Myths and legends, table games edition

In any casino game, there are myths and legends, things people believe that don't quite square with reality.  Let's take on a few myths from a table games player perspective.

MYTH: The third baseman is a team player, and shouldn't take the dealer's bust card. A third baseman hitting 12 when the dealer has a 2, for example, is hurting the entire table.

FACT: A player hitting in that situation helps the rest of the table as often as he hurts it. Anyway, it's the best play for his hand. Hitting 12 against 2 is what he SHOULD do.

Wouldn't it be nice if we knew whether or not the next card in the deck would make the dealer's hand go bust? Problem is, we don't know what the dealer has face down, and we don't know what the next card is. Sitting at third base, I've drawn a 9 to my 12 for a 21, had the dealer turn up a 10-value card, then draw another 10 to bust. The entire table won, but if I hadn't hit, the dealer would have had a 9 and the whole table would have lost.

I've also drawn a card that would have busted the dealer. Most often, though, the dealer has something less than a 10-value face down, and NO one-card draw can bust the dealer's hand.

Unless other players are willing to pay for losses, the third baseman's responsibility is to make the play that's best for his or her own hand.

MYTH: A hot craps table is likely to stay hot, a cold table is likely to stay cold.

FACT: Average results on a table after a hot streak are the same as after a cold streak. Odds of the game don't change, regardless of how hot or cold the shooters have bene.

Craps players are always looking for hot tables, and avoiding cold ones. But unless you're dealing with controlled rollers, a la Frank Scoblete and his Golden Touch Craps team, I've never really seen a reason why a hot table should stay hot, or a cold table stay cold. We are dealing with dice, after all, that don't know what the previous results have been.

Several years ago, I put it to the test. For nearly a year, every time I was in a casino in the Midwest, South and in Nevada, I stopped by a craps table, waited until I saw two consecutive passes, then tracked the result of the next decision -- not as good a sample as a million-hand computer run, but a lot more time-consuming.

The result: Pass bettors won 489 wagers and lost 511 on the next sequence after two consecutive wins. There was no tendency for the dice to stay hot.

I also watched 1,000 trials that started with two don't passes, then charted the next decision. The dice passed 496 times in those 1,000 trials a mere three more passes than the expected average. There was no tendency for cold dice to stay cold, either.

Now, a thousand trials each way isn't enough to satisfy a statistician, but if hot tables stay hot and cold tables stay cold, well, you can't prove it by me.

MYTH: Just as in blackjack, counting cards can help you win.

FACT: Counting cards in baccarat doesn't help in any practical way.
Favorable situations in baccarat are really rare. The late Peter Griffin wrote in The Theory of Blackjack that a baccarat player who doesn't bet unless he has an advantage can squeeze an edge of about 0.7 percent of his maximum bets on banker and player. However, that player might play only about three hands per eight hours. That's watching, not playing.

For bets on ties, it's theoretically possible to count down to a 24 percent edge with six cards remaining, provided all the cards are dealt out.

In the real world, nobody deals out all the cards, and with one-half deck cut out of play, the bettor's potential edge on the last hand shrinks to just 0.08 percent. With just a small reservation, we can say the myth of the baccarat card counter is JUST a myth.

MYTH: An experienced roulette dealer can make the ball land where he pleases.

FACT: Dealers I know scoff at the notion they can hit a number at will. With the wheel spinning one way, the ball going in the opposite direction, bouncing on the surface and from fret to fret separating the numbers, there are far too many physical variables for a dealer to control where the ball will land.

Anyway, the last thing the casino wants is a dealer who can hit a number at will. As long as the results are random, the casino makes its money. However, if a dealer could control what numbers were coming up, there'd be a chance someone would be in on the secret and take a lot of money from the casino. Random games mean big profits for the operators. Taking the randomness out increases operator risk.

Do casinos make their profit from winning players?

Q. Sitting in the buffet, I caught a snippet of conversation that I was wondering if you could explain. (I wasn't listening in, they were so loud I couldn't help hearing.) One guy was saying that the casino really makes its money off the winners, and the other guy said something like, "Oh really? You mean we pay for all this when we win?" That doesn't really make sense to me.

