natural,
not l7~ ;._But a so; bet·receives 7S¢ for-a natural. Cle8rly
a machine. ENen so, the edge is now an uufavorable o.81
per cent.
Warning: MachUles ·wear out or becOme defective.
Also, an unscrupulous peison. could set an automatic black•
 140 · 11 E AT T BE J) E ALB Jl· ~10
Jack machine to cheat. Before 1 would play such a machine,
I would tally 1000 or so dealt cards to see if appropriate
proportions of each type of card were being dealt. I would
further keep track of the percentag~ gain that a pla!cr
experiences. in xooo hands or so. You are better off domg
. this by watching than playing.
The Paper Rouie Technique
How to Spot Cheating
The questions I have been asked most often is, ..Can a
player using your system still win in Nevada, after all the
publicity and reader successes?" and "What is the best way
tO do this?" Y cs, you can go on winning in Nevada. ~ere
is a technique which is very effective. Before you begm a
session of play, set aside from your stake an ~ount equal
to about 5 large bets-perhaps 20 or 25 units. Play untn
you either lose this wount or win this amount. Do not Blackjack dealers in casinos are often fantastically skiltM
show the 20 or 25 units at once, but instead buy chips with cards. Before I became seriously interested in black·
from it as .required. If you play for an hour, stop anyhow. jack, I and everyone I knew ·believed that although dealCta
/ .The point is this. If you play no more than an hour, you could cheat if they so desired, they did not cheat. The well-
are less likely .to attract attention or be remembered. If _pubUcized argu~nt is- that the casinos enjoy a natural
you lose no more than 20 or 25 units in a session, no one advantage in the game and wU1 win anyhow. Why should a
·cheating dealer can ruin you. If you win no more than casino risk possible exposure and the resliltant bad pub-
20 or 25 units, you are less likely to be acted against'as .a Deity, loss ot customers, and perhaps even loss of their
po,ssjble threat because of your wi~nings. "~e ~ just a gaming license? Alte~atively, why would a.crooked dealer
little lucky this time but we'll get hlm next t1me. who works for an honest casino risk losing his job in order
Remember your dealers. Return to the dealers you to line his pockets?
do well against. Avoid the dealers you lose 20 or 25 units
t9. This way you never get cheated .twice by the same
We might answer this with another quesdon:
there~ corruption in political life and in the busf..
"lsn'
dealet, You may lose legitimately and then avoid an honest ness world? And isn't it usually for the same stakes (money)
dealer. This can't be helped. . and with comparable risks (loss of position or of ~
The method is oversimplified to Ulustrate principles. to operate, bad publicity, etc.)? Why then should legalized
Make appropriate modifications for your situation. After gambling be JllOre immune from dishonesty than 'Jegalizecr
asession, you should go to another casino. When you are business?" ' ·
.using the method, you stroll from casino to casino, collec- In recent years it has become public knowledge~
ting money, much as a newsboy for a paper route goes from .141.
~r fo door.
-ent
-~ BEAT TBR, J>E~L~··'·· ·
gan~er groups (such as the. Mafi~ and~heCosa.
Nostra) are behirid a number of the casmos, u~cblding so~e
of the largest ones. Pulitzer-prize-winning writer Ed Re~
and coauthor Ovid Demaris detail the grisly story in The
Qreen Felt Jungle. Mob control in Nevada reaches every·
where, even to the highest levels. 'The book is "~ust" read-
Ing for anyone who visits Nevada. Other details can be
found in [17~ 24, 28, 33, 46, 51].
Reid and :Qemaris tell how casino mobsters, in vari··
ous falling-outs, blew each other apart. Not only do t~e
anQbsters fauen their tills with "legitimate" profits from theU"
cashios; they also take'money "off the top." That is••they
habitually report a ·smaller gross than is actually rece1ved.
An account of these practices was given by Wallace Tur·
aer in a series of articles bi the New York Times, Novem-
ber 18-22, 1964- . liked the top card, she dealt it (honestly) to herself. If~.
. Now let me ask you again, are men of the Cosa
Nostra. who bribe publit officials, who steal money off the
top~ w~ help to tinance their ·rackets (dope, prostitutio~
and smuggling) with their casino profits, who comnut
murder to settle their differences-are these men going to
atop ·short, at a little cheating at cards? Perhaps they are
good sports. Perhaps they don't want the extra P,rofits that
«nne frooi cheating, especially when the "suckers" won't
have a chance in a million of spotting the cheating-and
who, if they did spot i~ wouldn't be able to c:to · anything
about it.
Before we continue, let me try to set things in perspec-
live. In the great majority of blackjack· games there is no
Cheating. But there is enough cheating (I estimate the aver-
age player wiD face a cheat perhaps s or .10 ~r cent of
the time) to make it a serious problem. It can mean the
difference between winning ~ losing~ So we must under,;.
st8nd how to minimize our losses from. cheating..
I was originally naive enough to swallow the argument
that blackjack as played in the casinos is generally honest.
ti took painful ~nat experience to convince me ~­
wise. The first such experienee was not long in coming.· ..
The Knockout Dealer. A Stubbom Expert Wastes $2o,ooo
in a Single Night ·
One afternoon during the test of the system in Neva~
Mr• .X went off alone to play the Tens strategy. Early tho
next morning he told me he had played steadily for eight
to ten hours at one of the large hotels. He made house:.limit
bets-of Ssoo in sufficiently favorable situations, and at the
end of a few hours he had won $13,000. At this point the
hotel brought in its "knockout" dealer-a cheat emp!Qyed
specifically to dispose of big winners. ·
Her method of cheating was to peek at the top catd
when it came time for her to draw to her own hand. If she ·
did not like it, she dealt herself the card just below the top
card, ~y referred to as the "second." Even tbotlgh
she did liotknow what the second was, it was a better risk
tban the top c.ard about half the time. . .
Mr. X stubbornly played on, hoping he could beat tho
cheat anyhow. The cheat faced him for forty minutes at· a
time. Then she rested for twenty minutes during which time
the game was honest again. Mr. X hoped to win more iD
the twenty-minute sessions that he would be cheated out of
Jn the forty-minute sessions. But he made a fatal error. He
continued to bet on a large scale against the knockout
dealer, ratbei' than reducing his bets to a few doltars B!ld
.waiting until she had to be relieved. Thus he lost too heavily
against her. After a few hours he had lost back $:l.O~
cancelling his $13,000 lead and putting him $7,000 in tho
. hole. When Mr. X complained to the owner, a person whO
was t:esponst"ble for the· operation of several latge ca&~
he explained that a (mythical?) Texan had won $17,000
the day before and the casino could not afford further
losses. . .
v· -~-----
X44-
The Queen of Heart. ·
·- Anxious to learn to protect myself from being Cheated
I visited this particular casino the next morning, accrim·
panied by Mr. Y. Mr. X had described the knockout dea!er
to us: a thinnish, grim-faced woman of about forty, Wlth
black hair that was beginning to gray. . ·.
I purchased $1,000 Worth of chips from the cashier
aDd seated myself at 'the nearest table. I bet $30 and thea
thO dealer dealt a card to me and one to herself. As she dealt
the second card to me, the pit boss rushed over, stopped
her, took· the cards, and called over a dealer ·10 replace
her. The new dealer was a thinnish, grim-faced WQDWl of
about forty whose black bair was beginniitg to turn gray. .
I received a pair of Eights and the dealer bad a Three
showing. I split my Eights and got totals of 20 and 18. The.
dealer's bole card was a Ten. Mr. Y and I watched as the
dealer, holding the deck edge. up, bent the top card back
slightly to .see what it was. We saw it too: the Queen of
HiaftS. That \vould have busted her so she dealt the second
card to herself. It was an Eight. giving her 21, and she ·
raked m our $6o. Angrily Mr. Y spelled out for ber what
she bad don~. She reddened and looked down. She said
DOtbing. and pretended not to bear our loud, angry pro~ts.
When the pit boss came over, he also sllowed no r~~n.
There was nothing we could do-"it was our word againSt
- hers." We left, poorer but wiser.
j. · After that experience and before writing this chapter, I
went on several exploratory trips With the purpose of in..
. vemgating cheating. I played at .most of the major casinos
in. Las Vegas and Reno for periods ranging from a few
minutes (cheating) to several hours, With bets ranging from
$I to $125. I was cheated frequently enougb to learn to
c~ and spot a dozen or ~-cu~ techniques. Thera,
was cheating at large plush casmos. as wen as at·~
out-of-the-way places. There was chea~g at. all· betting
levels, even for 25¢!! In many additional instances, ~cards
·.· · fiM·"tij Sjiot ChMttnt r4~
behaved so strangely that I suspected cheating although I
could not actually see seconds being dealt (with a good
cteaJer it is eXtremely difticult to see). . ·. . .
On both the Reno-Tahoe trip and the first Las Vegas
trip (taken foUr months after the Reno-Tahoe trip), I bad
the good fortune to be accompanied by individuals Who
. were able to play the Teil-count .strategy, who were expert
bOth at demonstrating and spotting dealer cheating and
who patiently instructed me in the ways in which the dealer.
can cheat. Furthermore, since each of these indi'viduills
bad money invested in the play, .they were always at my
side, watching attentively. . ·
·· I emphasize that the cheating incidents described are
.my personal experiences. I do not wish to imply that they
are necessarily representative. The average amount of ~heat•
mg is certainly less than the amount encountered bY, a
Well-identified "prime target" like me. In addition, it ~
ably varies with such things as changes in government,
.casino management, and ownership, and with the Size of
bets, the time of day, and the individual dealer. ·
In some cases an honest casino may unknowingly ~ ·
a dishonest dealer. This dealer could cheat ~ house. by
letting a friend win .heavily•. If the house checks teceipts
regularly, they might notice that the given dealer frequently
bas unusually poor shifts. In order to prevent detection, a
logical cover-up by the dealer ~to cheat other players to
make up the deficit. Some people descn'be this behavior
of ·the dealer • a Robin Hood· function.
I emphatically dq not wish to imply that one part of
Nevada is· more. or less free from cheating than any other
part. I also be.lieve ~t the cheating problem is not so
greitt that people should completely refrain from playing.
However, anyone who does play blackjack ~hould Jearn
without delay SOme of the elementary ways in Which his
, opponent can cheat. (Sad to say, this advice applies equally
•to' the other card games, both casino and private.)
l have been told by a reliable source that in the
~- 146 BBA'l' Tllll Dlt~t.Jill '~~::~: ":~ SJIDI etwat~ng· '141·
first ·fiye ~,ears· of tho Nevada Gaming Control-Board's · , 0a one occasioti I was beUiDg from $2 to $20 whit'
1
~ opera!i~ ~ "!osed down ~ than ~-casinos· f(Jr· , . a card expert-stood by to protect me agaiust possi~
7
cheatiag. Little if any publiCity (exceptiOn: (71}) was . log. A shOrt while after I began tq play. the deck was ~
gen~ly given to these proceedings. and the casinos usuall)' out and a new one was brought in. I requeste4 the QJd Bet
fCOJ?OD premptly und~ new w.anagement. . · as a souvenir. I wanted it in order to C?heck f9r markings.
The amount of cheating 'VariCJ from almost- to Even though I iDSisted on that particular deck. the casino
over 90per cent, depmding on which area of the~ ' tefused to give it to me and instead, after much hunting
are playing· in. There is a similar variation iD the amount of ancl digging, produced another deck. 'I'he Jatter was iD con-
help the authorities will give to a. player who has ~ sic:lerably better_ condition than the one they had J;efusecl to
cheated. varying from no help at all to a great deal. You give up. Suspicious. l continued to pJay against the JlCW
may wish to investigate the conditions in your area ·beforo cfeek. and a I was winning moderatel~ .J'l8S a troo
you play. . mendous streak of favorable situatioDI-my suspiciolla ~
· · There· are dozens of ways to cheat at b1ackj4ck and at lulled. Afrer about thirty minutes I stopped and my friend
card· games in· general. All we Qll do here is. sketch some told me tbatlWas playing against a marked deck. Ho said
of the more popular ones. based on my experience with the that both of the dealers agaiust whom I played dealt seconds
casinoS. · · · whenever called for if the bets were $10 or more, and not
CJtberwise.lmmediately an odd incident came·to mind. Once
Mlll'ked Cards a card stuck. in the deck, held only by its corner. It did not
! _·. · Qne main technique in cheating is for the dealer to . come Jooso undl the dealer fticked his wrist sbarply. Tho
Identify the top card in order to deal a second, if it is · card must have been a second, for it was hanging there and
advantageous, at some appropriate point in the game. Tho . was held both above and below by other cards in the deck.
simplest way of identifying a card ftom its back is to mark · My friend said ho did not pun me out of the game
t on the back, in some kind of code, just what the card is. A because J .,.. winniDg ·anyhow. Although I did win 80Jllo-
·marked deck is called "paper." Millions of decks of marked thing. my winnings were only a sman part of what dley
·cards are produced annually and are readily purchased by might have been with such tremendously favorable situa•
man from supply houses specializing iD crooked gambling tiona as had OCCQrred.
equipment. They are,&OOavailable in most ..magic" stores. Frequently dealers of seconds have the habit of ·~·
All the most widely used standard brands are avail- ing" the wP&t of the,haDd that is holding the deck as part
able. There is no safety in the fact that a pack may have of. their motion of dealing. This ~ prevent cards from
been IP8Dufactured by a reputable company; someone else getting stuck and hanging as in the above incident. Thus
~ can easily "mark" the deck. For example. &rJyone ean whca you soc a dealer who has this Ofhel:w\se unn.ocessary
t puldlase at nominal cost special inks and _brushes for modoJl, you should suspect very sttonJly that he is able,to
tbia purpose. For the details of how cards am marked. . deal·aecond$.
pictures of marked cards, .and some of the styles of lilark· One of the cheat dealers, who had worlc:ed for the e.a-
mg. the reader is referred·to (IS, 21, 22, 36, 53-58, 66]. .0. on 24-hout gdJ, Jhowed me a novel card-marking
Photographs illustrating secOnd dealing (disc:~.betow)',, ~·He.took.lsisJhumbnail and pressed the backs. of
also appear in some of these referen~ · · , · . Aces Qd Tens on their top edge. He did not scratch them
 148 BBAT:.TBB DB-4&. ., " ttt·8pot~g: 149
but rather merely rounded them slightly; when this was done.'', : &Uri by1he exposed .part of its face but tWlt this portioa
j:
the cards seemed no different from· the othets in the ·dec:kt · Ottlle card is not visible to someone sitting across the table.
~
as several friends and I learned when we htmted for the How; certainly no one is going to reach across with hi&othc!t'
h
lliarkillgs. However, when the deck was held at a certabt · · !iaad and bend down the card. But a skilled dea1el ~
li ~le to the light, the ec!ges of the marked cards gleamed J.ccomplish this swiftly and invisibly with the same hand
~ Just enough so- that a trained eye could pic~ them out. with which he holds the deck. Fortunately many if not most
!i
!' Because of the angles involved in light reflection, when the 'Of the cheats seem to be much less practiced at peeking
dealer can see the gleam, no one else can. -_ . than they are at second dealing, so if you are watchful, you

