This is an extract from t
e book “Gambling Secrets”

Everyone knows that in a casino the house has the edge. How do you think they built the place? Over the long haul the house will be the only winner. This much is no secret.

And every tourist gambler who ever stumbled into a Vegas casino knew full well that he’d be betting against the house and that the odds were going to be against him.

But even though the house has the odds on their side – that doesn’t mean that every gambler comes away a loser. Not by a long shot. One of the greatest enticements for gambling is the opposite and equally valid fact – some gamblers win and a few win big!

Now here’s another sobering fact. Each year Vegas visitors leave behind a total of over $9 billion. That means each visitor’s individual share is somewhere around $650. Is all this negative information depressing you? Well, it shouldn’t, because I’m going to show you the weaknesses in the casino’s thinking. 

First of all, the house edge is based only on long-term play. Every casino executive knows the gambling industry motto “Gamblers think in the short term, while casinos think in the long term”.

In the movie “Casino”, DeNiro’s character reveals the casino’s overall strategy in very simple terms. “Keep them gambling – the longer they gamble, the more we make!”

But here’s the fly in the casino’s strategy. Over the long haul they will indeed win – but over the short term anything can (and will) happen. Their goal is to keep you betting so they can bleed you slowly over a long period - the longer the better. But let’s say you wander into a casino and place a hundred dollar bet on “red” on a roulette table (a lousy bet by the way).

Your odds of winning are a few percentage points less than 50-50. The wheel spins the ball drops and just happens to land on a red number. You pick up your chips, wander over to the cashier’s cage and cash in your winnings. You just dipped into the casino’s pocket for a cool c-note. The whole thing only took a matter of a few seconds. Where was the house edge? Did it protect them against a loss?

Fact is, in this case the house edge never came into play, because you didn’t hang around long enough for it to take effect. 

You never gave the casino a chance. If you would have stayed at that table and kept betting – chances are excellent that over time you would have given back your winnings and lost even more to boot. Casinos are built on profits like that. They rely on that kind of thinking to make their fortunes.

Here’s our first winning strategy. Very few gamblers are pure losers. Very few are also consistent losers who lose and then lose some more. 

Instead, in around 80% of cases, a gambler will suffer some ups and downs as the evening progresses. Odds run hot and cold – every gambler knows that – and so do the mathematicians.

If you follow the individual results of a large group of gamblers, you’ll find that most will suffer some initial losses and then at some point have a few wins that will propel them into the winning column.

If they do what most foolish gamblers do – keep betting – the chances of them losing their early gains and suffering even more losses are depressingly high.

But if you keep track of your cash, at some point you’ll realize that you’re ahead. Maybe it’ll only be for thirty, fifty or eighty bucks. But if you stop at that point and cash out – you’re a winner! And the casino is a loser.

Very few people start out with a small loss and just keep losing. Luck is a fickle lady. She comes and goes. To use this approach, you’ll have to keep at least an approximate running count of your cash balance so you’ll know when you’re ahead and it’s time to head for the door.

You won’t get to linger for hours and hours enjoying the exciting ambiance in the casino. Nor will you get to hang around and hob-nob with your fellow gamblers. Hey, you probably won’t have time to even get a free drink!

But if you can muster up the will power to walk away each time you get significantly on top – you can not only be a winner but actually become a consistent winner! And small wins like any small sums – add up.

But you’ll have to resist your basic human desire to seek more gambling excitement if you want to rob the house of its edge and beat them at their own game.

According to my buddy Donny the pit boss, if everyone who came to Las Vegas got up and cashed out as soon as they got ahead – the Vegas casinos would soon be bankrupt and gone.  

Time is the casino’s friend – Over the long run most almost all gamblers lose,
but over the short haul anything can and will happen!

Lately – the good old “one armed bandit” has found itself being replaced by the new king of the hill – Video Poker. This new machine has taken the gambling world by storm. And this is a good thing for us. Though a video poker machine may look very much like the old slots, it’s a completely different kind of beast!

Slot machines are lottery devices that require zero skill while video poker requires skilled play (if you’re not going to get taken to the cleaners). And here’s the key fact – the overwhelming majority of video poker players are dreadful players - just like their foolish tourist cousins over at the blackjack table!

And video poker seems to require just the right amount of skill – some, but not too much. More complex games like craps are intimidating while video poker allows the player to call their own shots but without a lot of heavy thinking or planning. It ain’t rocket science folks. Just punch the buttons on the cards you want to keep and the rest is automatic.

Perhaps this is why video poker is so damned addicting. One lady in a documentary film admitted that she found the machines so hypnotizing that she fed them her mortgage payment, her gas money and even her kid’s lunch money! She couldn’t stop until she ran completely out of cash and credit. Then, and only then, did she get up and leave.