A. Kind of leaves you wondering what kind of gambling palaces they could build if everybody won, doesn't it? If the casino makes money off the winners, then more winners must mean more profits, right?

But seriously, there is a way of looking at how the casino makes its money that looks at casino profits as a tax on the winners. Casino games make money because they pay the winners at less than true odds. If 38 people are sitting at a double-zero roulette table and each bet $1 on a different number on a single spin, the 37 losers each will lose their buck, and the one winner will be paid at 35-1 odds and walk away with $36. If the casino was paying true odds, the one winner should be paid at 37-1 odds and walk away with $38. The casino profit is the $2 not paid to the winner that he'd get if true odds were paid.

Same deal with sports betting. In most sports books, you have to put down 10 percent vigorish on top of your bet. Let's say you and I are betting on the same football game, with me betting on Team A and you on Team B. We each intend to bet $100, but we have to pay the vig, so we actually each bet $110. When my team wins --- hey, it's my example; I get to win --- you lose your $110 bet, but I'm paid only $100, along with the return of my $110 wager. The casino profit is the $10 it didn't pay me on my winning bet.

Sometimes the paying of winners at less than true odds is disguised a bit. In baccarat, for instance, bets on banker win more often than they lose, and bets seem to be paid at even money. However, bettors have to pay a 5 percent commission on winning bets, so winners aren't really paid at 1-1; they're paid at (1 minus .05)-1, and that's less than the true odds of winning the wager.

So it goes with every casino game. There are going to be winners, and there are going to be losers, but the house will make money because it pays winners less than the true odds of winning the bet.

Does the house make its money off winners?

Q. Sitting in the buffet, I caught a snippet of conversation that I was wondering if you could explain. (I wasn't listening in, they were so loud I couldn't help hearing.) One guy was saying that the casino really makes its money off the winners, and the other guy said something like, "Oh really? You mean we pay for all this when we win?" That doesn't really make sense to me.

A. Kind of leaves you wondering what kind of gambling palaces they could build if everybody won, doesn't it? If the casino makes money off the winners, then more winners must mean more profits, right?

But seriously, there is a way of looking at how the casino makes its money that looks at casino profits as a tax on the winners. Casino games make money because they pay the winners at less than true odds. If 38 people are sitting at a double-zero roulette table and each bet $1 on a different number on a single spin, the 37 losers each will lose their buck, and the one winner will be paid at 35:1 odds and walk away with $36. If the casino was paying true odds, the one winner should be paid at 37:1 odds and walk away with $38. The casino profit is the $2 not paid to the winner that he'd get if true odds were paid.

Same deal with sports betting. In most sports books, you have to put down 10 percent vigorish on top of your bet. Let's say you and I are betting on the same football game, with me betting on Team A and you on Team B. We each intend to bet $100, but we have to pay the vigorish, so we actually each bet $110. When my team wins --- hey, it's my example; I get to win --- you lose your $110 bet, but I'm paid only $100, along with the return of my $110 wager. The casino profit is the $10 it didn't pay me on my winning bet.

Sometimes the paying of winners at less than true odds is disguised a bit. In baccarat, for instance, bets on banker win more often than they lose, and bets seem to be paid at even money. However, bettors have to pay a 5 percent commission on winning bets, so winners aren't really paid at 1:1; they're paid at (1 minus .05):1, and that's less than the true odds of winning the wager.

So it goes with every casino game. There are going to be winners, and there are going to be losers, but the house will make money because it pays winners less than the true odds of winning the bet.

New video on YouTube

At the beginning of October, when I was in Las Vegas for the Global Gaming Expo, I got together with American Casino Guide publisher Steve Bourie and his son Matt. I write a couple of articles each year for the Guide, an annual publication I highly recommend. It's chock full of articles about the games people play along with listings of every casino in the United States, their phone numbers, games offered, and amenities. In the back, there are coupons for travel, meal and gambling deals. It's a resource I turn to several times during the year.

While were together, we recorded material for two videos. The first, on the five best bets in the casino, is now up on YouTube. We're talking games only on the main casino floor that you're likely to encounter in any casino market. That excludes live poker, horse racing and sports betting, leaving a mix of blackjack, craps, video poker and baccarat.

If you want to check out the video, it's at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0oGLwWugFo