I'
.
·l
_ This dealer claimed the Gaming Control Board had at
different times confiscated several decks which he had so
m~ked and that images of them had been projected greatly
enlarged on a w.aU without the markings ever having been
can ~ften catch them as they peek.
-.Jf you ar& suspicious, there is one method which wiJl
frequently catch the peeking or put a stop to it If tz.
dealer peeks, his eyes must rest upon the card at which .he
detected. is peeking unless he uses a "shiner." While one person plays,
· ' Some people fall asleep ·at night thinking about their tDQther person stands (this has advantages over sitting, as
Jobs. or their stockf, or their families. Mathematicians faD we shall see when we discuss dealing seconds) behind the
asleep thinking out problemS in higher mathematics. Some , player and stares at the dealer's eyes. Whenever the delller'a
people just count sheep. But this dealer confided that bo eyes took at the deck, the watcher's eyes ftick down to the
and his friends fall asleep thinking up "new ways to cheat · ~ to see if a peek was poSS1"ble and then ftick back to
•em.• , the dealer's eyes. The watcher .should also have his eyes
~ on the deck whenever a card is being dealt.
P-eeking I have found this technique extremely suc:cessfol. Some
·. Marked cards have the disadvantage of being concrete · c;heat dealers becom~ so tense and nervous about being
e\lidence that can be used in a court of law. A more coni· caught that tbey become clumsy and.are caught all thtnnore-
mon method of identifying the top card, which has the· I{Uickly. OtherS stop cheating altogether under tho preSSUre.
fUrther advantage that it may be used with any deck ·what- A "shiner" is a little concealed mirror with which. tho
J soever, is for the dealer to actually look ·at the face of the dealer sees the faces of the cards, before or as they are dealt.
top card. This is called peeking. It might be put in such places as the face of a ring, the
· A skilled dealer can peek at the top card in plain view inside of •pipe_bowl, or the polished edge of the money
of a tableful of players with aJmost no risk of being caught ;ray Is31·
Suppo_se that a pla~r busts. The dealer collects his chips
_and his cards. He wtll often use both hands for this. If he · ~- S~ple Home Experiment
holds the deck in the left hand, as that hand reaches out, · ~~ that ,the dealer peeks and deals seconds at
it~- natural to tum it over so the deck is upside down. Try wl1L Here- is a .simple home experiment to show you- the
this and- freeze your left hand in this partially extended cmormous average advantage he gains whenever he decides
P;OOtion. Now reach out with your right hand and bend the : tddo this.
nght rear <:orner down slightly. Notice that you can identify : . Deal out one hand to a $ingle player (imaginary, if
 ..
~"";:~~, 5-o--~---~-~.~.i:;-~~~~lfa AL ·
uecessary) and one to yourself, as dealer. Ha-ve thep'"'. YGG·<·il P,~ aboutto deal. Now_ rearrange the deck as follows.
uSe the basic strategy. Each time, Wore you give a .1\C l~-front comer should be nestled in the "elbOw" or
'?the player or yourself, peek at the top card. (It is ~ ~nd joint of your index finger. Tbe tip of ibis. finger
. aunply to deal from a face-up pack, with an cards left up- ~ould be. slightly above the top front edge of the deCk (it
on the table.) If you prefer not to deal that card, hold if · ~ keep_ the third card from being pulled forward by -the:
~d d~ 9le seco~d card. A certain amount of judgment: ac;tion of the second). The left-rear corner of the deck
JS ~ liere. When you feel your judgment is g~ s11ould be firmly seated in the palm. Tbe second, third, and
make p initial bet of one chip on each hand. Record t1te·· fOurth fingers should go under the deck and around. the
results for one hundred hands. Shuffte the deck well eaclr tight side. Their tips should 'also be slightly al>ove the top
time you need to reshuffie. I tried 100 hands against a of the deck. ·
player using the basic strategy. The player won 9 units and . No-w, with the thumb, which should be lying com-
the ~ won I 10. Tbe net gain for the dealer was: a · b1ably on top of the deck toward the front, pull the top
whopp10g +101 per cent. Compare with the results ex·· ca.rd to the left, say half an inch. This half-an-inch figure is
pected for 100 honest hands, given in Table 3 .6. only for illustration. An expert would pull the top card
to the left (or down, for an important alternate variation)
Dealing Seconds only a very small amount. If your grlp is proper, the rest
Dealing seconds fs the principle weapon of literally of the deck should have been undisturbed by this motion.
millions of card cheats ·throughout the world. When com· The .c~er of the second card is now expo~. By using,
petently done, it is almost invisible, even to experts. Sleight• ~r.:t~ght thumb on that comer much as in ordinary ~al~
of ~d and ~anipulation of cards were already well devel-.. ing._ slide the second forward and to the right. When it is
oped m the SIXteenth century. With reference to this, see · -pal1 way out, grasp it with the thumb and forefinger just
the report by Ge~lamo Catdano [50, pages 132_134], pe~ • in ordinary dealing. At about the same time, with the
haps ~e most skilled gambler of his day, in which there are·· -left tbuml> slide the_ first card back into its original position.
stories of the miraculous skill and tricks of Dalmagus (or :If your grip was proper, only the top.and second cards were
Dalmautus) and of Francesco Soma. disturbed during the entire process. Proper height of the
One ~ethod of detection-listening to the sound of tips of the second, third, and fourth fingers will prevent the
th~ cards. being dealt-is generally useless in the usual cards below the. second from moving when the second card
DOtS)' casmo atmosphere. It is based on. the fact that the Is pulled out. ·Thus when the deal of th~ second is compl~
second rubs other cards on both its" surfaces when dealt,. the ~eck_ ~- normal. This is not an expert .technique.
while the top card rubs only on its lower surface.' Thus· a' but 1t sliould gtve you some idea of how second dealing
dea~ wh!ch mc:tudes-a second generally sounds something works. .
like. swish, swish, scrape (second), swish. Of oourse these . If you used a deck with borders, you may have noticed
sounds and the difference between them are slight; thus it is that, as the second is dealt, the right border* of the top card
pneraUy necessary to have quiet to detect this. - • I assume the dealer is rlght-lianded throughout ibe boot. If the
. To get a very .rough idea of the technique of d~' c1ealer II. left-handed, the wordr "right.. and "left" should be inter-
seconds, place a deck of cards in your left hand as though.. c:l!anpi_ by the reader throughOut many of these discussiona.
 1$2 JiB AT_ 'I' IJ ~ ~ Jt~ L:- "' ttY Spot CWi:tg -~
is almost lltationary. However, if a top card_!&- dealt, tbj: jltne. The rules were pretty standard except tbat ~e gapte
right border: of the second is partially or ~~ -~ncealeJ ._. played with four decks all shufiled together. Further.
until tlie- top card has cleared the deck. ThuS one way to 1Jie cards were dealt from a "shoe." This was a black plastic
spot a second being dealt from a deck with borders is to . t;0x that was open at the top. The four decks were shuftled
stare from above the deck at the right border (left bordet atlcl th~ placed in the box with their long edges down.
from the player's side of the table)) to see whether or not · ·There was a slit in the end of the box at the bottom and a
that border moves much as the card is dealt. sman oval hole running up from the slit for a short distance.
To counter this. many second dealers use decks with- 111e backs of the cards showed through the oval. The dealer
o~ borders. However,. so do a number of honest casinos; placed his right thumb through the oval, and to deal the
thus the mere use of a borderless deck by no means in~ ' cards, 'he drew them down and otit through the slit, one by·
cates cheating. To make it still harder for the player to..see a · one.
second being dealt, the dealer generally tips up the front of· This seemed like an ideal game with which to use the
the deck slightly so that the player views the_cards edge ont:. - Ten-count strategy because, with so many cards in play, ·
In.this instance the presence or absence of borders is imma· the fluctuationS in favorability from hand to hand (which
terial since the. backs of the cards are totally invisible at the teSUits from cards played on the p~vious hand) would be
instant a card is dealt. much smaller than in the one-deck game. Thus when large
Dealers often tilt the forward end of the deck so far up ~were being placed, there would be much less fluctuation
.I and back toward their chests that kibitzers who are stand• · ~P and down in the bet size. Half an hotll''S play at the
iDg cannot see the back of the top card. In this position an~' table, waiting for favorable situations, confirmed this. When
one can deal a second without being caught. If you try this a run of .favorable situations finally came, I changed from ~
yourself, simply ~de the top card down a short distance, waiting ~t 9f $1 to the $5 to $25 range. There now was
deal the second by pulling it forward and up; and restore a long steady run of favorable situations before the foli~
the top card to its initial position. · · decks finally ran out. I won about $8o. During the next
· Perhaps the inost popular type of borde~less cards now.· two or three- hours of play there were _comparable runs
-in use in the casinos are the famous Bee No. 6j. The pattern with similar results. Altogether, I accumulated about $16o.
on the backs consists of solid diamonds separated by brokeD . A card-expert friend who was standing by thought tho game
diagonal white stripes. This pattern seems to dazzle or blind_ was so--Bafe that he wandered away. Wo were soon to get_
the untrained eye; irs use seems to increase the difficultiea ._ an expensive education. ·
in detecting seconds. When the wrist flick is employed, this · . Shortly afterward, a dealer against whom I had DOt
pattern is even more effective in blinding the eye to tho previously played came to my table. After a few minutes..
deal~g of a second. · the four decks became. favorable. Only this time, I lost
nearly every hand. Before the run ended I had lost $250.
Deck-Stacking: The High-Low Pkkup · Startled and suspicious, I then watched tho dealer intently.
It was conceivable ihat ~e could deal· seconds out of ,
Durmg my exploration of casinos to s~dy the Cheating tl&e shoe. BuJ how could he identify the top card? Peeking
methods actll!illy ~ployed, I came across a novel 5011 of . seemed impossible; hence shiners were ruled out. . What
 -f :>: -~ ""~ ~ c

154 BEAT TBE _J)~A_L,-~ ~1iiiW fj,$r}ot-ChMiinr !5.5

- about marked cards? I watched the dealer.'s eyes,. but be_-i ~. ' - The casino had dealt with my earlier run of "luck"
never glanced at the part of the- back of the-card which : .rather promptly and brutally. I decided to find out whether
was exposed in the oval hole;. • this was casino policy. I observed··that this dealer generally
· The four decks were about average durmg the next ten -played at the table that was getting the. most action. Furpter,
.runs so I dropped back to $I waiting bets. However, I was most of the other dealers were less skilled. It seemed likely
losing on nearly every hand! I then began to count, and.; that fbey were not "in the know." Sure enough, when I
in :l6 hanQs, I lost 24, tied one, and won-one! The odds made $I bets at their tables I was not cheated, and tho
against losing at least 24 of 26 hands by chance_ alone are · deck stacker busied himself elsewhere. I struck up conversa-
about 2,000,000 to I! • I could not believe it. Could I be dons with a number of these dealers to check my $pecUia-
so tired that I could not count? To be safe I counted the - tions. I asked whether there had been any winners lately.
next group of wins and losses by putting chips in little piles. . ·A few dealers remembered only one such person in the last ·
1 also was obvious about it so that the dealer would be sure ,week (the others remembered none). ThiS person was su~
_to notiCe. I wanted to see whether he wo~ld alter his be- posed to have made Ssoo. I guessed that he must have
bavior. He did not. On the next I4 hands I lost 12, tied one, played only a short time and bet fairly large. Sure enou~
and won one. The odds against losing at least 36 out of 40 the dealers said he bet $25 and Sso ($Ioo on douliling
hands by chance alone are about 25o,ooo,ooo to one! I' down and pair splitting) and played only a short time. Thus
was baffted.....;.how did he do it? his win corresponded to $20 betting $I to $2: he was
And then I noticed an odd thing. The dealer, in pick- lucky and besides he probably quit before the big guns
fng up his winning pair of Tens, slipped a small card from could reach him.
- my hand between them. An accident? I soon found that the. · . ·· I later found the high-low pickup used in many other
-used e!ards were being stacked ~low-high, low-high." Then · casinos. Here is a test that will give you an idea of the
1 watched them come out on the deal. Six of us picked up power of the high-lo~ pickup. Let Aces, IO's, and g't -be
our hands and we ali had {IO,j). {10,2), (10~6), (9,5), high. Let .2 through 7 be low. Let two B's be high and two
etc. I quit playing now and watched the fellow ply his trade. be low. Stack the deck low-high. low-high. Now deal hands
. He picked up the cards so smoothly that his interlacing of to an imaginary player and to yourself as dealer. Deal so
high and low was almost unnoticeable. He. preserved the that the player gets low-low and you get high-high. If the
ordc:r of the cards through the shuffle (a false shuffle that . order of the deck is low-high. this is automatic. If it is high-
looks like a real shuffle -but does not · affect the cards is · row, you can deal seconds. You should win virtu~y every
Standard equipment with card sha~s). When he dealt, ~e· · hand. When a stacked deck is used, get out of that game
never needed to peek or use marked cards. He knew wher, immediately.
the cards were: just where he had stacked them.
Deck Stacking: The Seven-Card Step-up
• Readers who attempt to calculate this figure by assuming that
the probabilities of winniDg and losing are each about o.s will get a One afternoon I wa! playitlg head on and bettitig·from
figure of a Uttle-over 200,000 to r. However, the proba~ of a tie il $Io to $Ioo. After I had played .duee or four decb._l
aearty 0.1 and should be ~ into account. When this JS done and
we ask, What is the chance· of at least 24 losses in 26 hands? with the · 'noticed. that the dealer bad started each deck with two
probability of each loss about 0-45 and the probability of CllCh nonlosa . han~ one of which was 21 and the other 20. More amaz-
(equals tie or win) at?out o.ss. we F' the figure of ~,ooo to 1.
ing. his 21 was composed each time of the Ace of Spades
r~- --~~~-.~- -- -----~--- --~ -- . . . -- ._, , _;',i<
.~~
t IS6 B BAT TBB DBA L--B.
aDd.the same Ten~value ~ the Queen of Clubs. At_ my
. -~ eameon.·th~ took decks out of their pockets. we
elbow employed in a private captlcltJ, was Mr. Michael
MacDougall. one of. the world's ~utstanding detectors of
card cheats and a special investigator for the Nevada Gam-
~ Control Board. • (Tho rest of this chapter is ~ .
from our experiences on a trip which followed by nme
months the trip deScribed in Chapters. We spent twelve
hours a day for eight days playing dozens of the prinCipal
Nevada-casinos.~ Mr. Macl>Qugall told me. that the dealer
had.set up a card sequence of ?.B,g,zo,IQ,I,Q,K,A. The
sequence was preserved during the shufile. It is a stan~
tecbDique of card .cheats to shuftle .a deck repeatedly m
such a way that some preselected clump of cards is left un-
-disturbed. The sequence was "bridged." meaning that it was
bent lengthwise down the center, .so that when placed face
down on a table, the center -did not touch the table. _ being.false.shufiled. The dealer can even square it up after
The dealer had left the sequence near the middle of~
deck when he offered it to me to cut. An Ul'laware player
~ genefany cut the deck so that the bridged cards become
the top cards. Try it yourself and see.
_ !At us return to our story. After I had cut the 7 to ~
top. the cards dealt werei 8 to me. 9 to the dealer, IO tome,
10 to the dealer. He held 19, I held 1_8. On the next hand
I.
l the c:ards went I to me, Q to the dealer, K to me, A to the
dealer. His natural beat my twenty. ·
As he p~ up theSe cards he stacked ~ ~ck
into the san1e sequ~ce. With the next deck the Sttuation
repeated-itself. The reader; can easily convince. himse~ that
the same card stack is effective against two or three .players.
At this particular casino when the dealers went off
duty they put the decks_ in their pockets. When .the new
• MacDougall Wrote about the cheating we encountered 'in hill
syndicated column £35, 37]. H$ mentioned it OD "'pen End" when we
&ppearecl as guests oa April 7, 1963- Ho exposes cheating iD ~
to clubs, dinner groups. and -the like, thro~Jshont tho country. By a
Strange coincidence, in ·Nevada he doesn't seem to be ·iD such peat
.· demand as an investigator any morL
'fo.!V- ~ Spot. Cheating .._57
fOun4 out that they were gaing off an4 setting the "~liy'
mto the deck. · · - -r .-
. It is said that a ~aler in Newport, Kentucky, was tht
Inventor of this step-Up and .that he was so proud of his
achievement that he considered demanding royalties from
the casinos using it.
A closely related_ and much more innocent-appearing
lttcldng idea (not currently fashionable) is to let the'-~
begin each time with a sequence of Tens. Then evetyOne
holds 20 and ties the dealer on the first round.. However,
aucceeding rounds are played from a Ten-poor deck. The
effect is the same as if seYel'81 Tens were removed from the
· deck before play.
The shufDing- technique used to preserve the step-up
cin be used to convince an onlooker that the deck ia·llOt
each shuflle. A high:low sequence of considerable length
can be preserved this way.
One greedy blond dealer against whom I played brlely
was preserving a high-low clump twenty cards long. When I
called her attention to the clump, she refused to shuflle to
destroy it.
Often one sees a blackjack table standing empf}',
attended by a dealer and awaiting customers. It is common
practice at such tables to leave the deck spread out face up.
Presumably this is so the player will see that all the c:ards
are there. If the deck is newly opened and the cards are
in their original order, it is easily possible to tell whether or
not any cards are missing. It is not easy to tell this when
the cards have been mixed up. And as soon a8 you sit down
the deck is scooped up, shuftled, and brought into play;
therefore you have no time to check the deck. Mr. Michael
MacDougall obsetved that ·if we stood back from such 111
anpty table and examined the ·deck we could find the
-step-ups ·all laid out and waiting. We went to a suspect

