[MicroBob]

Correction:
MANY do think they can win in the casino.


I dealt BJ for 8 months (and used to play quite a bit too of the card-counting, advantage-player variety) and the ideas of 'hot-shoes' and 'how to best beat the game' are truly frightening.


I didn't learn how to deal roulette and don't play that game...but if someone new at our casino is dealing roulette and it's really getting slammed they will bring an extra dealer over to 'muck' (organize and collect) all the different colors of chips so I was over there on occasion.

I would over-hear the most bizarre conversations of placing bets in various patterns around the board to cover more of the numbers so that you could 'win' more.
That you have no chance to win if you just bet 'one number' and that you're pretty stupid if you're not betting at least 'five different numbers' to 'give yourself a better chance to win'.

I had a boss in NY who was a pretty smart guy generally who talked of playing roulette online and placing his bets in some pretty, little pattern because some book or online-particle told him it was the best way and that you needed to cover a certain percentage of the board and that would actually give the player the advantage because now you have a better chance of winning than losing.

Huh??


Same for slots players who believe the most ridiculous things too obviously.


These aren't just drunk, low-income and low-educated people.
I've talked with college-graduates, doctors, lawyers, etc who all believe this stuff.


Many people with above-average IQ's fail to grasp the VERY basic math behind the fact that what they are spewing is nothing more than some weird variety and combination of karma and superstition and has ZERO BASIS in fact (and is actually the OPPOSITE of fact).


Most people (the educated among them) fail to see why the double-up 'martingale' strategy doesn't work.


I was dealt BJ to a couple of ER doctors (betting fairly high for our place) who INSISTED that when a dealer gets a blackjack that the chances of him getting a blackjack on the NEXT hand are INCREASED because 'the cards are running that way'.
so they would put out a bet on an 'extra' hand to try to 'steal' that blackjack from me and 'change the flow of the cards'.


The basic concepts that we are dealing with here are REALLY REALLY basic.
But most people just can't grasp the very simple concepts involved.


Don't even get me started on the number of people on the PPM cruise who insisted that the deal is so OBVIOUSLY rigged and that they ALWAYS get bad-beats after they cash-out, etc etc.
I was truly amazed at how many people were talking about this trend non-stop.