A.P Heat

In this article I am going to summarize ten legal methods to beat blackjack. Before I do, I want to remind the reader of some methods that definitely do not work.

As the Phil Ivey edge sorting lawsuit with The Borgata gets closer to its trial date, and as expert reports and other media reports start gaining attention (see this article and this article), I thought it would be useful to create a new video explaining edge sorting. The unique feature of this video is that it has no sound. Every part of the process is described with captions.

I'm back from Las Vegas. I planned on leaving one afternoon open to walk through as many casinos as I could with camera in hand. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Still, I managed to find three more examples of iDEAL shufflers with discard trays positioned strategically in front of them. I spotted a hole-card at each of these games.

For years I have looked at the popular game of Pai Gow Poker (PGP) and scratched my head. How can it be beat? For example, hole-cards are often exposed by sloppy dealers, but seeing one (or even a couple) of dealer hole-cards does little to help the advantage player. Card counting is not possible (the deck is shuffled between rounds).

Edge sorting is a technique that is not well explained by blog articles or pictures. There is tremendous visual impact in seeing how easy it is to do in practice. For that reason, I decided to create a video demonstration.

The very first thing people think about when the topic of beating casinos comes up is blackjack card counting. The reason is simple - card counting is everywhere in our culture.

Baccarat side bets that consist of a group of related wagers have a history of big game protection problems. A team of card counters targets the side bet by dividing up the individual wagers among their group. When a team member wagers on his particular side bet, the rest of the team follows by betting on the same side bet.

There have now been three court decisions (and two appeals) in three distinct jurisdictions regarding the question of whether edge sorting at mini-baccarat is advantage play. In every case the decision came down on the side of the casino without a determination of criminal cheating.

The way baccarat usually operates, a winning Banker wager is charged a 5% commission, creating a house edge on the Banker bet of about 1.0579%. Another way of saying this is that a winning Banker wager pays 19-to-20.

The house rules for blackjack at most casinos allow players to "double for less." Simply put, a player can double a hand for an amount less than the amount of their initial wager.