In every state where gambling is legal there’s a government agency called a “gaming commission”. This watchdog agency makes sure the gamblers get an even break (well, almost an even break). So if a slot machine is advertised to pay off at say 95% - that’s exactly what happens – just like clockwork. One hundred dollars go in and 95 come out. Nice and dependable – and fully legal.

But the odds on a video poker machine are a completely different story because there are special rules for any kind of machine that employs playing cards. Under their rules, each card that appears on the screen must, by state law, use the same odds as a standard deck of 52 playing cards. In other words, the odds themselves can’t be changed. If you wanted to change the payout, you’d have to alter the deck in some way – which is illegal.

Instead, they change the payout for different winning hands. And since the average video poker player is as weak as the average blackjack player, the payouts are usually much more generous than with the skill-less slots.

In fact, many casinos routinely run their video poker odds up to over a 100% payout! How could they do that and not lose their shirts? The casinos can still make a profit because the average player plays a very, very weak game. I just did a quick search on Google for “video poker” and found two online casinos that are openly advertising video poker games with odds of +101.7%.

Losers depend on luck,
Smart players depend on math! 

If every video poker player carefully studied up on his video poker strategy and played with even a moderate degree of skill, the casinos would be forced to crank the odds back down to below 100% to protect their profits. But with so many poor players eager to play poorly, the odds can be increased to over 100% and still the casinos make a nice profit. 

In short, the casinos are doing what they always do – banking of the stupidity of the average gambler. And over the years that’s proven to be a very reliable bet. But this sad fact throws open the door for the smarter gambler – us!

The proof that what I say is true is simply that a whole new animal has appeared on the gambling horizon – the professional video poker player. Have you ever heard of a professional slot player? No, I didn’t think so.

A Different Kind of Game

The goal in video poker is quite different from traditional table poker. In the table game of poker, you seek to beat the other players by finishing up with the best hand at the table (or bluff your way into making everyone else believe you have the best hand). With video poker you are merely attempting to assemble the very best hand you can manage. 

Every game in a casino has a unique psychological profile that appeals to a particular sector of the betting public. Like a slow systematic game of skill that requires a great deal of analysis? Blackjack is your game. Like an even slower game of pure chance? Try the elegant, even “royal” game of roulette. But if you like your action hot and fast – there’s only one game for you – Craps.

First comes the bad news about craps. More fortunes have been lost on the crap tables than all the other casino games combined! That’s because of the incredible excitement a hot crap game can generate. If you’ve ever seen a shooter on a “monster roll” you’ll know what I mean.

For a half hour or even longer the winning throws continue. Seven after seven after seven. Everyone at the table is raking in the big bucks right along with you. With each roll the crowd shouts and screams ever louder. Even the most staid and conservative types can get swept away when a table takes off.

Being at a hot craps table is a bit like being at a wild party. The energy that’s in the air is really intoxicating. The game is fast – really fast. Compared to craps roulette and blackjack are downright sleepy. How long does it take to throw the dice and roll a seven? Five seconds? Which easily makes Craps the most exciting game in the house.

Craps is a funny game in one regard. On the surface it’s a very simple game. You place a “Pass” bet that the shooter coming out will either win on his first roll or go onto make his point before throwing the dreaded seven. That’s not all that difficult. Almost anyone can master this much. But then, if you want to, you can get involved in much more complicated bets.

And the odds aren’t bad either – in fact they’re rather good. The pass bet is a relatively good bet compared to others in the casino. But you should know that the “don’t pass” bet is a slightly better bet. In fact, the “don’t pass” bet is one of the very best bets in the whole casino. (But don’t be surprised if other players give you nasty looks when you bet “don’t pass” – they will consider you a “negative player” which is a bad omen.

If the dice were hot until you started betting don’t pass and then the dice go cold – you will be blamed for the bad luck. So go with the “positive” bet – pass. They’ll love you for it.

Rule number one when playing craps – don’t bet on the “field”. On every craps table you’ll see a large rectangle labeled “Field”.

Here you will find either six or seven numbers with the two and twelve often sporting 2-1 odds. Geeze, you think – I get all these numbers on a single throw bet. It looks as though you’ll get seven of eleven possible numbers. At that rate – how could you lose?

But there’s a scam afoot here. While the dice appear to operate randomly, they really don’t. That is, the number they generate isn’t at all random! Not even close.  

Anyone who knows anything about dice knows that dice observe strict rules and rule number one is – the dice aren’t random at all. In reality a shooter is six times as likely to throw a seven than he is to roll a 2 or 12.