· .ts8 B BAT T II 8 D 8 ~ L ~~ '· - ::.,row to
.··casino. At the first table we approached. we saw the step-up.
W.e bet $1. The dealer otfered1ts the deck to cut, WithoUt
even bothering to shuffie. As expectea. we cut the step-up
to the top and· the dealer received 20, followed by 21. We
commented on how we had been cheated by a step.up ancf:
the Gealer laughed happily, proud of his handiwork and
proud that someone finally appreciated it £371·
AnchorMen
One large hotel on the Las Vegas strip seemed to be
completely free from cheating. After I had won a couple of
huridred dollars in half an hour, pl~ying $5 to Sso, one of .
the pit bosses jokingly 8$ked how the system was working.
MacDougall told him "up and-down.. like an elevator."
Sb1ce the pit boss was friendly enough and we were run· , dealer picked them up so that I saw only their backs. Final-
mng out of places in which to play, we adopted ~e follow-
iPg policy with this hotel. Bet $s to Sso and stop playing
~-we had won $200 or played forty.five minutes, which·
eVer was sooner. Forty-five minutes was short enough so
that ill a few minutes I coUld fully recover ~m the strains
Of counting, refreshed and relaxed. If we stopped at $200,
our win was sniall enough, compared to ordinary chance
·ftuetuatioris, to seem to be just a little luck. . Nine or Ten), he signaled the anchor man to draw. An
· (The reader may be puzzled at the contrast between
this timid low·scale betting arid the earlier test reported in
s.
Chapter Conditions ill Nevada seemed to have changed
dnlstically between these two m.es. On this trip we learned .
that if we won more than $250 to Ssoo or placed a single.
bef above Sso to $too, we ~id so at our peril.) ~
This caSino wClcomed us back the next few times we
came. We proceeded to beat them. eight times in a rqw. We
were bUsily at work on a ninth win when the pit boss called
over our dealer and· told. him ·something. My frlen~ Mr.
MacDougall overheard ·tho dealer say, ..AU right, ru giv.e
it to. him." When the dealer returned we asked him what he
was going. to give me. He only &roiled. Out eyes ,locked
of;-..;'
Spot CHeating Is!.
He did not do Ill~
Ohto tlie dealer's handS and eyes.
Suspicious. Puzzled, \Ve·watched and play~. In a fe~_min·
. ates an individual who would have otherwiSe seemed m.ccm,.
M>ictious came steaming down the· aisle behind our row
of·blackjack tables. He was passing our table at high speed
· when ~ pit boss· whistled. He made a sharp turn on his
. heel and plunked down in the seat to my right. I cut roy
bets and awaited developments. .
We immediately noticed that the dealer now might be
peeking, but he did not deal any seconds. The new player
watched the dealer's eyes before he decided whether to
draw or stand. I tried to see his cards when the bets WCl'C
being settled in order to tell if he was followii)g a consiste~t
strategy. But either he threw his cards in face do~ or the
ly, I got two glances at this fellow's cards. · - ·
He stood on hard 8 once and drew on hard 19 the
Second time! Further scrutiny confirmed the fact that the
dealer was peeking. If he wanted me to get the top card, he
-signaled the new player (termed an "anchor man") to
stand. If he wanted to keep the top card from me (for
example, suppose I doubled down and he saw it was a
anchor man makes the dealing of seconds unnecessary.
Wi~ marked cards even the peek would becbme unnec-
e§a~ .
The dealer ·could easily infer from my behavior..
· formed through long habit, whether I was going to double
down, draw; stand, or split a pair. It is thus a useful art in
.casino blackjack to be able to play with a poker face. An
~sier way to combat an anchor-man is to wait until yOur
turn' to even .look at your cards. In this Wa.y, you carinOt
~possibly help the dealer who uses. an anchor man. . ·
· We moved to another table, the one far1;hest i'rom
~ere W!' were. I sat so that a player already at that table
was on my right, occupying the anchor man's future seat.
 ,"l1!F .
BE AT_ T ~E.~ J) E ALE~>
The word was passed to the dealer and the anchor ~an
waited patiently. In a few minutes the player on my nght
got up and the anchor man plopped down. We left. The fun .
was over in that casino [35].
Alternatively, the anchor man may be seated on the
dealer's right. He then stands_or draws according to sign~
from the dealer. This enables the dealer, whose turn lS
next, to draw more desirable cards for himself. The entire
table loses to the dealer's superior cards, in contrast to the
first use of the anchor man, in which only one player seems
singled out for hard luck.
· ·We had several additional incidents with anchor men
in other casinos. They suggest to me that Nevada, a state
without seacoast, has the biggest "navy" of any state in the
union.
The Gratuitous Peek
When th,e d~ler has a Ten up, he immediately checks
his hole card to see whether he has a natural. When he has
an Ace up, he flrst asks the players if they want insurance
(assuming the insurance rule is being used) and only after
this is decided does he check his hole c~. When he has
any other card up, there is no reason for him to check his
hole card before his tum to play. I have on a number of·
Occasions seen dealers check their hole card when an Ace
· was up before they offered the players insurance. They thea
tiied-by their actions and manner to influence the player.
If they had a natural either they would not offer insurance
or they would rush the player. U they had no natural, t,bey
. gave the player plenty of time and even hinted with their
facial expressions that insurance was ~ Once in a while
I have seen dealers look at their hole card immediately
when they had neither a Ten nor an Ace up. 1bey then
continue to peek until. they find a card they need, which
they hold for themselveS by· dealing seconds.
.. lt{)W to :Spot Cheatirfg.
Miclumics on Call
· · A (card) mechanic is a skilled cheat who 8CCOJlloo
plishes his ends by sleight of hand. Some larger casinos
have their own·mechanics working as dealers on the regular
shifts. Since mechanics are paid much better than ordinary
dealers, a casino which cheats will, for reasons of economy,
hire only as many as pay for themselves by the extra
revenue. Often there is only one mechanic per shift. One
morning I was betting $ro to $roo and winning•.After a
whiiC, the dealer went off duty and his relief came on. Sud•
·denly the pit boss rushed over, scolded the relief, sent him
to another table, and made our dealer stay on. A few
minutes later another dealer the pit boss had summoned
relieved our dealer. The new dealer was, according to the
expert who was protecting me, a mechanic. We could not
see any definite· cheating, only suspicious moves. But good
mechanics can often conceal their move from the most
skilled eyes, leaving only a few suspicious side effectS. W~
immediately lost nearly every bet. At the $IO level we. lost
a couple of hundred dollars of our winnings in a few
minutes. ·
We walked across the street to a smaller casino, one
Periodically these boxes are brought into the_ counting
$5 to $50, we were well ahead after twenty minutes. The
pit boss was grimly hostile. Then he made a phone; calf.
MOCc time pilssed. Then we looked at our watches and ~aw
that it-was dme for our dealer to go off duty, yet he was not.
in."a city without clocks," always cany a watch to see if
your dealers are being changed after·what you observe to
be the regular length of time for a shift, and at no other
time. A break in the pattern indicates trouble.
· Our dealer had been on duty thirty-seven minutes
{thirty \\l&s normal in this casino) when a man dreSsed ~ .a
white shirt and black pants like the other dealers, but wtth-
out the apron of that casino, hastened through the front
F~ ~
---~--~~-----~"lEII~!IJ':T'.c'~~...,.......--------ilfiillll!=illa!!!l!l~~

162 B B AT · T 11 B D :B A L~B a ::~ ii¥.1JI"nt 'ID SpDl Cheotbtg t6l ~

ctoor and up to our table. 'He immediately began to deal. 8tiher Jose )'OUr $20 or.double if.Then quit. If you an.
Wo spotted him as a mechanic. W"rth a smile he ~purred. ~ playing after an llour, quit anyhow. Go on to ano.thet
MWould you gentlemen.~ a drink?" Tb! pit~ became cass~ Return to casinos and dealers you do well agaiust.
relaxed and in good sptnts. A ~ave o~ friend!~ seemed Avoid those you do poorly against. This way, no one cheat
·to pervade the grim. barren, midmormng desolation of the. lmrts you mudl. And you nev~ play a cheat twice.
place. We left.
Miscellaneous Methods
There are so many ways for the dealer to cheat that we
can only give a brief introduction to the subject here. The
interested reader can study it in much greater detail in the
lll1Ul)' references that are available [IS, 22, 36, 53, 58, 66].
Many interesting facts were also presented during a Senate
iavestigation of gambling in the fall of 1961 [30, 42].
Despite all our warnings and the frequency with which
dealers cheat, there are a number of casinos that are /

scrupulously honest. Our purpose in this chapter is to make

tho reader acutely aware of the darigers of cheating and to
give him enough knowledge so that, in most cases, he Will
', be able to spot it and change casinos before suffering a
serious loss. It should now be evident that 1t is suicide tq
play in a place that cheats; you have virtually no hope of .
winning.
A voiding the Cheats
As a practical matter, it is not likely that-you will be
able to actually catch much of the cheating that you meet.
The better cheats can only be spotted by experts, and
sometimes not even then. How can you ayoid serious losses
from cheating? ,
·The best me~od I know pf (the paper-route tech·
nique ~ earlier) ~ now being quite widely and
successfully used: Here again ls·the idea. Divide your stake
into ~ ot twentY' equal parts. For example, starting with
$200 you might divide it into t~ parts of $20 each. When
you sit down to playt. buy $20 worth of chips. Play until you
------~-----·--·
t:--•, ~- - ··- ....
II
. cana (untecognized by the management), the tables kindly
Can the Cheating
Be Stopped?
LIFE Breaks the Cheating Story
Life magazine ran a feature article about the author
. and his methods in which Life's staff writer Paul O'Neil
broke the long-concealed story of Cheating in Nevada black·
jack [49]. "'Thorp has been victimized by crooked dealers.
••• He has been backed off (thrown out) by pit bosses,
be has been harassed by shills, plied endlessly with booze,
-eyed significantly by plug-uglies and, on two occasions,
rendered spectacularly rubber-legged and goggled-eyed by
knockout drops, courtesy of the house...• ·
In preparation for his article, O'Neil read .my work.
Then be spent a week in Las Cruces studying me and my
ideas about blackjack. Next he spent four days with me in
~Vegas (I was there for the 1963 Fall Joint Computer
•This was the house's last Attem})t to stop my five-night wbming
llreak at baccarat. After my team IUid I pushed our W!n streak to teVCD
alghts. the rules were changed. Tbe side bet we exploited was removed
from tho layout. See [5g. 70} for details.
·•64·
Conf~e ). He watched me pile up $420 in winnings in
~d a half hours I could spare from my wotk· to
the four
play blackjack. (My bets ranged from $1 to $25, depend-
ing on circumstances, and averaged about Ss.) During the
twenty minutes that I was posing for pictures at the Tropi-
rewarded me with $62.50.
The Life article was painstakingly accurate and thor-
oughly researched by Q'NeU.
· Even!be authors of The Green Felt Jungle were
unsure-:-probably due to insufficient information-about
the cheating situation. The dust jacket of ·the hardback
painted the most sordid picture of the other phases of
Nevada gambling and then concluded, "Ironically, the
gambling equipment is possibly the only thing in Las Vegas
that is really oia the leveL"
Replies from Nevatla
The Life story could nt)f be ignored. There Were cries
of protest from out West. For example, Edward ~ Olsen.
chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board in Carson
City, wrote in a letter to Life [48. p. 27),
Sirs:
Neither your writer nor Dr. Thorp has evidence
to substantiate such statements as: "Thorp has·been
victimized: by crooked dealers in almost all of the .
·major casinos in Nevada!'
. Your write_r's statement that Dr. Edward Thorp
•tisuaUy knows in hi~ ne~e ends just when he is being
double-crossed" appears more worthy of scientific in-
jestigatioa than. his system of counting the cards in
a 2.1 game. I think Life hQ libeled ~te of Nevada.
.EDWAltD. A. OLSEN, ChalrtnQII.
State Gaming.Control Board· .
i66 B'-BAT TBB -DB ALB*
On April 3. shortly iftcr Lite-s article appeared.
Mr. Olsen closed the Sllver Slipper. a Las Vegas casino,
on charges of cheating. Meanwhile, several caSinos
· haVe made changes in. their blackjack rules to thwart
. the Thorp system.-BD.
But the right hand evidently did not know what the
Jeft was doing. For at about the time the Olsen letter was
sent, a Nevada newspaper announced [25]:
STlUP CASINO CLOSED BY STATE. SILVER SLIPPER
·" R#.IDED. "CROOKED DICE" CHARGED BY QAMlNG -91!•
fiCIALS.
Tho story went on to tell how five dice were picked up on a
routine check of the crap tables. All five -dice were later
found to be percentage dice. '"The official statement of facts
was signed by Control Board Chairman Edward A. 01·
sen. • • •" An earlier incident of cheating at blackjack was
reported as a second charge:
The Silver Slipper had no seriouS enforcement
.problems before ·last year. It appeared then iil com-
plaints filed by the Ganiing Control Board With the
gaming commission after undercover agents found a
dealer cheating at 21. The casino's management was
notified, and the dealer was fired. · In the summer of 1962 I~ visited by an under-
· No action was taken at that time, but the incident
is BOW listed as a second cause of action in the current
complaint.
How Card Cheating Can B~ StrJppetl
In the first edition I gave a detailed and simple pro-
cedure which could \Je -used to stop virtually all the blaCk·
jack cheating methOds described in this book. These &Ug-
ptions seem to. have fallea on deaf ears in N~da.
What can be done by priVate citizens or-by the federal
f'QII, !~ CheatJng B~ ~topped? 1 67
goverpmeot _to eradicate the. cheating? Many people have
asked JDe thiS and I have thoUBbt long and hard about thci
·answer. · ·
. The ~at· Stlm_lblin~ block is. how can you· get evi- .
dence that wtll stand up m court about something so intan-
gible ~ sleight-of-hand card cheating? What is needed is
,~me~ow to get photographs, or better, moyies of the cheats
m action. Movies would be ideal. for the cheating move
could be followed frame by frame. Photos should show tho
cheatin8 move, ~e cheat's face (for identification), and
the club emblem on the layout. ·
• Discou~aging fu~thei' cheating would then be _quite
sunple. Publish t9e ptctures and an account of the· action
in a nationally distributed book or magazine.
. I am told that the most practical (though still· difti-
c~lt? way of obtaining the pictures would be with a·sub-
Dllma~ Japanese video tube ~d to transmit the pictures
by radi? to ~ remotely located recorder. There might bo
legal difficulties, however. I understand that a Nevada
stat~ l~w prohibits taking pictures inSide a -casino without
tho casino's permission. .. .. ~
How the U. S. Treasury Can Recover Tax Money
Lost ~rom Stealing off the Top
cover agent of the U. S. Treasury Department. He was one
?f a h_alf-dozen or so sucb agents who were part of a larger
mvestigation of tax evasion by certain casinos in Nevada.
He told llle that certain casinos were taking large spms of
money :•off the top." In blackjack, for example,. when yoa
buy chips at the table, yo~r money. is generally pushed
$'ough a-slot in the table Jnta a locked box underneath.
~erlodicslly these· boxes are ~roug~ into the counting
l'Q<)ItlS where they are opened, and the contents are recorded
!"' part of the casino's gross income. Accormng to &hiS
 - : _,.,.;' ' ·-· · Can the
168 BEAT TBB DBALBJl
Qperation "Money-PuTIJp..
agent, a common practice Is to list the contentS 8n ·on
addlns-machine tape, recording the number of hundreds.
fifties, twenties, and change. · INTRODUCTION.
He asserted that 101118 casinos keep two adding-ma-
chine tapes. one with the 'true figures and the other with
patly reduced· figu~ The smaller figures are reported to
tho government. Tho difference between the true gross and
tho~ gross escapes taxes.
J asked the agent ~ he knew about all this. He said
that he and other undercover agents were posing as
. big.~ and gambling conspicuously. They were able
to inptiato themselves enough to be taken to the counting
fOODIS as part of a guided tour.
He said that the c,tperiencos of the agents suggested
that· about one third of the winnings was being taken o1f
the top at that time. If the gross declared casino gambling
income in Nevada was $220,000,000 for 1961 and if
$x8o,ooo,ooo we~·fpr expenses. the taxes would be about
$10,000,000 on ure $40,000,000 net, leaving a profit ,of
about $JO,ooo,ooo. But ·• SUSpec:ted $no,ooo,ooo more
was. being taken off the top. This would mean a true profit
of SI40,ooo,ooo! Taxes escaping the government would
exceed S:~s.ooo~ooo.
Tho ageat bad to come to see me for two reasons.
Fust; he and the others had learned to play my winning
system and how to spot cheating. The government "couldn't
afford.. to have them lose huge sums at the tables just to
get .fOUlS of the counting rooms. He wanted additional
pointers.
Second. the agent wondered whether there was a way
of proving, statisticaDy perhaps. that the theft of money
·off the top was taking placo. We conferred for a couple of
dayr. after which I suggested tho following scheme. Here
is the original text (except for minor changes and clarifica·
lions. mostly indicated by brackets) of my suggestion tO the ·
federal government.
c;hellting Be Stopped?.
· ' ·· ]UM, 1¢2
There is strong reason to believe that ·
the Nevada casinos, when counting the "drop" fn)m
the gaming tables (i.e., the money that accumulates
in the money boxes under the tables between collec-
tions), take money "off the top." This means that in
the counting rooms they set aside money from the
total so that the reported gross total is· less than the
. true total. Tlie evidence is of two kinds. First, an agent
of the federal government has several times been an
eyewitness to this in casino counting 1'0QQlS. Secondly,
the casinos expend vast sums which are not covered by
entries in their books, for items like complimentary
girls for customers, mechanics who cheat the custom-·
ers at the tables (they get a fraction of the take and a
higher daily wage; rve talked at length with. one of
them) and perhaps. for the financing of nation-wide
rackets. Where does this [extra} money [that the
casinos spend but don't report] come from? Logic sug- .
gests it comes "off the top.. of the [casinQ] operation it
is being used to support.
.m 1961 the Nevada casino gross gambling rev-
enu~ was around $221,000,000 and a net taxable in-
come of around $4o,ooo,ooo ·was reported. If the·
casinos are taking a mere one sixth off the top, they
have a hidden additional potentially taxable income of
$44.~000 and are more than doubling their sup-
posed net income (the reported $4o,ooo,ooo taxes..
down to about $Jo,ooo,ooo)! On the basis of the
evidence cited earlier, it seems likely that the amowrts.
taken olf considerably exceed one sixth of the total.
There was a famous muckraker. Lincoln Steffen-. ·
who in the period 1900.1910 exposed in a sensational
series of magazine articles the then emerging pattern
170 BB.A1' 'rBB DB•Al.B:it •
of corruptioa ia ·our bJg cities and in state •g0\1emoo
. ments. In his autobiography he sum,marized his ex-
perieoc:es ia a maxim! -wherever a graft exists -tqr the
taking. people wiU arise to take it... The casinos can
take money off the top with impunity: no preventiVe
, machinery now existalr Eiuther, if a certain casino is
taking eff, say, a hunc&.,o thousand, why not take off
· a million instead? Since if by some accident they're
caught the penalties are the same, why not take off all
the traffic will bear?
We propose a test which will either .clear the
casinos of this charge, or will produce court evidence
of such strength that the responsible casino bigwigs
can he convicted in'criminal court. On this latter event,
which seems likely for some of the casinos, the effect
•of a few convictions should lead the remaining of.;
fenders in the casino set to the i>ath of righteousness.•
The potential gain in income tax should each year pay
for the project scores of times over! . thus the house extracts its percentage several times
TBB PLAN. We propose to gamble at selected tables
of selected casinos. We would buy chips with hundred·
c:k>Dar bills whose serial numbers will have been pre-
recorded (this. record is not essential to our·main ob-
ject but does have an additional application that will
be discussed in a later J"Cpo~). _We would play con-
tinuously from one collectip~ to another, recording the
total number of hundred-dollar bills that go into the
money box and noting the number which were ours..
A current practice is for. the casino to record the
Dumber of bills of various denominations and to label
the record with the table and shift number. Thus, at
the end of the casino tax year, certain of th~ records
can ~ checked to see if money 'flas taken off the top
ot not. Our evldence is that it js currently ta,ken in the
form of hundred-dollar bills. in .a propOrtion that m.
c.n ·the f;h«~Jinr Be s~ 171
CJeaSeS as the 1lUIIlbcr of lmndted-dollar bilts increase~..
Thus our test is apeclfic for the problem•
Now, it is widely believed that the casinos necet-
sarily have a certain percentage advantage_ over the f
player at each of the games. At blackjack, for ~pie.
a typical player seems to lose in the long run from 3 to l
l
s per cent of the total amount of his bets. Of course, he
usually rebets his money several times. Thus he gen-
erally loses several times this percentage of his ori~
in~ bankroll. This is measured by the casino when it
determines how much of the drop it "holds," i.e., what
fraction of the amount the player invests in chips is
won by the casino. In blackjack it is estinlated.that the
casino holds 20 to 30 per cent of the drop, i.e., the •'·
player loses from his investment an amount equal to
from about four to ten times the casino's edge over
him. This is due, as we've mentioned before, to the fact.
that he gone...Uy rebets his money several times and
over.
'It might seem from this that to pump $120,000
into several blackjack tables (perhaps Ss,ooo per
table per shift would be adequate, thus allowing 6o
samples). some $30.000 of playing capital would be
· required and consumed.. However, it has been provea
(both in theory and at the gaming tables) (67;68,69)
that there is a winning (!) strategy for the player at
blackjack.. This makes it possible· to pump in really
large amounts of money-in the millions if desired-
with the aid of the same $30,000 bankroll. We propose ·
a $30,000 bankroll for playing capital. The hundreds
of samples thus attainable offer statistical and legal
advantages over the· smaller number of 6o.
We propose that a team of perhaps twelve agents.
soine ntale and some fema~ learn this strategy (two or
three days training is sufficient!) and ~stematic8Uy
r
I
.
172
~

