BJ odds question
 

what are the odds of winning 8 times in a row in BJ?

this is probably a losing strategy, but it's kinda the opposite of the martingale system.

bet $1. lose bet 1$. lose bet 1$. etch.

if you win, then you double it, and keep doubling everytime you win. 1,2,4,8,16,32,64,128. if at any point you lose, you start over and bet $1 again.

so basically you get 256 tries, or more considering blackjack pays 2.5:1, to win 8 times in a row.

this must be a losing strategy right?? don't 4get to answer my first question if you respond.

Re: BJ odds question
 

Yes, it's a losing strategy. The best way to tell that a game is unbeatable is if a casino spreads it.

Re: BJ odds question
 

This is the opposite of the traditional Martingale, where you double after losing. With betting progressions, they seem like they should win, but because cards have no memory, your results will prove otherwise.
With a negative betting progession, you will have many sessions where you win a little and a few sessions where you lose a lot. Inversely, with your system, you will lose a little most of the time and have a big win every now and then.

But the big wins will happen just infrequently enough so that you are down overall. To be exact, you will be down however much money you have wagered total times the house advantage.

Frankly, there's nothing wrong if you want to play a progression, but just don't fool yourself into thinking that it's a longterm winning strategy. The only other danger in betting a progression is that you might be betting more money than you normally would. I mean, in your example, you start with a 1 dollar bet and if you hit that winning streak then all of the sudden you're betting $128. Is this something you would normally do? Probably not, if your base bet is a buck.

So progressions, without people realizing, lose their money faster because they're wagering more than they normally would. But if you want, you could find a more conservative progression, such as betting 10, 15, and 25. Then you'll be wagering an average of about 17 or 18 bucks a hand which is what you might do anyway, and you'll also have the fun of upping your bet during a "hot streak."

Either way, it's your money and it's entertainment, so have the most fun (without it costing you the most buck).

Re: BJ odds question
 

Previous posters have already tackled your second question and so I'll just add my agreement that this betting system is -EV. As to your first question I got about .38% but that was using 50/50 for a win so your real answer should be a little lower.

Re: BJ odds question
 

While a reverse martingale is too simple to work, why isn't it possible to figure out some sort of betting progression in order to overcome the small house edge?

Blackjack is different from the other casino games in that the cards "have a memory" (assuming you're in a live casino where the cards aren't shuffled every hand like they are online). At various points when you're sitting down at a blackjack table it's actually a +EV game. While card counting is the most straightforward way to figure out when it's +EV, it seems like some sort of betting progression where you continued to make slightly larger bets when you were winning and slightly smaller bets while you were losing would do a good job of correctly adjusting your bet size depending on how +EV or -EV the deck was at any current time.

I'm not exactly sure which system would accomplish this, and I'm certainly not going to go to a casino and experiment anytime soon, but it just seems like some variation of a reverse d'Alembert system or a reverse labouchere system could be successful. (Not sure if I'm allowed to link to sites, but Wikipedia has explanations of both of these systems). There was some guy who "broke the bank" in Monaco using a reverse labouchere system to play roulette. People speculate that the reason the system worked was because some of the roulette wheels in Monaco at the time were unbalanced, so they favored certain numbers. Even though he didn't know which numbers were favored he was able to take advantage of this by betting on basically all the numbers for every spin, and adjusting his bets after each spin so he was betting more money on the numbers which had just come up. He won large amounts of money in just a few days and this was at roulette where there's a ~2.5 house advantage.

The roulette example doesn't translate directly to blackjack, because the roulette wheels combined with the system he had probably made the game +EV all the time. However, it seems like because blackjack swings between +EV and -EV you would be able to take advantage of the +EV times by using a similar system.

Re: BJ odds question
 

OK, here's why it doesn't work:

Yes, the cards have a "memory" in the sense that when certain cards come out, the odds of the other cards coming out afterward is increased. But the only way to exploit this is through card counting, where raising or lowering your bets is determined by what cards have come out.

However, it is futile to do this based on whether you just won or lost a hand. When it comes to these types of results, the cards do not have a memory. You are no more likely to win or lose a hand based on what has just happened. Cards only have memory as far as their composition, but not their winning results.

Because of this, in the long run, any sort of betting progression you do will result in however much money you wagered times the house advantage. Here is an example:

Let's say that you flip a coin with a friend. when it lands on heads, you win and tails you lose. When you lose, you double your bet, and a session is 4 flips. Let's look at all of the possibilities:

HHHH=+4
HHHT=+2
HHTH=+3
HHTT=-1
HTHH=+3
HTHT=+1
HTTH=+2
HTTT=-6
TTTT=-15
TTTH=+1
THTH=+2
TTHT=0
TTHH=+2
THTT=-2
THHT=+1
THHH=+3


Final result=0

And this is because the odds don't change. It's heads or tails, an even money proposition. The HA is 0%. Now, take a guess at what happens when playing a game where the house edge is negative. That's right, you'll end up losing.

Yes, most of the time, you'll win a little and a few times you'll lose a lot. Results are just the opposite for a positive betting progression. You'll have a few big wins and a bunch of little losses.
But in the long run, it makes no difference. You will be down however much you have wagered total times whatever the house advantage is.

Re: BJ odds question
 

Well... the coin example isn't really fair because the odds are always exactly 50/50, while they're different for each hand in blackjack.

However, after reading your entire post I realized that you're right and I was able to figure out where my error was. I thought that losing a hand was an indication that the remaining deck was now stacked slightly more in your favor, and I see now that that's not the case. It might be true to a very small extent but nowhere near the .5% that needs to be overcome.

Re: BJ odds question
 

"I thought that losing a hand was an indication that the remaining deck was now stacked slightly more in your favor, and I see now that that's not the case. It might be true to a very small extent but nowhere near the .5% that needs to be overcome. "


Actually, it's interesting you bring this up. I read a BJ book where the author (I think it was Stanford Wong's Professional Blackjack) performed such a simulation. He ran a simulation of billions of hands and the computer recorded the win % of the first hand after a loss and the win % the first hand after a win. Even 1 step further, he recorded what happened on the hand after 2 wins, 2 losses, a win and a loss, and a loss and a win. And guess what he found? That to the 1/1000th of a percentage, in every case, the win % was the same (around 43%, something like that).

Therefore, there is absolutely no way to tell just what's gonna happen on the next hand. Just count cards, bet big when you're supposed to, and pray for the best.

Even if you don't count cards and just play basic strategy, the amount you lose, even playing $25/hand, is easily made up in free drinks, let alone the comps. Even if you just had 1 drink an hour, you'd be even money with what you give up. Not too shabby.

Re: BJ odds question
 

Well, so much for my theories.

"He ran a simulation of billions of hands and the computer recorded the win % of the first hand after a loss and the win % the first hand after a win. Even 1 step further, he recorded what happened on the hand after 2 wins, 2 losses, a win and a loss, and a loss and a win."

After reading that paragraph I'm not going to waste any more time trying to figure out a way to beat the casino games. Not only had someone else thought of my idea before me but he'd tested it through a billion hands.

I guess I'll take your advice and get drunk.

Re: BJ odds question
 

"After reading that paragraph I'm not going to waste any more time trying to figure out a way to beat the casino games. Not only had someone else thought of my idea before me but he'd tested it through a billion hands.

I guess I'll take your advice and get drunk."



Or learn to count cards. I have it down so well that I can count and be wasted at the tables. I never get heat because I am clearly plastered and I consistently come away with big wins. It's happened so many times where I try to start playing in the middle of a 2 deck game, and before the dealer has a chance to say no, the pit boss is over there welcoming my drunk ass to the table. It's awesome.