Why? Let’s split up a pair of dice and roll them separately. The first die comes up a four. Fine – now what would I have to roll on the second die to get a total of say five. Why a one of course. Four plus one equals five. But what would I have to roll on the second die to get a total of say, three? Can’t be done – the first die already gave us a four, so we can only get a total of five or more.

It’s this combination effect that kills the field bet. The numbers on the field bet are the low and high numbers, no sixes, sevens or eights. These low and high numbers are the combinations that don’t come up all that often. With dice the middle number combinations are by far the most common! Forget the field!

Back in the old days of gambling, from the 1920s to the 1960s table games ruled the roost. Crap tables stretched from wall to wall. And hidden way over in the corner somewhere were the slot machines, largely ignored except by the ladies. Today all that has changed.

Now there are thousands of slot machines with dozens of new kinds arriving each and every month. In two short decades the slot machine has emerged as the single most popular gambling game. The gamblers love them and equally importantly, they’re fabulously profitable for the casinos.

Today a typical Vegas casino will get around 70% of its gross revenues from slots. Now, the slot machines dominate the casino floor and the table games have to fight for space. Since their invention way back in 1898 – slots have spread like mad.

Slots are a Bad Deal!

Slots are a very bad deal for the gambler. Many people ignore the losses because the slots are one of those casino games that require no expertise and no thinking. You just deposit your money and keep pushing that square white button over and over again.

Slots are a bad deal for two reasons. First the odds are just awful. Most casinos do not post the odds on their machines. This means the gaming commission will let them crank the odds down from awful odds to downright evil odds.

The odds are lousy and to make matters worse the flow rate of the machine is fast – very fast! When asked how many times they pushed that little white button, most gamblers will underestimate the total number by 75% or more. In fact, the average is from 600 to 800 pushes per hour.

If it takes six seconds for the betting cycle to finish, you’ll be making ten bets a minute, 600 per hour. That’s $150 bet each hour and if the machine is paying out around 75%, that means the casino is making a very reliable $37.50 an hour.

The combination of the poor odds and the fast pace of the slot action make it a deadly combination – one the casinos love and you should hate.

Slot Odds

Let’s start with the odds. By Nevada law all slot machines must pay off at least a 75% rate. But that’s a really terrible rate. If you’ve ever played such a machine, you’ll quickly give up and move on so most casinos pay much higher rates. Many houses find that to build slot business they have to publicize a rate at or above 95%. Some go as high as 99% but watch out how the sign presents the odds.

Playing the slots is very popular. It’s easy, the prizes are large, sometimes obscenely large. There’s no skill involved and any single pull can change your entire life.

Overall, slot machines appeal to what casino people call “lottery fever”. The bets themselves are small. The machines are entirely passive with no deep thinking required, you can easily “zone out” while your play. And for many folks the slots are much less intimidating than the much more challenging table games.

Let’s start with the basics. Though many people believe it, there is no such thing as a machine that’s “overdue” to surrender a jackpot.

Every bet is entirely independent and has nothing to do with anything that happened in the past. Don’t even think of asking the change girls which machines are ready to jackpot – you’ll only make a complete idiot of yourself. The change girls’ minds are steadfastly fixed on what’s important to them – how long ‘till their next break.

I always thought that a lottery was a voluntary tax on those people who were bad at math. Some lottery odds are over 150 million to one!

But there are approaches to playing the lottery that make a lot of sense – even to someone well versed in math.

Avoiding the Dreaded Split Lottery Prize

When the lottery numbers are picked for the big lottery jackpot, players begin to drool and ream about grabbing that huge prize.

Unfortunately, when the winners are announced, it’s revealed that there were 9 winners! Wow, that really cuts the prize down to size. Then there’s the tax and in some states the prize money is paid on in 20 separate annual payments. You were thinking of millions but when the dust settles, you end up with a paltry $67,000 a year!

How can you avoid the dreaded split with others? It’s easy – here’s the trick!

Most lottery systems employ numbers from one to around 50 or slightly more. Funny thing though – most people bet on numbers under 31 for a very simple reason. About half the ticket buyers choose numbers that are based on dates. It might be their children’s birth dates, their anniversary date or the date they got out of jail – whatever, the numbers are based on dates.

This means that the numbers under 31 are much more heavily bet than those over 31 as there are a maximum of 31 days in a month. And the number under 12 are even more heavily used because there are only 12 months in a year.

The best strategy here is to bet only those numbers that are over 31. Your odds of winning are exactly the same no matter which numbers you choose so why not use the numbers that are the least popular. In this way you dramatically reduce the odds of having to share your winnings with some stranger and increase your odds of having the whole prize to yourself.

Remember - losers rely on luck, winners rely on math! Don't even think of visiting a casino until you've learned Jim Stonehouse’s insider gambling secrets!