BB~T THB DBALBJt

·~-·-=-

'
but as inconspieuously as possible pump in very large
sums in various casinos. At the end of a tax year many
hundreds of table-shift record cards· could then be 12
checked to see if money was taken off the top. With
such a sample size, if the money were being taken
it would certainly show up. Further, since the people
who count also sign the record cards and have
been there since the money· box was unlocked, they '~

are absolutely ·liable for taking money off the top.

Now the evidence would probably be stronger from ScienE::e Versus Chance
the standpoint of convincing a jury if the same in-
dividuals were found guilty of several violations rather
than only one. Our sample size is designed to make
this [more] likely. ·
As far as I know, •Operation Moneypump" is filed
away in a dusty Federal drawer, certain casinos are still
iaking money off the top, and our national tax collection
~till .doesn't cover our expenditures. The appearance of numerous system players will ultimately
necessitate important changes in the game of twenty-one u
it is now played. We can gain some first insights into theso
changes by discussing the means through which the Nevada
. casinos have ·.dealt with the handful of successful players
(whom \ve refer to as ..count" players because they coulitecl
carcls) that has appeared in that state during the last dee-
ade. Most of the stories surrounding these. early players are
· aot a matter of public record or even known beyond a
~ IDlall circle of· acquaintances. No part of the legend be-
came known to me until sometime after I had completed
the winning strategy outlined ~ this book and had arrived
in Nevada to test it in actual play.

Early· Winning· Players

The first of tl.te successful system players, a much dif. ,
ferent personality frOm the others in the group and in· no :i
way representative, was a colorful individual known a.i
.173.
~-
~~14 B BAT T H B DB~!.~&
~:~ John.. Large and obese.. he acquired his name
:::~=~'his habit of coining to the casinQ with a largo bag of
~ · .y greasy fried chictcn. ~ played for as long as twen!J.
·.·. homs at a stretch, never leavmg tho table. The casino sup-
-~ ~ ,the ~nks, and innunlerable meals of vmying sizes
·. could always be drawn from tho huge bag of chlc:ken. It
· ·eopn became ~pp~t that -oreas,·totui'" wanted to play
- alone. As crowded is the casinos ..-e. once he became a
,-~ bmlliar tace he did not !lave much trouble keeping other
,~ ,players away. His profanity and drinking drove o~ all but
. tho hardiest of women players and finally the casmos fol'o
bade all womeQ to play at the same table with him.
Since 3reasy John's hands were generally dripping
with clucken fat. the cards soon became too oiJy to ~
comfortab!y. Even though decks were changed frequently,
the grea5e was sufficient to drive away the men players.
.Greasy John played fOr long hours day aftC;f day, and
In a few months he became wealthy enough tO retire. He
_IWfered a heart attack and died shortly afterwards. Wo
haw no knowledge of the system that Cirea9 John used.
lt ~ probable from surviving details that he employed
_end play. As noted in an earlier chapter, end play wiB
produce astronomical gains in a short time in spite of the
fact that the player's )?asic playing strategy is poor. Further-
mote, end play is a Very natural idea, easy to ;erify em-
. piriCally, and it probably has occurred to a great many
players. : .
For those players who follow -system Smitty,• we
have ln most cases omitted the details of the colorful back·
grounds of the individuals involved, and the parts of their
adventures that might serve to identify them. We also have
regretfJllly omitted .the human-interest portions of the
legend, involving areas such as sex, vice, "con men." and
the mob. We must further emphasize that the legend is a
c:Omposite of many separate stories told to .m.e by different
-peop~ However, for !}1e most part the stones are mu~
~p
.38cfence VdtrU (:fumce 'J1S
y consistent and the people who told them were direct~ .
. pants. Therefore, 1 believe the story is substantially"~
· rate. ··· · .
To my knowledge, the firSt person who employed a
-count" system. in successful casino play was Benjamin F.
(..System Smitty") Smith, a viell-known figure ln tho ~
Vegas casinos [I]. A~cordlng to Mr. Z. a mutual acquamt-
ance who has seen Smitty's voluminous notebooks, Smitt;r
apent several yq.rs playing out Ioo,ooo hands ln an effort ,
to determine the proper standing numbers when a Ten-
count was employed. The system, as described to me by Mr.
z.gave a fair approximiltion of the totals to stand on for
'ftrious values of the ratio Tens/others. However there were
certain moderate errors, which resulted, at least partly, from
the nature of the system. .
In addition to the moderate errors in standing numben
that were part of System Smitty's meth~ there was ~
detailed strcltegy for doubling- down and pair sp~tting. These
factors, ln toto, probably cut2 or 3 per cent off the player's
advantage, not to mention the increased rate of.attrition of
the small "'waiting" ·bets. Since the bulk of the favorable
bets are ln the o to 3 per cent range, the player's rate of Win
is greatly diminished. The only alternative for the player
who wants to make a big win is to overbet his capital (in
terms of the ~eory of proportional or "fixed fraction" bet-
ing [23,70,76]), greatly increasing the chance of ruin. and
hope for the best. . · .
SmiU, ·probably did precisely this, for he has had
many spectacular win-loss sequences. Mr. Z said he was
present one night when Smitty won $xo8,ooo at the black-
jack tables (that is a considerable sum with a Ssoo limit)
and lost it an· back- by the next morning. He did not even
have the price of breakfast left. · ·
. · Smitty's system, which was first used in the mid-fifties,
!believe, seems to have spread to a sman group of pta~
lncludmg' a certain old-~e gambler whom we shall Call
 v~6 BJfAT.TB1!· i)l!ltL'Blt
Mr. F, Mr.·Fs mistress,. the Mra X ofChapter 5t Mr. Z,
.lho. little dark-haired f}lY mentioned •previously, aud .a
)'OUJJg player commonly known both as Junior and a8 .
~y."
This group of players pumped large sums of money
out of the blackjack tables within the next few years. There
is no way to determine exactly how large tbe·sums were.
For what it is worth, the "grapevine" credits Mr. F with
$so,ooo gross winnings, Mr. Z with $56,ooo gross (after-
. warcJs.divided with his bankrollers), and Mr. X with $too,•
'()()O to $150,000 gross. The little dark-haired guy is sup-
pQSed to have cleared $250,000.
. In any case, the nrembers of the group won large
tgq()unts ·in short times in only a feVI( casinos, and as a
consequence the casinos, which had initially been skeptical
of the possibility that the game could be beaten, finally
.. barred each of the members of the group from play at the
. twenty-one tables and spread the warning.
. Omno Couniermeasures Against Count Players
During and after this period a number of casino re-
JPOnses and countermeasures to count players either' came
into existence or developed further. ·
i· ·· Cheating. · Cheating has already been discussed.
Barring. A casino can exclude a small class of
playerS without difficulty. However, this solution does not
ICeDl feasible on a large scale. With the early system
players, photographs could be distributed to all ·local
casinos, but for thousands of players this idea is simply
impractical. Along these same lines, even though a given
casino's employees may remember a particular individual
and bar him from further play, barring is not a defense for
the casinos as a whole because it is possible that the ·m- _
dividual may work his way through the hundreds of exist-
ing casinos and allay suspicion- by winning opty a· few
hundred dollars at each one.
. , $clence Vme Chtnu:tt ·- -··171
It is obvious· that casino- employees me trained to ro-
. member people. Junior (also caUe4 "SoDDy") toJ4·blo 1t1at
after ho _. universaUy barred in the casinoB;· he weal to
the make-up departm$1t of one of the Hollywood movie . ~
atudi01. He paid Ssoo for a complete disguise. On: tho basis
of his-facial structure, color, and build they decided to dis-
. guise him as middJH.ged Chinese 1be disguise even Ja. 1·
eluded a carapace to be fitted over bis torso• He tried Out t'
his nice new outfit one evening in a casino in which thoro -~
were &ix employees on c:luty·who knew him. Five of them ~~­
paid no atteution to-him. Shortly after ho began to play, the .~
sixth employee wandered over from tho bar. spotted him at 1.
once, aad eKCiaimed, "'Hey, look everybody. There's SoDDy 't
all dressed up like a Chinese." Junior still keeps his beloved t
Chinese outfit stored away somewhere, buric<l unc1er years t
of accumulated dust. [.
Shuf/16 up. Shuffle up is another casiDo strategy tbat
Is effective against a amaJ1 class of players bUt has a serious
J;i:_·
drawback when system pJayen become numerous. It costs ·r
the casinos money by slowing down the game,.aad"it also
.J.
1_ ·.
· alienates some customors. Farther, as we haw 'already
pointed out in Chapter 9, shuflle up is fraught with diftl· '
culties for the casino. How does a dealer know when-be is
facing a system player and when ho is not?1be best COUDt
players can play faster than any dealer can deal, and
11111oother and more effortlessly than most players. Thus they
rf
·~
have ample freedom to adopt a guise. And t11c= ate many ·~~
IUbt1o ways to camouftage varying one's bet size (when nee- ~
essary tho variation can be mado quite small, ~ to 1 or evea ~-·
~~ ~
Further DINlopmenta
As we noted in Chapter 9. the casinos tried ~
changes and gave them up. Tho outcome of the exporimenta
with automa;tic blackjack macbiDes remains to be seeu. ·
r-•.~-~.,~~----~-__...~-~-B-;·~'l'.-THJ1 &BA!.IUl.\
I Low-cost miniature devices have been manufactured ·bJ
.players to do most of the work of counting .cards and playin'g
the various strategies. · The next step is obvious. A .computer oan be ill'<
. . The ultimate player would be a higb.:speed computer.
A first step in this directipn was taken several years ago. by
Robert Bamford of Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Bamford de-
signed a "black. box" to play blackjack. It is an electric
analog device that performs an approximate computation
for an arbitrary subset of cards. It tells the player his ap-
proximate correct strategy and approximate advantage.
Cards are. read in by turning knobs attached to gang-
switches. Information output is from a meter that is inter·
rogated by push buttons. The analog calculation is based
on a matrix approach similar in spirit to the matrix formu·
lation of the iz$Ute-deck baccarat calculations of [70}. The
devico I saw Consisted of two portable-radio-sized boxes
wired together. Miniaturization to book-size or smaller
WO\Ild be quite f~'ble. The device could be linked to the
. player by radio. It could instruct him automatically· upon ·
interrogation.
~amford tried to persuade two casinos to play his
macbin~ but, in a comedy of double-talk and evasion re-
ported by the Pasadena Sw-News. the casinos frustrated
his_ test. .
But a ptatch between another computer ~d a casino
did talc« place. At the time of -the 1963 Western Joint
Compater· Conference, a. trio of Los Angeles computermen
~ on the Tropicana Hotel. The three operated the eight
pound LGP-21 for an hour. The machine's method of play
was inspired by .the ideas of the first edition of B.eat the
Dealer. .
In a one-hour match, witnessed by Paul O'Neil of
Life, myself, and many others, the machine won $36o [44]. .
Bets varied from $2 to $42. And the JD8Chine won in spite·
of. the fact that the harried computennen · made several
costly errors.
-~VIf81#·~
119
-~
CIJrnputers Versus Casinos
structed quite easily always to make ·the best possible play.
The player simply tells the -machine what the casino rules.
are and then informs it of the cards he bas seen and of the
shuftles, Then, a split second after ihe player tells the ma-
chine his cards, it would tell the player the best play.
It is technically f~ble :to link a casino blackjack
player by radio to a remotely located giant machine which ·
does the actual playfng: The. player would win at several
times the rat~ of the best buii\BR players. Furthermore.
special situations such as the Puerto Rican end play of
Chapter 6 could be. exploited easily and precisely. .
If -a large computer were used, it could play $eYel'al
games at once. In industry computers are now commonly •.
used on such a time-sharing basis: while the machine is
waiting for more Information on one problem, it spends ifs ..
precious time solving another.
Science Yers~ Chance
nie IJlathcmaticaJ theory of probability originated in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with the considera-
tion by. Cardano, Pascal, apd others of various gambli118
games, and With their investigations as to whether or not
there were systems ·for beating them. Most notably, these
games were the forerunners and relatives of craps. From
that. time until the recent past, a. series of persons whose·
names are illustrious in ma~tics and physics have
thought seriously about gambling games (and have often
made important related contributions to the mathematical
theory of probability!).ln addition to Cltfdano and Pascal, .
lOme· earlier examples arc Fermat, James and Daniel Bern-
oaUJi, Laplace, and Poisson. ·
At the tum of this century, the great mathematician
and physicist Henri Poincare considered the possibility of ·

