4 ms·

He won’t say what all the adjustments were in the final e-mailed agreement with the Trop, but they included playing with a hand-shuffled six-deck shoe; the righ

by bhahn 11y ago

He won’t say what all the adjustments were in the final e-mailed agreement with the Trop, but they included playing with a hand-shuffled six-deck shoe; the right to split and double down on up to four hands at once; and a “soft 17” (the player can draw another card on a hand totaling six plus an ace, counting the ace as either a one or an 11, while the dealer must stand, counting the ace as an 11) The blackjack rules (excluding the discount agreement) mentioned don't seem out-of-the-ordinary. Most Las Vegas casinos have these exact rules for their higher minimum tables http://wizardofvegas.com/guides/blackjack-survey/ http://wizardofvegas.com/guides/blackjack-survey/. The house edge of this game (using http://wizardofodds.com/games/blackjack/calculator/ http://wizardofodds.com/games/blackjack/calculator/) is 0.33457. There's no additional player-favorable rule that I can imagine to which all 3 casinos agreed (like late surrender, a rule I've never seen in a Las Vegas strip casino) that would account for the ~0.08 difference in house edge. Like another comment suggested, I think there's a good chance he intended to count cards when calculating his odds. A simplistic card-counting strategy (http://wizardofodds.com/games/blackjack/card-counting/high-low/ http://wizardofodds.com/games/blackjack/card-counting/high-l...) could account for the difference.

fsk 11y ago
If you have 20% downside protection in a nearly even odds game, you can figure out the optimal strategy. Also, he was betting $100k a hand, so he didn't have to play too many hands before deciding to stop as a winner or take his 20% loss rebate. (If you have the 20% loss protection, the optimal strategy is to bet big.) For example, his downside protection was 20% of a loss of at least $500k. If he was at -400k, he had no reason to quit; he should keep playing until he was ahead or at -500k. Also, casinos previously negotiated 20% loss rebates on a LIFETIME basis. He negotiated the 20% loss rebate on a PER-TRIP basic, correctly pointing out that if he was ahead at a casino, he had no reason to return if another casino also offered the rebate. The lt;dr summary is: He didn't cheat or count cards. The 20% loss rebate combined with blackjack being a nearly even game gave him an edge. You could do the same thing at craps. At craps, there's an obscure rule that lets you make a bet at true odds after establishing a point, sometimes for 10x or more of your original bet. If you're playing at a place that offers the 10x backup bet and the 20% loss rebate, you could do the same thing at craps.
- bhahn 11y ago
  The article implies that the 0.25 house edge was calculated before the rebates were considered, still leaving the ~0.08 house edge as a mystery. The quote below follows the quote from my original comment. The author of the article may have made a mistake, though. When Johnson and the Trop finally agreed, he had whittled the house edge down to one-fourth of 1 percent, by his figuring. In effect, he was playing a 50-50 game against the house, and with the discount, he was risking only 80 cents of every dollar he played.

by bhahn 11y ago

fsk 11y ago

If you have 20% downside protection in a nearly even odds game, you can figure out the optimal strategy. Also, he was betting $100k a hand, so he didn't have to play too many hands before deciding to stop as a winner or take his 20% loss rebate. (If you have the 20% loss protection, the optimal strategy is to bet big.) For example, his downside protection was 20% of a loss of at least $500k. If he was at -400k, he had no reason to quit; he should keep playing until he was ahead or at -500k. Also, casinos previously negotiated 20% loss rebates on a LIFETIME basis. He negotiated the 20% loss rebate on a PER-TRIP basic, correctly pointing out that if he was ahead at a casino, he had no reason to return if another casino also offered the rebate. The lt;dr summary is: He didn't cheat or count cards. The 20% loss rebate combined with blackjack being a nearly even game gave him an edge. You could do the same thing at craps. At craps, there's an obscure rule that lets you make a bet at true odds after establishing a point, sometimes for 10x or more of your original bet. If you're playing at a place that offers the 10x backup bet and the 20% loss rebate, you could do the same thing at craps.

bhahn 11y ago
The article implies that the 0.25 house edge was calculated before the rebates were considered, still leaving the ~0.08 house edge as a mystery. The quote below follows the quote from my original comment. The author of the article may have made a mistake, though. When Johnson and the Trop finally agreed, he had whittled the house edge down to one-fourth of 1 percent, by his figuring. In effect, he was playing a 50-50 game against the house, and with the discount, he was risking only 80 cents of every dollar he played.