do BBAT 'T~B bRAtlft
' predicelng the ~tcome· of a trial 'of roulette by pllysical
rather than mathematical methods. He concluded .that ·this
was impossible via an argument based on thC mathematical
4oncept of a continuous function. Ho~r. the concepts in-
wived illustrated certain philosophical concepts in science
(see [52), pages 69-70 and pages 76-77). Also early in this
Century the great English statistician Karl ·Pearson spent
many years analyzing the records of certain roulette wheels.
.......
However, for more than forty years there seem to have been
110 successful scientific attempts to devise winning,gamblinB
The modern high-speed computer, essential to a care-
ful analysis of blackjack, has been widely available for only
1he last ten or fifteen years; without such a computer the
IDalysis on which this book is based would have been im·
~'ble. • With the continuing rapid growth in the number
of scielltlsts and enginee~ and the rise of fantastic new
··ldeatiftc tools, the interest in the possibility of winning
pmbling systems is increasing.
• . .In the first edition we predicted tha~ scientifically based
WIJ1D11lg systems for other games would appear. Within a
few months of publication, a team of trained players and I
went to Nevada with a winning systeD1 for the baccarat
&ide bets (S9o70],
We averaged $Ioo an hour for seven nights in casino
'nuniber one. It cried uncle and barred us. Later it removed
the side bet. At casino number two we upped the bets. We·
averaged $r,ooo an hour for two homs and they barred us.r
·The side bets then disappeared in Nevada. • • · · ·
. Allan Wilson gives an interesting and entertainine ac-
count of attempts to identify and beat defective ("biased"'
•ne mM 704 hiaiHpeecl computer which we used spent about
Claree houri caJculatiog. It cak:ulatca maD)' millions ot times 11 fast 11
a bwDaD lllCl II aearly error-free. It would have taken roughly tea
thoulaacl ~yean to do the eamo cal~latioal with the aid of a desk
calcalator. Still bigger and faster mac:blnes are now available.
t Scame'a jambled account of out ploy, wbich he c:laima to hau
~ from his casiao pals, Is pathetically fk:titious. . -
•• As this is written, the Carousel in Las Veps is trvtn,. amoclifiecl
ad "'afcr'" venioll of thole lidO betl. -r ""
':?',.
~~« V,~~ I$1
,roul~ wheels in [So]. There ar&also.~ peqple ·(in-
~<:luding myself) who~ a method.for beating roulette
_wheels whether or 119t they are defectivcl ,_
I. played roQ}ette on a regulation wheel in ~ base-
ment.lab of a world-famous scientist. We used the method
.and.steadily averaged 44 pc?r cent profit. In an hour't run,
betting no more than $25 per number, we won a fiction&l
$8,0001 There.are certain electronic:: problems which have
SQ f~ ~pt the method from being used on a large $C8le in
:he casmos. (Tho few times I have used it to turn two or
three dim~ suddenly into a pile of silver dollars baa
caused enormous excitement.)
The method works, and the story behind its discovery
and development is a long and fascinating one. It will be
even more fascinating when, sometime in the next few ye&rs,
some of the few who possess the idea cash in on it ia the
casinos.
The game of poker has perhaps received more intense
mathematical study than any other game. With the. exten-
sive theoretical research that has already been done en the
game, it should be possible to construct a practical playing
strategy superior to that currently used by any ~pert.
The Stock Market
The greatest gambling game on earth is the one played
daily through the brokerage hpuses across the country. The
customers.-~ $2so,ooo~ooo or so each trading day. A
~·s ac~n-·exceeds $6o,ooo,ooo,ooo. The advantage of
this ~bling game are two. First. it presumably serves
a. social purpose by hs:lping to finance companies (when
stock issues are first sold on the market). Secqnd, the
average "value" of stocks has tended strongty upward over
the last century so that the game has. an "advantage," on
"'average," for the player.• ·
• ~ Quotes are used .euensivciy heN to .indicate that I am usins
famtliar words with weB-defined meaainp to roughly india1te other
ideas. Pn=clse oxplaDatiolls of tbeso other ideas. to which I have givca
·· much thoupt. arc too complex and lengthy for me to discuss them bere
··tb .. BBA'I' 'I'HB DlfA:ili-t·
_ ··ne iimDarity bet\veelt1be casinos and the brokerage fme called ..chance.~ .We ltave tried to· indicate. a few of
~louses is·strifdng. The customers' mea ~1he croupfen. the developments that are similar in spirit to.thpse desen"bed
·-~- ~ 'correspond·to the house percentage. the in this book. But most of the posstDilitie5 are beyond 1:he
board ·1'00DlJ are the casinos themselves. The stock ex- reach of our present imagination and dreams. It will be ex·
chiDges and the ticker tape are the gambJiDg devices. The citing to see them unfold.
superstitions, unfounded slogans, and sayings of wan Street
correspond to those of the gamblers': "The· dice are hot."
To a good first approximation, stocks show the same
mathematical characteristics of randomness that are shown
by the chance devices in the gaming houses [7]. But a
aumber of patterns are now being discovered. To convince
yourself tliat there are patterns in stock prices. pick up
tomorrow morning's newspaper. (I assure you I haven't
~een it yet.) Notice that the stock prices are giwD as a
whote number followed by a fraction, for example 23Ms.
Now run down the page and tally the number of each end-
·big· tluU ~ You will find whole ~bers ~be most
conunon, ;;hen halves, then qu_arters. The lowly eighths
occur least often. (I ignore six~ths.) In addition to this
pttem of endings exhibited by the market as a whole, each
stock has its own characteristic pattern. for these fractional
enc!ings. . -
The mathematical analysis of the. stock market is being
undertaken by many groups. With the advance in computer
technology and Qlathematical theory, We .can expect dra·.
matic progress.bl predicting·~ prices. (U~ortunately this
In Beat The Market: A Scientific ~tock Market System.
S. Kassouf and I present a stock market system which ap-
pears to us to combine high safety with high return. It has
averaged more than as% a year for us under widely wcying
market conditions.
TheFutur~
In the last part of the twentieth century there wiD be
many new applications of scientific and particularly math-
ematical methods 10 1bc p!Odlction of pbenomeDa hemic>- .[
 the dealer, and four decks me used, dealt from a shoo. ·
(Four decks are disaclvantaP.~ ~ the,RJaycr.)
Addendum Casino I
Rui.E& (a) No card is bumecL
(b) ·The minimum bet is £1 and the maximum Is
£so.
--
(c) ~ cards are dealt face up, except for oae Of
the dealer's cards. (This is a considerable
Blackjack in England -aid in card counting.) .
{d) A player who splits a pair and receives a
· third card of the same value is permitted to
split agaiD. (This increases the player's- ad-
vantage.)
(') The izJsuranc8 bet may be up to the whtM
amount of the player's origiDal bet. not merely
half the value. (This is very favorable to
the system player. When- insurance is adVDDo
·_. Tilt winDing_ systems descn"bed In this boo~ appear to tageous, the carck:o1111tio'g. player sbouJd ... - <

ways insure for the whole IIII10UDl.

· apply with full 'power to blackjack as played m England.
The followplg detail~ ctiscussion suggests th~t the methods - '· Customs. ~ dealer always deals dowa to ·~·
,; · that/IUCceeaed In Las Vegas and Puerto Rico should do ctactmg the Iast c.ans.
<This .is extremely fa~ tor the
card count~·....t\Jso. end play can be used m ~­
. . , well here. The diScussion will be of interest to ~- advantage .h~-No casino. can long contilp.Je tO. play..._..
- . liSh '1'Nefed Ud to diose who travel in England. It. will on -gainst aif expert player with tbis ·nm, in e.tfeet.) :
"_ aJso be of general interest to readers ~ho ~ .tc:) ~k ... Conclusions. The b~tegy player has a ~­
~heir. underltalldiDg ·of Table 9.2 ·and 1ts use m analyz1ng
catiDos' ·ru~es ~ations. The computations made from
~tage of o.27%l An average or better~ plaJef wUI
win at more ~/the,typical rate (assun»os 1le ~ 1101110
Table 9.2-~'differslightly frOm the results in this adden- advantage ot eild play). . .·.
dum, becalisC I in~uccd extra refinements whenever I was _
awaie of them. CasillO 2
The following is a description of the rules and customs • Rt1tis. (a) See f(a). _
C)f tbreO big London gambling clubs, ~t in by an English
- (/1)' The D1inbn1111l ts Ss. · an4 the muimUIIl is
reader, followed by my analysis an~ ~ments. ·The ru~ £so. - · ·
and customs am those given as "'typical m Chapter 2. witb -~· '(C) See, I(d)_. _ -- ,-· . "
· the exceptions noted below._ _ . _ • _ • (d) A plaJcrwllinplifS a p&Jr is DOt peijmued- to
Ia each case tqere are from one to SIX players besides '>.. -·- • ~ ~ - •

·•84·
~r-
_,
1.6' B BAT TJIB DB.At.;Btt·
-dou'ble dowa: on thC ·JleW llaDds. (This de-
creases the player's advantage.)
j (t') Doubling down is only permitted on totals of
1
-:··! bard 9. to, and 11, and soft 19, 20, and u.
(This decreases the player's advantage.)
(f) A player who doubles down on 9 and gets a 2
may draw another w-d. (This increases the
player's advantage. A correct strategy calls
· for sUghtly more frequent doubling down on
9, but this refinement can be ignored.)
Customs. See Ca5ino 1.
Conclusion.t. ·The basiHtrategy player bas a disad·
vantage of about o.6o%. An average or better system
.player will win at about the typical rate (assuming he takes
some advantage of end· play._)
Casino 3
~ (a) :ne minimum bet is lOS. and the maximum
is £.so.
(b) .The cards are all dealt face up~ The dealer
does not get his second card until the playm
have taken such additional cards as they re-
quire. A player who increases his· stake by
splitting and/or doubling down loses his in·
creased stake if the dealer gets a natural.
(This is somewhat unfavorable to the player.
When the dealer shows an Ace or Ten, be
much more conservative about doubling down
or splitting pairs.)
(c) If the dCaler bas soft 17, be may draw or not.
as he likes. after looking at the players' Ca.rds.
('Ibis is quite unfavorable to the player, for . \·
the dealer can see what they have ·and so .
make decisions quite favorable to himself. His
preeise gain is not known.)
(d) A player who splits Aces and obtains a tbird
1
Ace. may. split again, but he. may not split
further. (This is favorable to the player.)
(e) If a player splits a pair of Io-value cards and
draws an Ace to one of the spUt hands, it
counts as a natural. But a 1o-value card
drawn to a split Ace counts merely as' 21.
(This variation is. favorable to the player.
rens should tend to be split slightly more than
normally.)
(f) see 2(e).
(g) See I (e). .
Customs. The dealer shuftles about twenty cards be-
fore the end of the shoe. (Not serious, in my experience.)
At one time this casino allowed doubling down. with the
. above totals, on any number of. cards. A player whose total
after doubling down was bard IO or 1 I or soft 20 or 21
was allowed to redouble and. receive a fourth card. Also.
the dealer dealt down· to the last card. ·
Conclusions. The basic-strategy player would appear
to be at a disadvantage of roughly o.6I% or moi.'C. A sys-
tem player will win, but at perhaps half or less of the
typical rate.
In this way readers may analyze any casino with the
aid of Table 9.2.
l
I
 APPENDIX
Basic· Probabilities for
the Complete Deck
An understanding of this appendix is not essential to. the
reSt of the book. It is included for the interest of math-
ematically inclined readers. . .'
lr
t
The tables in this appendix are an extract of the com-
puter's results for the case in which cards are dealt from one
complete deck. Results. like these. including one full set
for each of the decks described in Table 4- I, were used to
construct the blackjack theory givt.n in this book. Because
of· the extreme length of the data-there are enough final
j ·results alone to fill several books the size of this one with
lf numbe~ litnit ourselves to presenting complete-deck
figures, and only ari extract of these. Since in our discussion
and application of these figures we generally do not need
more than three decimal places, the tables given here are
usually to three decimal places.
a
All figures are to be understood as having decimal
point on the left, though the decimal point is omitted. For
example, -039 is to be read as -0.039. . ·
We emphasize again that figures in this appendix were..
• rsa•
~Basic Probablli~.Jor iM Comp~ Deck
computed assuming one complete deck and the rules of
Chapter 3, including the rule of a dealer's soft at8ncting
number of 17. Since the figures may vary c:oDSldcrably if
these conditious .-re al,tered, any·deductious one makes on
the basis of this appendix are precisely applicable only to
the situation just described. Such deductions do, however,
give rough insight into situatioDS in which there are several
decks in play or in which the roles are different. ·
In detetmruing the player's strategy, the errors in our
figures may cause enors, but only when the decision is very
close. And in that case the errors caused by the erroneous
strategy will be very small. This, plus the low frequency of
close decisions, meaus the effect on the player's advantage
of .any strategic errors of this type are 8J.so very small. "nlis
IS a virtue of the running count. Roughly speakiilg. certain
dOse decisions, such as whether or not to draw on hard 16
· wtlen the dealer holds a Ten, will depend on what cards
the player bas drawn to make up his total of 16. For ex-
amplC. ttis known that holding (10.4,2) the player Should
stand, while holding (Io.6) he should draw. If several
siDati cards have been drawn to make the total of I6, the
decision may be fairly clear-cuL For example, if the cards .
drawn were (4'.4.4.4), Julian Braun has shown that the
player's disadvantage in drawing against a Ten is preclselJ
(!) 6.382 per cent, as compared with the average. play~
advantage of 2.9 per cent (3.2 per cent if (8.8) is split)~
in drawing to two-card hard I 6 against a Ten.
One could attempt to improve the basic strategy by.
calculating the advantage or disadvantage of standing ~01'
drawing for each combination. of cards the player can draw
to make a total of hard 16. Then the ptayer could consult
a -list of card· cOmbinations to see Whether to draw or staml
This refinement,. in aU its precise detiill, is impractical be> ·
. ca1lSe its hulk (many hundreds of eiltrles) would prevent
. the player from memorizing amf using it in play. Further-
more, the net gain is quite small.
~---------------.....- __ (:_-!""_---..-.---"7·~~-=:::--: ~,.... '
..........--"""'r._'!!!l';_~~~-'!~~1!!'!'
190 BBAT TBB DBALBlL
-~~#iobatiiiJies tOr the Compltte Declc
the running count in J;Ollj~ _With tho -
191
-, However, . ·. l:AIII.B 2a. Pl41er'1 GW. ~ DttZwtng twll' Slandlllf
Tens strategy does- take into account the cants the player. - with HMil 2'ot111l ' ·
dra'\\1& It is not as ~ as the detailed strategy outlined ·b!e!er . . PlayeR hard total •.
above because it only classifies cards into two crude cate- lbowa D 1S 14 U 16 17 18 U
gories. Tens ud others. But it does gain much-even - 3 038 ...016 ...(T17 -141 -171 -383 -753 -1.135 -1.474
most-of the difference.. 3 013 -045 -117 -179 -212 -417 -775 -J.JIH -lAC
• -o17 -o86 -158 -222 -258 -467 -761 -1.116 -1·.491
'I'AJII.B 1. Dear.t'. Pro1Mbllltl& · -. -046 -:117 -191 -260 -297 -448 -793 -1.157 -1.S1t
' -(l2S -()94 -167 -233 -220 -470 -853 -Ll90 -l.SC
J)ea1cr Dealer's total
21
' 20J 166 114 u' no -331 -'J57 -uoa -uoa
~ 17 11 J9 20 natural busts I 189 148 145 108 '102 -{119 -657 -1.274 -1.626
' _141 ~145 103 062 055 -114 .....tOO -964 -1.586
z ·1390 1318 1318 1239 1~05 3530
10 156 119 07J 038 029 -148 -471. -813 -L420
s 1303 1309 1238 1233 1160 3756
•
5
1310
il97
1142.
1235
1207
1169
1163
1047
1151
106)
om
4023
4289
A 246 221 186 159 146 -o89 -554 -1.050 -1.533

4208 To illustrate the use Or Table 2a1 suppose you have a

,''
1670 1065 1o72. 1007 -
3723 1386 0773 0789 0730 2599
I 1309 3630 1294 0683 0698 2386 hard total. of ta and the dealer shows a Two. If you decide
1219 1039 3574 1223 0611 2334 to draw rather than stand. your gain is 0.038. TJUs ..-na
11 1144 1129 1147 3289 0365 0784 2143 that on the average over a large number of situatioas Ute-
•
ov.aJl
probability
1261

1458
1310

1381
1295·

1348
1316

1758
OS16

0736
3137

0483
U6S

2836
- Table 1- gives the probabUity 'that the dealer wm
achii:Ve a speci1ied total for eacb possible value of his up
card. Tho rows of the table do not generally quite add up
to-one because of small round-off and approximation errors.
The defect is 110 ~ than Io-• and so for practical pur-
poses is negUgJ.'ble. The column totals show slight discrepan-.
_cies with the overall probability figures because the original
table laad five- figures and was rounded off after the columns
were summed.
- ThiS table is of course valid only if we assume that the
dealer plays all his hands ~ut to a conclusion even though
his opponents all bust. ln an ordinary game the dealer tloes
not do this. . (9,7) .it.is o.8 per cent. and :Mth ~8,8) it iJ o.g .per cent.
· From this point on. all tables are computed on 1M
IUSIImpticm-thizt .the dealer does not have anatural. ..
.. -iS DOt inclUded. the figw"e changes to 3·2 p~r cent.) -
this one.:il you -always draw rather than stand. witia hatd 12
,against a 1\Vo, you win be better o1f by appmximately aa
additional 3.8 per cent of yOU!' Initial bet. If an entry is
positive in the table, the player should draw rather thaa
Jtalld. Con~ly, if an entry is =gative the player shot,tld
s.tand• not draw. The inspection of this table immediately
J!$elds the hard standing numbers. This is, in fact. how they
were first obtained.
: - .• Similar remarks apply to Table 2b except that the
entrieS yield_ the soft standing .numbers.
_ Thero ~ lwo extremely close decisions, one each iD
Tables 2a and 2b~ In Table_ 2a, the player who standS rather
;than draws on two-card hard 16 against a Ten loses, in
~ situations, ~ average amount of about 2.9 per cent
:pf his W8F'· .CW1th (Io,6) the loss is 3.8 per cc;nt. with
.~~numb«~ with worgbts 3z:8~ frQJ:D prob-
llbitilf theory gtY~ 2.9 per cent. Jf (8,8) is Split SO tbat.Jt
 i93
,.ABI.B ·2b. PIQen ·o•SDftt~tTDitlll.
DlwnP6It-.. ~· · · the t~,is JSO ~.cent.1hwi thereJs no need to Ust that
alterriative in the table.
,. Dealer
llhowa- 17 18
Pia,.... lOftu
total
tl TABLB 3. Plap¥'1 Advantage 8tantllng tm Vmlou.r 2'olil!f.
il
1: I 141 -on -28$ -470 Dealer Player's total
~~ s 131 -G74 -251 -45J shows 16 . 17 18 u tl u
•'

! •I
118
141
131
·-cMS
-o46
-233
-235
~
-430
-419
-418
2
3
-294
-249
-155
-119
116
143 ,,., ,,
'" Ci35
644
m
884

,'
-fJ67
4 -194 -663 l8l 417 88S
~ f
I
151
319
-230
-G71
-388
-442
-528
-f08 5 -142 -o23 l21 461 683 8H
"ll 704
lj 270 on -280 ~
' -159 009 281 496 9G

-
7 -480 -108 403 Cil9 115 927
l

••
H l33
291
04S
-oot
-157
.-303
--541
~14
i

'
10
-$23 -391
-533 ' -411
-535 -411
lOl
-185
-16-4
594
216
083
19l
156
564
930

In Table· 2b. ~
player wbo draws rather than stands
l.
on soft 18 against an Ace loses about 0.1 per cent in such
_situations. Some:playersl blow of attempted to solve bJack·
jack empirically; .that is, they dealt out many hund.reds or
. evea thousands of handt and recorded results. in an effort
to decide whiCh standing numbers were correct for varioUs
.· up cards of. the dealer. As might _be expected, these players
were sharply divided on these two cJoso declsfoas.
Table 3 was computed dJrectly from Table I as f.ol-.
lows. Suppose tho player holds a given total. say 19- when
tile dealer's up card is a 6. The player's. ad~tage is then
tho sum of the probabilities that the dealer will receive
a poorer total (18,17. or a bust), ·0.1065 + 0.1670 +
o..po8 = o.6943, minus the probability that the dealer
wiD have a better total (20 or 21), o.1007 + 0-0979
0.1986. Tho diffetence 0.6943 - 0.1986 equals 04957,
_and IOlilading ol to tbreo significant figures we get 0496.
the entry iD Table 3· . doubling down and from drawing. If it is greater than these.
We are assnming in Table 3, u we said euJjer that
tho dealer does ll()t have a naturaL In ·thia situation tho
player holding a naturallllways wins I.S times hia ~
bot; that is, hia advanta&Ot in tho aeuse that ..,. are U11J11
'"
A -660 -477 -102 . 218 Ci58 tlS
Table 4 gives the player's advantage for aU possib1o
pairs of hOle cards against a given ttp card-of ·the dealer•
assuming first that the player simply atands or draws viUlg
the proper standing numbers (deduced from Tables ·2a
and 2b). Then the player's advantage if he doubles clown
is given. Finally~ the plaF"s advantage is given. for the
cases in which his hole cards are numerically equal a he
split$ the pair and then does the most advantageous Of die
two alternatives of doubling down or drawing and ltiDding.
The table is divided into ten m~ sections, ODO for each
value of the dealer's up cant
The basi<: «ategy for each value of the dealer's ap
= ·card can be deduced ftom the table as.follows. Fust, sup-
pose the hole cards form a pair. Compare tho player's ad-
vantage from splitting the pair with his ac:lvaDtago from
· he should split. Otherwise he should do the JDORt advlmta-
.geous of doubling .doWn and drawing or standing. For • ·
ample, on holding (4.4) against a Ten. splitting gives an
.advantage of -o.ss~; doubling down gives an advantage
--

194
---~- , •. --.=..,....------ ---~-------~- -T=-

-B B A "r TKB J) I. A 1.11 ~

- - - - ---------~-~ ~-

_11IIPc ProiNIIJlliJiel_ /or 1M Complel6 Deck 195 l

Of -o.739; and drawing and standing. using a hard staJld.
lng num'ber of 16 and a soft standing DUmber of 19.
pves an advantage of -0.241. Because this last figure
is tho best of the tbreet drawing and standing is the best
allemative. Thus the player should not double dOwn or
apiit in this instance. ' "' ""
f'\N
f'\0

If the player's hole cards are (.4,2 ), this is the same i-

as_(2,..t); so only one of these two spots is filled in tho
table. Thus tho subsections of Table 4 get their triangUlar •
ahape. .
Table 4 sheds further Ught on points about the basic
arrategy. In tho discussion of pair splitting for tho basic
strategy, we say ·that if a pair Qf Mel is not split, the hand i
is "only fair for doubling down or drawing or standing," ~
whereas splitting gives us a good chance for a winning . .::
~ Table 4 gives us tho preclse advantage for the most -l
poiitablo of the two al~ of. doubling down and ' II.
4rawing or $UUlding. We see that the numbers waver , ~
around o, with some positive and some negative. However ,: 8
the corresponding advantage for .rpUttlng the Aces is gen- ·
eralJy Considerably positive, as shown by the table. Simi- · .
Jarly, tho rough oversimplification that the -splitting of a . ,.
pair of Bights against 7 through ..t breaks up a bad hand
and .replaces it by two average l1ands. is (only roughly) "'
borne out by the table.
For the complete deck, Table 4 was used to compute
the player's average advantage against varlous up .cards of
tho dealer's and then the players overall advantage was
founcL Similar results. were obtained for the other decks
from the appropriate data. The results are liste4 in Tables
4-1 ud 9.2. They give some evidence of how much tho
~figures we give are a1fecte4 when the deck <:Omposi-
.don or tU.rules vary.

-~-----------__. ________ ~-~~---~--------

 =,.,..,-_::;..";,?;1

TA•t.a 4b. btt~fn'l Up Ctutll1 Nln&. ...

Playcr'a bolO o8rds....
'&
f 2 .. I ,, ., ••
A -oo%1
A 3 8
'
f:
1:
-o141
-o600
-1134•
-1668
-1347
-2225
-2625 -3100
-3046 -3039•
-2840• -2171•
-2084 -o5u
-2044•
-osu•
1174
1204•
1517
MH=17
•MH=I&

-3862
MS=It

-:0870 -om U76 1495 -3896 -418$ -4746

{j 2880
76$6
1.$000
120S 1392
1425 -3921
-3444 -3588
-3949 -4134
-3652 -41St
-m5 -4753
-437:1
-4191
-4793
-4432
-4820
-4161
-4811
-4116
-1961
-1964
2643 7440 w
A -4206 tit.·
>-
2 -3727 -1.o46J
...
J: -3935 -1.0659 -1.0653
-4118 -1.0453 -9462 -7011 .... ·
1110 $ -4520 -!1263 -7029
-3451 -6916 -2897
:§ ' -2545 -2741
-2790
1646
1746
2399 -8174 =
tit

!: ~ 1744
nos 2138 -8404
1537
2152
2247
-8331
-1581
-8260
or-8476
-8598
-8694 -9782
-8879 -8936 -9742
-9668 -!1641 -1.0638 -t.189S
"·
til
>
~ ...

' lt 1165 ..;.7455 -7521

Pair Splitting 2898 . '7373 -395
-8394
-459
I -9519
-560
-9586 -1.0529 -1.1864 -1.3956
-541 -535 -383 -()93
-1.6841
171
~

=.i;;.
TABLE 4c. Dealer's. Up Card Is Eight, h tl:i

Player's hole cards- ~·

! A 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
"tt
_g.
A 0930 ~
l !
Cl
0391
0350
-1410
-1808 -2311
MH=17 MS=t8 ;:::
~:
~ 4 -Q355 -2342 -2284 -Q548 Cot
"':t 5 -Q843
ll 6 -o649
-2178
-o5s9
-Q570
1175
1081
2075
2075
2297 -3217 l
110 7

·m 8 6078
1209 1076
2073
2171
2203
2217
-3192
-3210
-3868
-3944
-3691
-4019
-3796 -4263
:i-
i'! 9 7848
Q 10 1.5000
2153 -3161 -3389 -3701 -4207 -4278 -4149 0645 ~
-2745 -3282 -3574 -4180 -4248 -3942 0955 5768 7832
~
A -2956
2 -3124 -1.0298 ""
~
(
~
i! -2542 -1.0254' -!1997

I : -3141
-3326
-2297
7 -Q153
-1.0231
-853S
-4371
0074
-8486
-4282
0142
3269
-4471
0007
3172
3402
3229
3657
-7112
-7114
-8429 -8519
~
:'

••
\
t
8 1902
2298
2945
3277
3300
-7037
-7193
-7241
-8291
-7619
-7746
-8556
-7774
-8556
-8526
-!1506 -1.1325
~
'
r~

.lt 3317'
hit SpUttblg ~~~~'__:-!9~ ___=244
' -6259 -7056 -7393
-291.
·-s4~

-391.
-8496
·-374
~97

-378
-:1.1303 -1.3947
-o59 207
-U8S4
345
....
-~

... -~
 TAIILB 4cl. D«dtl• Up Cartll1 In& ...
~
'

GO
Plajer"s bole c:anls-
f A 2 s 4 I fD
Ill)
A
2
1584
1073 -o918
' ' 8 9

1:
"' 5
0604.
0337
-o238
-1192 . -1645
-1639 -o706
-o674 -0926
1106
2013 278G
MH=17 MS=18

0596 0918 1977 2856 2974 -'J.011

fil ' -3m
f: 4120
614$
1836
2676
2772
2918
2938
-2456
-258%
-3275
-3307
-348S -3241 -3736
a' 10
:7732
1.5000
288!) -2471
-2120 -2704
-2741
-3422
-3480
-3645
-3632
-3761
-3750
-1213
-122!)
3887
«<ll
6101 7647
•
til'
A -1370
2 -1572 -9421 >.
~ 3 -1745 -9378 -8712. ~

-8 4 -1409 -8703 -5426 -1084 ~.

Ill) 5
;§ 6
il 7
-1891
0142
2402
-5672
-1481
1600
-1323
1757
4447
1905
4754
4874
<1663
5005'
-5852
-5985
-7141 -8230
=
til
tJ
iS 8 3253 4166 4726 -5636 -7065 -7346 -6660 -7471 til
9 3513 4554 -5188 -6001 -7276 -7446 -7499 -8976 -1.1321 >
10 4676 -4958 -5830 -7068 -7363 -1524 -9039 -1.1345 -1.3971 -1.6860 l"'
til
P~SpUtting 5401 -oo6 -o68 -160 -228 -228 -os6 259 364 · 478
...
TAIILI! 4e. Dtaltt'l Up Cartl I• SIZ.
:~
Player's b'ole cards- f)

f 2 4 7 9 ~
A 1996
A 3 I
' 8 10
~
f
2 1685 0320
3 1472 0192 0139
NH=11 MS=IB
at
4 1203 0141 0592 1753 i'
'!2
Iii
5
'
liS!)
1332
0696
1321
1637
2313
2633
3316
3618
3807 -1651
l
.r'II! 7 2622 2097 3180 3657 -1435 -1697 -1142 i-
a 8
9
4824
6941
3075
3458
3561 -1473
-1538 -1514
-1460
-1501
-1723
-176S
-1770
-1796
-1782
-o114 2651 &'
18
A
2
1.5000
2479
2302
-1604

-2490
-1578 -1554 -1542 -1790 · -om 2681 4841 6974
t it
o
~

-:
;§ '
3
4
5
2218
2001
2i67
2665
-2438
-2150
-o610
1242
-2145
-os69
1899
3792
1932
4433
6633
7236
7614 -3871
r
7

'
ai
a
3849
4826
5598
3574
6151
6916
6361
1122
-3876
7315
-3682
-4563
-3577
-$351
-6115
-5613
-6465
-8018
-733~
-7241 -7934
-7944 -9616 -1.1734
10 68~ -3189 -4578 -6161 -7746 -7926 -9667 -1.1721 '-1.4140 -1.6900
PaftSpHtUns 758J 240 220 183 131 151 220 356 437 543- I
,_...,_".'·-~5'-"?."'::":·;~~~-":""?+·--~-~iii!~~-~!I'!~!HJ'"".~""o":4£'!¥l. 2EUL_!¥4¥. £&_~ ___ ¥¥QC1§___ L- .B .IJ .. ~Ubf!§ .·.. W.4L4-%=-41f-41£!4,W¥W ifi $i]iiiiij!!i!i'_~lllf'l'·-- 2~

t'.\11.1 ..,. Dltlfd•, Coni ,.·Fir.. 8:

PlaJ'l'a hole cards..,.
__ ! A t . S 4 I ' 1 I 9 ·1e
A 1820

f1 2
3
4
5
'
1587
1366
1078
0821
1400
0359
0215
0089
0568
1306
0083
0490
14i1
2350
1539
2464
338&
3473
3936
MH=12

-1022
MS=18

J 7 2123 1PS.S 3075 '3617 -1234 -1288 -1555

ate'
111 8
m1
1.5000
4608 2960
33PS
-1440
341»5
-1!68
-1412
-1308
-1339
-13Bl
-1283
-1314
.:.1357
-1338
-1369
-1411
-1605
-1636
-()432
-1654
-0444
2023
201'
4478 67'J7 w
A 2157 w
2 2123 >-
-2140
...
= s 2036
-8 4 1750
liD 5 1482
-2085
-tass
-()70'J
-1840
-os14
1550
1m
4150 6947
-=.,
.
;§ ' 2800 130& 3916 6776 7873 -3247
~ 7 3491 3321 6150 7234 -3555 -5381 -7407
-a • '
4s3o
5362
5920
6796
6991
-3932
-3732
-4641
-s4oo
-6277
-6344
-8041
-7462
-9041
-9058
-9852 -1.1805
0
ld
>' ,
18 6630 -3171 -470& -6293 -7992 -8884 -9849 -uau -1.4175 -1.6912 t"'
PairSpllttln& 7322 239 228 ,197 133 172 200 ' 312 415 521 ...llf,

Player'& bolo cards-

T.UU! 4g. Dtaler'l Up Card 11 FoUl'.

r·
!
:f:a
A
.A
1421
1102 -G348
2 3 4 5
'MH=12
7

MS=18
8
' 10
:l~
::::
0908 -o410 -G474
I : 0614 -GSS2 -G166 0978
•MH=13
·f
1., :7 0380
0773
-G103
0811
0866
1860
1896'
2928
2949
3520 -1519 l
2040 1676 2852 3425 -1545 -1584 . -1640 i'
!: 4155
6539
10 1.5000
2525
'3000
-1940•
3126
-1913
-1971
-1829
-1885
-1934
-1813
-1859
-1907
-1841 -1896
-1886 -1942
-1935 ..:.o644
-2153
-G844
1641
1670
4041 6448 .e~
A 1366
2
1151 -3840 i"
J: 1091
0849
·:~~ 5 0626
-3517
-3237
-1946
-3022
-1777
0411
0441
2970 5898
t:::l
a.
1S4S 0133 2896 sass 7039 -3802
:a ' 3127 2718 5104 6851 -3836 -5541 -7376
! : 3731 '5049 6252 ' -4281 -5836 -6751 -7601 -9113

'
4592
10. 5?51
Pair SpUtting 66116
6001
-:-3879
112
-4510 -5086
-5159 -ci729
102 076
-6710
-8360
014
-8392 -9059 -1.0823 -1.1940
-9091 -1.0702 -1.1946 -1.4234
047 103 215 320
-1.6925
444 ·-~
....
' /
~~·*-"-c-~~~...,_-¥¥£¥.::.fY.,..:.J. fo#S: ·': --:..·¥!J¥8¥L.~J£-i.)A_ &a&.- .. A4 ---~:-. ____;; .;__ J __ .a ---- --· .; ,.,-..._.._""!",~--,-·~·:--...,....""'!'r._<:

'

TAII.I 4fL· ~141ffl Vp Ctml.ls TltrH.

- - ---~- ---"'------ .,
~-

Player's bolo cards-+

! A 2 3 4 5
' 7 8 9 10
A 1203

f: 0105 -oBIS MH=13 MS=18

0442° -o983 -1181 ·•MH=ll
0234• -1062• -oats• 0288•
-oD19• -o61.S• 0194• 1411° 2548°
1: 0369• 0238• 1389• 2504 3147° -2111°

f:
1668 1308 2461• 3056• -2124° -1148 -2194
4191 2411• 2952• -2202• -2167 -1201 -2239 -2284
6441 1690° -2551 -2460 -2436 -1460 -2497 -1207 1225
10 1.5000 -2193 -1657 -2509 -2474 -2499 -1190 1444 3835 6361 w
A 0549 &If
2 0184 -5015 >
J: 0108 -49.70
0026 -4455
-4721
-3237 -o825 """ll
i: -o192 -3107
0739 -0783
;g 7 188!) 1946
-o832
1891
.C921
1956
5009
6111
5096
6294
-4439
-4443
-6081 -7765
"ttlcf
.3 8 3460 4825 5904 -4595 -6112
-7111
-6939 -7626 -899P
-8646 -9180 -1.0710 ...,1.2766
&If
5380 -5114 -5607 >
' 3912
10 $363 -4386
Pair Splitting 6128 024 .
-5664
-oJJ
-7114
-o48
-8595
-104
-9228 -1.0728 -1.2673 -1.4251
-o69 -o20 132 . 24.
-1.6926
383 .."·
&If'

··~'

-,; '·,\

TABLE 4l. Dealer'1 Up Card 11 T,.·o.

Player's bolo cards- ·r.
l1:1 3
· .a
fl '
!
A
2
A
·0948
0392
0169
4 -om
'1:1 5 -o317
0071
2

-1132
-1314 -1530
-1507 -1230
-o994 -ot65
-o130
3

0921
-ot26
0933
2175
4 5

2238
2840
' MH=1l
0 MH=14

-2527
7

MS=18
8 9 10

I"
l
., 7 1358 0835 . 2144 2723 -2526 -2651 -2684 It
sIJ 11
9
4016
6559'
21301 2682
2636 -2663
-2598
-2858
-2650
-2694
-2679
-2734
-2721
-2766
-2749
-1366 1370 n

1
.a.
10 1.5000
A -D193
2 -o~20
3 -0468
-2434• '-3042•

-5816
-5866 -5615
-3102 -2948 -2977 -1582 1188 3848 a272

i i'
4 -o700
5 -o819
-5601
-4018
-42!)1
-1678
-1846
1135 4464 a.
I , o1n -1628 ms 4322 56n -so54
1 7 1276 1174 4260 5417 -5053 -6639 -8128
~ 8 2372 4245 ~36 -5197 -6626 1 -7252 -7808 -9082

1.
t . -3798 . $248
~870 -4868
-5325
-6084
-5860
..7376
-7179
-8724
-8605 -9120 -1.0603 -1.2550
-9308' -1.0769 -1.2651 -1.4993 -1.6t33
!_alrsFut~-~CI.S,---(147-.--11& -156 ..:.193 -t6S~IOS~ 064 188 331
!
. . __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _............. ...i......-,-lu:&.'·'"
~,'>J.?."f'l\._,•_,,,_,;.c_J'..<!i:F~Iolo.L "F-~"1'.111
 ,...---"·~-"-"

' aG4- BBAT TBB DB.ALBB

•"'
... :... ""'
~ 1": s
T
,£!s ...
l;:t:
~~
Ti
::::
i

• _.... -~~ ~~~ ... References

.. ---.... --
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•
... I a) AsHsAUOH, DoN, "'Game for Gaming," l.tu Vegu Review
lottriUll (Sunday Feature Section), December 25, 196o, pp. _
20~ 22.

. J_ ~ ... ~::~~::::~ u~=fj!i2~

' 12) BALDWIN, ROGER; CucnY, WILBERT; MAISEL, HERBERT; ancl
McDERMOTT, lAMES, "1bc Optimum Strategy in Blackjack.•

•
0
o~a ... oo ~
1Y ~T7T 0 ~"':f!. TT; i' JouriUll of the .American Slllli6ticol .Auociation. VoL 51,

,;
t .. .. ~~;:~~!~~
ii
u~~::::g~ru~
429-439 (1956).
I 31 - . Playing Blackjack to Win; .A New Slratetf1/or thl
.... .... "co..,..~Q.
771Y 0 aT ~ ... o.yf! -~T "'T
\0 Gt~~M of :11 (M. Barrows 8t Co., Inc.., New York, 1957)•
~ "S7 I [ 4) &Mton Globe, January 24. 1961, pp. 1, 11~

t.
I 1
f·
~; ~~~=·:s:z;~
~0\~fO\~oo~ ... :;
a7•17Y
-· . . a-..
~~~ --:';
"l"l ~,soo-
... ,
-~s ......
T
I sl Cuu>.ulo, GEROLAMO. Book em Gsmu of Cb.tnrc. ,(writtea
about 1520 and first published in 1663), Trailslated b)'
SIDNEY H. Gotn.o (Holt, RiDeban and Winston. Inc.. New
1 •
1
TTii York and San Fl'IUKlisc:o, 1961).

I
...~ (6]
....
0\
~'§si~§§i~ =::t~~:;~:!;:t,~ Collllflb• Dl6patrh, January 301 1961, p. I•B.
-5oA ~ 0\0\G\-V\C"ftt\G\ .... [ 7) Coo1"ND. PAUL H., ed., The Random Character of Stoci
I I I I I ... 'ri'i''f'fi'TT ... Prices (M. I. T. Press, Cambridge. Massachusetts) •
.t- -<jf.,..,,.anw"'•~:a ~ . . . . . . IIQ\0 . . . . ~= I [ 8) CRAWFORD, 10HN R.. How to Be tz Consistent Wbuter In tlw
Most Popular Card GtUnes (Doubledq and Co.. IDe.. New
IG
1::: "" :IIJ!PUlql pU8 :IIIJdl(l 1L1AOP iunCluoa ~ York, 1953). ·
·a I 91. CULBERTSON. ELY; MOIU!IIEAD, ALBERT; MOTT.sMml, GBOPo
"" FREY, Culbertson':~ Card Gamel Complete,
(The Greystone Press, New York. -•9si).
with OlficltJl RW.. -

•1o.s•
i-
q,
i"
!',
2o6 BEAT THE DEAL • • 207
(10] DAIWAS, NICHOI.AS, Wall Slreet, TM Second Lu Vega~ {i9J LEWIS, OscAR, Sagehnah C~ Thtt StDry oflAIJfll G -
(Stuart. Lyle, New York. rg62)". . bling in Nevada (Doubleday & Co.. Inc., New Y0rt.1953).
[II) PELLER. WIWAM. An lntroductloll to ProbllbUlty ThetWI (3o) . Life, "Senators Survey Low-Belly ~~ippers," Septelnber. le
lllld.ltl Appllctllltml, VoL J. Second Edition (John Wlley &: I96I,p.39· . •
Sons. Inc.. New York. 1957). • (31) Los Angeles Herald Examlller, -can YOU Beat BlackJa47"
[12] Fox. PHILLIP G. (as told to SrANLBY Fox), ..A Pnmer for June to, 1962, p. HI. ·. ·
Chumps." Stllurtbzy Evening Post. November :n, 1959, PP. (32] Los Angeles Herald Examiner, "Crooked Dice Charge: Vegaa
31ff. . b'" Casino Oosed. First Case of Cheating in Nevada (nc)."
[13] Fli.EY, RICRA1tD L., At:t:ordlng to Hoyle (Fawcett Pu .tca- April4. 1964. p •.1. · . ·
tions. Inc.. Greenwich. Conn., 1956). l331 Los Angeles Times, "Federal Extortion Case May Link Lat
[14] Fuan DocToR BatJNO. TM Practktzl Way to a Better- Vegas Gambling to Underworld." February 6, 1964. p. 1.
Mtmo", (Fawcett Publications. Inc., Greenwich, Coma.. l341 Los Angeles Times, "Vegas Casinos Cry Uncle, CbanJe
1957>· . • Rules," April 2, 1964-
[15] GARCIA. FaANK. Mar~ Cartfl and Loaded Dice (PrentiCe- l35l MAcDou<iALL. MICHAEL, "'Even 'HonesJ' Vegas Hause
Hall, fnc.. New York, I!)6~). Cheats." Sunday Star-Ledger, Newark. New Jersey, J>c:cem.
[16} GooDMAN, MDCE. How to Will at Cards, Dice, Races flll4 ber 2, 1962, p. 35· .
Roulette (HoUoway House Publishing Co., Los Angeles. • (36] - , MacDougall on Dice tuUI Cards (Coward-Mceana.
196)). Inc., New York. 1944).
[17] GIU!ENSPtJN, HANK. "'Where I Stand." Lu Y ttgu Sun, Jan- l37l - - . "Nevada Trumps a Blackjack Dealer," Sunday Sttlllo
uary 26. 196~ p. lo . Ledger, Newark, New Jersey, Apn1 19, 1964. section~. p. 2..
(18) HUFF, DAUBLL, Thtt Mtllhttnuztb D/ Sex. Gambling flll4 (38) MCKINSEY, JoHN C.. lniroduction to tM Theoq. of Gama
IIUrll'tlMe (Harper & Brothen, New York, 1959). (McGraw-Hill Book Co•• Inc., New .York, 195~).
(19} JoNEs. JACJC. GoiJM N~ Gtunbtg Guille (Silver State l391 Miami News. JanQary 25, 1961, p. 6A. · ·
Publishing Co.. Las Vegas. 1949). (401 MoNROE, KEITH, "William Harrah: The New. Gamb1bJa
(20) JONES, Sri.AT (AP), '"Thorp's Book Brings About Vegas King. and the Social Scientists," Harpers, January, 1!)62.
Sbateup... lAI Cruea Sun-Nftll. AprU 3, 1964. p. I. (41) The Nation, February 4. 1!)61. .
(21) KATCHEB. LEo. TM Big Btlllkroll: thtt Llftt and. Times of (42) Newsweek, "Gambling: Hello Suckers." September 4. 1961.
Artaold Roth8ulll (Harper lc BrotJiers. New York, 1959). pp. 22tf. . '
(22) K. C. Card Co.. F~ Annlven/l1'] Blue Book, 196o, (431 New York Herald Tlihu'nl, January 29, 1!)61, pp. I, 24o
- Chicago. I959- [441 New York Journql American, "Computer Beats House II
ra31 KI!LLY, J. L;."•A New Interpretation of Information Rate," '21' in Las Vegas.• Nqvember 15, 1963, p. 1. .
IRE TrtJ~~S«tlOIII on 111/ormtllloia Theory, Vol. IT-~ No. 3o [451 New York Joul7ial American. "How W"IZIU"d of Odds Beat
September, 1956. BeU Systma Tech. J., Vol. 35, 917-926•• Las Vegas Cards,.. Apri1·3, 1¢4, p. 1.
(1956). "[461 New Yor/c Times. Western Edition, "Las Vegas~ GambiJna
1241 l.tu Cruce• Sllrt-New. "'Mobster Swears Gang Boss Has In- Take Creates New Force in U. S.; MiJiions in Untaxed
terests in Las Vegas," October I, 1963: p. I. " 'Black Money' Give Obscure Figures Power that &tend~
(25] lAI Vegu Rm.w-IOUTIIIIl. "'Silver Slipper Raided." April 4e from Underworld to Government," November 18, 1963.
1964, p. i. New Yor! Times Book Review~ Best.Seller IJst. Ap.rillt
(26] l.tu Yep Rnkw-1011111tll. "'State Casinos Change Rules oa and May J.
•a1' Games," AprD ~ 1964, p. 1. [481 OLSEN, Eo, Lett~ to the Editor, Llje. AJJrill7, 1964, p. 27.
[27] lm Y1gar Sun. January 25 and 27, 1961. [49~ O'NEIL, PAUL, "'The Professor Who Breaks the Bank." Ll/tt,
(28] Lta VegtU Sun, "U.S. to Smash Mob-Ruled LV easrnos.• • March 27~ 1964. pp. 8()-!)1. · ·
. January 29. 19~ P. lo (Sol ORE, OYsTEIN, Catdano, The Gambling Scholarlwith a trans-
 -- --
rr ~--~-

~-r
f ~ol BBAT TJIB J)IJALJltt ·'B.e/ereilca 20, I

I
" Jadon (from t1nt l.atlll ~ Cardano's book. Gamu of Cham:e) '(68) - . ' " A Favorable Strategy for Twenty-One.• .l'rocud·
,d
' by SIDNEY .HENRY. Gout.i>) (PriDc:etoll University Press, lngs of the Nt:lllonDl Jfctldenry of Sciences, Vol. 47, No. r, .f

i
Princetoa, N. J,. 1953). • • pp. no-u2 · (l!lfjl). t
(SI] PIP'ade Sunday Magar)M, Intelligence Report: "Cri~ [~) - . ' " A Prof Beats the Gamblers,• Th~ Atkmdc Montlalf, i
August 2S. 1963- · June. 1962.
(52] Po~ H&NJUo Scknce tmd Mahotl. Translated by Fma- [7o] - a n d WAI.DI!N, w.. A Favorable- S"J.de Bet In Nevada ,H
cis Maidand (Dover Publications. Inc.. New York. 1958).
fs3] RADNea. SIDNEY H.. How to Spot Card Sharps tiiUl Their
Methbtls (Key Publishing Co.. New York. 1957).
THa RAND CoRPOJtA110N, A Mmlon Random Digits wltla
Baccarat. Jounllll of the American Sttlllstlclll Anocilltlon, VoL
Ch1 JIJ-J18 (f966),
[71) TUM. Moderll Uving: "Eight Days to Wm." .January 13.
. ji
1961, p. 82ff. ;

~ 100.000 Normlll Devlota (Free Press of Glencoe. -Diinois, . [721 ~. "'Games: 'Beating the Dealer,'" .January 25. 1963.
~1
(~
'

1955). . P· 70. . ..
bsl ReiD, ED and DeMARIS, OVID, Th~ Grun Felt Jungle (Trl- (73] Tim~. Non-Fictioa Best Seller List. May 29. 1964. p. 4o
dent. New York. 1963). Reprinted and enlarged (Pocket 174~ TuaNea. WALLACl!o "Nevada Gambling Faces New Test.• 'l
'~
;i
Books. Inc.. New York. 1964). All references are to the New York Tlmn, April 12, 1964. p. 53· .
enlargecl Pocket Boot verslon. . [75, ---:--.New York Tlmu. November 18. 15163 to Novem~ ~.~
,.
fs6) RIDDLE, MAJOR A.. as told to Hyams. Joe. The Weekt:ntl 22, 1963, p. ••
Gtunblet'• iltlllllbook (Random House, New York. 1963). · [76) W~EN. W.. Ph.D. 1besis. .New Mexico State University
fs7l Rosa, INI!Zo •Bets Are Off,• New York JVDrld-Telegrtun on4 (unpublished).
Sun, February 7o 1961. [77) WANNISKJ, .Juoe. "'Gamblers ShufDe Blackjack Rut~:~ Bact
(58] ScARNEo JOHN, Scai-ne'l Complete Guide to Gtunbling (SbnOD to Old Deal.• The NIIIIINull Obuner, June 15, 1964. p; &
ancl Shuster. Inc.. New York.. 1961). [78) WMhlngtoll Pc tmd Tlma Hnrl14. January 25, 19fj1, p. 3;
b91 ScHERMAN,· DAVID E.. '"It's ByeJ Bye! Blackjack.• Sportl editorial. "High Stakes.• p. ~16, January 26, 19fj1.
IUustrated, January 13, 196.4- .. [79) Wsu.wo. JOHN D.. TAe Compktlt Strategyst CMcGra.,.
[6o] SciENTIFIC AMERICAN, ·"How to Beat the Game.• April. Hut Boot Co.. Inc., New York. 1954).
1961. p. 84- (So] W11.SON. ALLAN, The Casino Gtunblln'• Gidde (Harper ancl
(61] SHeiNWOLO. ALFREDo "It's in the Cards: Blao:kjack-Count- Row, Ne\V York. 1965).
ing the Cards," Argory, August, 1961. ;1
(62] SHEllMAN, GENe. • "Off The Top' Plagues Gambling Au-
tboritles. Pocketing Moaey Without Being Reported for Tax
Purposes Called Impossible to Prave." lA Angela Tlma. l,
October 28, 1963.
(631 Showboat Hotel. Las Vegas. Nevada, '"The Univac '21' FOlio !I
mula for Standing or Drawing."
i64J SMmf. HAROLD S.. I Want to Quit Winnm (Prentice HaJJ. l
Englewood Cliffs. New Jersey, 1961). 11
(65) Sports IUustratt:d. "Calculated Risk.• February 6, 1961. pp. ,:j!
~!
4. 5·
(66] STEEN. JOAN. "Exposing Crooked Gambler's Tricks." Popular
Science Monthly. January. 1962, pp. 61ft.
(67] THORP. EDwARD o.. "Fortune's Formula: The Game of
Blackjack." Notlca of the Anwlaua Mlllhemallctzl Soclety.
December, 196o. pp. ~35-936.
 List of Figures and Tables

Figure 3.1 The Player's Key Decisions 20

Table 3.1
Table 3.2
Drawing or Standing with Hard llaDds
Drawing or Standing with Soft Hands ,.
20

Table 3·3 Doubling Down '5

Table 3-4 Pair Splitting 28
'Table 3·5 A Complete Miniature Version of the Basic
Strategy 30
Table 3.6 . Results Using the Basic Strategy 32
Table 3·7 Results of Baldwin, et aL 32
Table 3.8 The Basic Strategy Compared with Other
Blackjack Strategic$
Table 3·9 The Basic Strategy Compated .with Best
Play in Other CasinO Games, "
34
Table 4-1 P~yer's Advantage or Disadvantage for eer..
tain Spcclal Decks 48
Tablo 4-2 The Best Strategy When It Is Ouly JCaowu
That no Fives CaD Appear Ia tho Next
Round of Play . ~
49
•211•
I
, '
 '" •
212 BBAT THB DBALJfJt . List of Flgl & Tablel
_,. -· ~~-- • - 1
213
!
. Table 9.2 Approximate Effect of ComnJon Rules van..
Tabto·.a.s When the Deck Probably Win Be Adequate
for a FuU ROUild of PJa_y, According to the
ations OD Player's Advantage When the Basic . '
Strategy Ia Used 131 f
Count of Used Cards 53
Table 44 Variation iD tho Numbers of Known Favor- Table I Dealer's Probabilities 190
ablo Situlatlcms, When Fives ODly Arc Count- Tablo 2a Player's Gain by Drawing over Standing with
Hard Totals 191 it'
ed. as a Function of tho Number of Players s6 'J
'!'able 6.1 Basic Strategy When the Dealer Exposes His Table 2b Playefs Gaia by Drawing over StaDdlDg with )i(
Soft Totals 192 '
f!gwe 7·1
Hole Carel
Player"s Advantage as High-Low Index
Varies
90

97 ·
Table 3 Playefs Advantage 'Standing OD Varioas
Totals 193
:;i

1'
i[
'I
Tele 48 Dealer's Up Cird Is Tea 195
Table 7.1

·Tablo 7.2.
Using the High-Low Index to Draw or Stand
with .Bard Hands
Using the High-Low IncJox to Draw or Stand
g8 Table 4b Dealer's Up card Is N"mo
Table 4C Dealer's Up Carella Eight
196
197
l
~t
!

with Soft Hands gS Table 4d Dealer's Up Card Is Scvea 191 )

}'

Table 7·3 Hard Doubling Down with tho High-Low Table 40 Dealer"s Up Card Is Silt 199
~ g8 Table 4f Dealer's Up Card Is F11o 200
.Table 7-4 Soft Doubling Down with the High-Low Table 4g Doaler"s Up Card Is Four 201
Ind~ 98 Table 4h Dea1er's Up Card Ia Tme 203
Table 7.S Using the High-Low Index to Split Pairs 98 Table 4i Dealer"s Up Card Is Two 203
-Tablo 7.6 Advantage and Frequency of Favorable Tablo 4) Dealer's Up card Is N» 204
Situations 101
Tablo 8.1 Approximate Player Advantage iD the Ten-
Count Strategy 104
Table 8.2 A CoDservatlvc Betting Scheme for the Ten-
Count Strategy Jo6
Tablo 8.3 The Tea-Count Strategy, Based on the Value
of the Ratio When a Rulming Count of the
Cards Is .Kept
Tablo 8-4 A First ·Approximation to the Ten-Count
Strategy no
Table S.s Frequency of Favorable Situations Arising
iD the Tea-Count Strategy 117
Table 9.1 'The Effect of tho (rcmporary) Las Vegas
. Rules Cbauges
!"'
I
---- ...._.--.- ...... _~

Index·

Ace-richness, correction for, Baldwin. Roger R... 12-13 fn. "

118-121 basic strategy first published
Aces. including in ~t. 118- by, 4-S
121 disadvantage of player who
splitting of, 13-14 mimics the dealer, cat.
Action, 41 culatioo by, 12-12 tu.
Advantage of player, drawing 16fn
over standing, 191-193 Bamford, Robert, 178-179
for various deck compositions, Barber, mao who trimmed, 40
47 Barring of players by casillOI,
with various bole cards and . 124fn. 164, 176-177 . .~
· decisions, 195-204 (see Basic strategy, 16-40 I

olso Fives strategy, basic advantage with, 4, S, 18

strategy, point count.
Tens strategy)
American Mathematical Society,
announcement of Fives
strategy to, 59
Automatic blackjack machines,
11, 13, 14, 18, 136-140
Baccarat, winning system for
side bets in Nevada, 94,
181
• fn denotes that the particutar item may be found in a footnote
CID the Jivcn page.
compared with best play Ia
other casino games, 34
compared wi(b other blacJc.
jack strategies, 33
definition, 18
doubling down with, 24-27
drawing and standing with,
19-24
aperiments to verify, 35-38
Jriioiaturized summary, Table
3.S, 30 .
:n6
~c strategy (ctmtlnu~d)
resUltS of using. 31-·~33
splitting pairs with. 27-29
approximate rules for, 27
Thorp's first trial of, 16-18
when dealer's bolo card Ia
known, 88-91
Bean, Tom, 178
Beat The Dealer Co., 178 fn
Beat The Deater Computer, 178
Beat The Dealer, Pirst Edition
of, on best seller lists, 83
Bernouilli. Daniel, 180
kDoui11i. James, 180
Bets, maximum, 9, 10, 81, 184-.
187
minimum 9, 10, 81, 184-187
pJaced before ~. 9
ieUJomcDt of, 12.-13
in cue of tie, 12-13
iavolviag • Datura~. 1 l
ftriAtioa in lize of. 132
in Plves strategy, 55-S7
in Teos ttrategy, 102
Blackjack. common emn Ia.
33-34
. other aamei for, 3 . bigh-low pickup, tS2-tSS
where "Played. 3 .(sea olio
casino blackjack)
Blattner, John, 40
Bonus,17
Bottom card. advantage from
eeeing. 129
Braun, Julian. 'Viii, 5, 35, 45 m.
8S. 89, 93, 94, 131, 189
Burned card, advantage from
seeing. 119
If dealer Conceals, 52
may or may DOt be shown. 9
Bust, 11
.deliberate by player, 8l
' c&m.ouftage, 131-132
Cantey, Wilbert E., 11 fn (.rH
also Baldwin. Roger R.)
lnJn:i . , . .
earct'c:oU!iting. tJasr.torwiimins··. Claalleoge ~J~&tch with x..s vega Dealer's ~hod, U ·.
strategies, 46-50
c1etecting cheatins by, n-54 ·
effect of errors in, 85 fn
with aid of chips. 87
(.rea olio Fives strategy,. Tens
strategy, complete point
count)
Cardano, Gerolamo, 180
quoted on sixteenth-century
. cheating, 150
Carousel Club,. 181 fn
Casino blackjack, where played, 3
Casinos. closed for cheating. 146
Cheating by the dealer, 68, 133,
134, 141-172
adding cards to the deck, 107,
108
anchor men, 158-160
·avoiding, 41, 140. 162-163·
bridging, 156
dumps. 157
decks pocketed, 157
defense against by ""paper
route" technique. 140
detection by counting, 51
false sbufDe, 154
marked cards. 147-148
mechanics, 160-161
peeldng. 143-144, 148-149,
160
recommendations for prevent.
ing. 166-167
removal of cards from c1eck.
· 52
Robin-Hood function, 145
second dealing. 149-151
shiner, 149 · sbufDjog. 15
stacking deck. 152-158 .
stepup. seven card, 155-158
turnover, S3-S4
strong form of, 53 .
weak form of, 53 . : Dcalersholecardtnown,playa's
(ue also Cardano, GeroJaalo.
.and card counting) ·
217
·. casmo.
79 (fee u.mimrokfnc the~)
~g bJ the player, 12, us- DeaJen totals. table Of prObao
136 · . .. bi1itiea of, 190
Chips, refusal to~-~ c:asino. Dealing bOx (su shoe)
Docis1ona of plafel'. order of con-
118 ·
Complete deck. tables of proba- sideration, 19-20 ..
bilities for, 190-204 Deck, new, 15 ·
Complete point count, 93-100 Demaris, Ovid. 142
advantage, 100-101 Depeadenc:eoftrials,lmportance
announcocJ. 93 of in blackjack, 43-44
bot sizes in, 96 Disguises. 132-136
c!Qubling down, 98 Doubling dowD, 13-14
drawing and standing. 96-.98 basic strategy for, 24-27
favorable lituations, 99-100 complete point count strategy
index, 96 for, 98
iasuranc:e, 98 distinction between soft and
pair splitting, 98 hard.24-25
playel''s advantage, 97 Fives strategy for, 49 ·.
Computer, high-speed (.su IBM Tens strategy for, Table 8.3,
704) . 109
Cosa Nostra, 142 with bard twenty, 120
Countermeasures by casinOI, with soft Twenty One!, 81
· 121-140. 17.6-177 . Doubling-up system, 41
. barring. 124 fD, 164, 175-176 Drawing or standing. 11
de'alei'S who count. 126 ·basic lfrategy for, 19-24
multiple decks, 127-128 complete point count strategy
(see tllso barring of players by for, 98
casinoa, cheating by tho Fives strategy for, 49 ·
dealer, rules of blackjack, player's advantage when stancJ.
c:hangea bv Las Vegas ing, table of, 193 ..
casinos, ruies variations. player's gain 'by dra'WiDJ.
shuflle up) · tables of, 191-192. .
Counting cards (.see card count- Tens strategy for, Table 8.3,
ing) 109
:' Customs, new decks, 15 Dubner, Harvey, 93, 94
Puerto Rico, 79-81
shill rules, 1S End play, 83-84; 86-91, 121-
123 .
England, blackjack in, 3, 184-
spread decks before use, 118-
119 187
(ue tllso sliume up) Expec:JatioD_ (.fU advaotago)
Experimeots, to show ..
doubling down on k'd Ten ·.~
? ,
,. . advantage when, 88-91 versus aat'Ac:e, Joss Jn, 37 ,
de_ct of h1p-Iow pickuP, ISS
t player'utrate&Y when, 88-91
r---
:"SIS
'-- ..
, Ex~ents '(t:tJmtnud)
· df~ of secoad dealiDg. 149-
150 . 165'
hard sixteen against an Ace.
loss in standing with, 35-
36
epUUing a pair of Sixes against
a Five. gain from. 37-38
P,Mr.,176
mistress of. 176
Fall Joint Computer Conference,
1963, 513-94, 164-169,
179
FaYOI'8ble situations, basis for
wiDDing strategies, 44-47
example where player must
win,4S . Hole cards, 9
frequency of. 56, 100, 117
Fermat, Pierre, 180
Fivo-count strategy (see Fives
strategy)
Fives strategy, 48-58
a~tage o( player~& 48
approximate, SO
bet nriatioos in, effect of, 55-
57
.capital required, 51-58
card counting for, 51-54
compared with basic strategy,
48-50
frequency of favorable situa-
tions in, 55
profit from, rate of, 56-51
refined, 55
remaining cards, when ade-
quate for, 53
risk musing, ss
simplified Fives strategy, SO
table for, 49
Fortune's Formula, 59
Fraikin, Gle,no L, 124 fA
Gambling systems, failme of tion, 128
popular Ones, 42-43 LGP-21 computer, 179
Gaadas'Conlrot Bt!afd.&ite of.
Nevada, VIi, 146, 148,
casinos closed by foF cheating.
146
Goren point count, S
Greasy John, 174 ·
Green Felt Jungle, 142, 165
Hard hand, 10
Harold's Club, 65, 19
Harrah's Club, Lake Tahoe, 69
Harvey's Wagon Wheel, 69
Head on, 45
High-Low strategy (see complete
point count)
Hit,ll
bard 17, 84
dealt up, 9
iDferences about other play-
ers', 114
IBM 704 computer used, 18, 45
Independent trials processes, 42- .
43
Insurance, 14
house advantage from, with
full deck, 106
misconceptions about, 107-
108
aot offered by some casinos,
107
I've Got A Secret, appearance
on, 78
Junior, 20
Kalaba. Robert E.. 94
Kelly gambling system, 514
La Concha.casino. 79, 8S
Laplace, Pierre, 180
Las Vegas Re$01t Hotel Assocfa,.
UfB magazine, ·..m; ·82. t6C- Paper JVUte techrdque ·for·\tla.
119
.. 166 Ding. 92, 14(). 16io-1U.
Little dark-haired p.y, GS, 121, Pascal, Blaise, 180
123. 176 Patbaad. 90
. Pearson, Karl; 180
M,Mr.,78-91 Per:feaser stoppers. 9 fn
Macao, blackjack fit, !30 Player who aever busts, advaa-
McDermott. James P. (see Bald- . tage of. 39-40
wiD, Roger R.) Players. number of, 8, 83
MacDouaaU. Michael (Mickey), affects rre,uency
of favorable
[.
vii, 1S7I 158 situations, 56
Mafia, 142 Poincar6, Henri. 180 t
Maisel, Herbert (see Baldwin, Point count (see aimpto point I'
Roger R.) count, complete poin& '
I
~I
Manila, bJactjaak in, 130 count)
Marked cards (se~ cheating) Point count. systems, 75-76
Martingale. Small. 42 Poisson, SimCoo., 180
Mimiekiog the dealer, . player Poker, 182 .
.,;:.
strategy of, disadvaota&e PrimadQnna cashlo,-?4
using, 12-13 fD, 38 Puerto Rico, blackjack ID.; 3.
MnemotecbDy, 73 79-!n
Moore, Gary, 78 rules changed in, 91
Morgan. Henry, plays basic Push. 11
.atrategy b18ckjack in
~ Puerto Rico. 78-79 RatiO of others/fens, effect of
on player's advantaa,e.
N, Mr., 78-91 103
Natural, 1o-11 Reid, Ed, 142
Roulette, 180, 181
Olsen, Edward A., 165' Rules of blackjack, 8-15' .
O'Neil, Paul, viii, 164-166, 179 changed back by Las Vegas
Open End. appearance on, 65 fn casinos, 130
Operation Money-Pump, 169- changes by Las Vegas c:astnos.
172 . 6, 13, 14, 128-l]O
Others, aynonomous with non- changes foreseen in first edi-
Teus, 102 tion, 6, 129
Rules variations, 131
Packs, number of osed, t RuDDing count, 95, 190
Pair splitting, 13-14 RusseJI, Bertrand, ~ of.
.Ac:e:s, 13-14 40fn
face cards, 13
(see tdso basic strategy, Fives Salmon, The, 78, 82-92
strategy, Tens atrategy, Scarne. 'John. llfn
point count) - Schweizer, Berthold, vU
Pairs, 13 Scientific ReaCarch Recor~Ine..
Paper (see marked cards) 178
 ~
I
22.0 lntle%
SbaiiDml. OaucJe B., 'VII ac1vutages over Fives strategy.
Shill. 15, 12S 102
ruJea follon4 by, lS bet si%es Ia. 119
Sbiaer,149 card counting for, 69-11
Shoe,~ from, 85-86 casino teat of. 59-74
used ia Puerto JUco. 80 ~ of favorable .uu..
aume ~ 1s. 11-12 tioDS ln. 117
wiDDIIiS despite. 72, 124-126 insuranc:e iD. 106-111
Silver Slipper CaaiDo closed, 166 learning cablea, 109-110
Simple pOfat count. 15-91 Ne98d& test of, 6, 59-14 A NOTB ABOUT THB AUTHOB.
for liwral dec:ka, 77-78 rateofp!Ofitwitb, 116-118
etrategy,76 ratio iD. 102
Sklar, Abe, Yll tables for, Tables 8.3, 8.-\
Smith.~-
) P. (8ee System 109-110 Eow.um 0. "l'Ho1u> is currently teaching at the Irvine
will rate, 71 campus· of the UDiversity of Califomia. where be Ia
Smltb, H::fc£ Jr.. 65 estimatea pen are coa- an ·Assoc:fate Professor of Mathematics. Prior to this
Smith. Halol4. Sr.. 65 servative,-71 fA he tau~ at New.Mexico State Uuiversity. Piofessor
Soft haocl. 10 . Thorp. J~ vii Thorp was also a C.LB. Moore fDitructor at the
Sonny (-.Junior) Thorp poiDt count.. 5 Massachusetta lastitute of Tec:hnology, and be taUght
Sorgeufmy, Robert. 16 (.ra poiot COUGt)
Sprague. lUc:barc1 E., 94 at the Unfwnity of CaJifomla at Los Angeles. from
~ VMan, Vii
Stand.11 Tropiiaaa Hotel, 179 which be nceived a Ph.D. In 1958. Professor Thorp
SlaadiDC..,__
.20
minimum, dOe Turner, WaDac:e, 142
Turnover (.ra c:beating by the
li a member of the AJQedc:aQ Methematbl SocietY
and of Pbi Beta Kappa.· Professor Thorp.. major
Stelf-. LiDcoln, ,170 dealer) fields of interest include probabi1lty 8lld game theory.
Stewart, Diet. 59 He Ia the author of a text in probabnity theory and·
Stiff. 90 . of numerous articles. botb in Jeamed joumals and
Stock market, 1D-183 Vltimate strategy, 16 fa In popular magazines. •
Strategy tables, learning. 114-
117 Vopui, OabrieJ. 128
~simportanco of parts,
Waldeu. Wdliam E., Yiii, 94
Susstdod. Dmd, 65' fn Walkei, Elbert, Vii
Sptem Smitty, 174-17S WamUskl. Jude. 130
Wdsoa, Al1aD, 94, 181
Tax ewsion by ca.sinof. 167-
172
Tea-count strateg (.we Teas X, Mr.. 60-74, 143-144, 176
strategy)
TCDI strategy, 6, 101-123 ·
. Aces. iDcludlas in count, 1J9..
120
Y, Mr., 60-74, 144

z.
Mr., 175-176
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