what is an advantage player
Advantage Players

The only word other than ‘this is a robbery’ which will scare a casino pit boss when screamed loudly on the gaming floor is ‘advantage player at table 5.’

They put the fear of God into the hearts of the most crustiest pit-bosses. Casino exclusion lists are full of their names despite never breaking the law. So just who are these advantage gamblers?

To answer that question, first a person needs to decide if all games of luck are identical. All governments around the world lump blackjack card games together with slots and keno.

By that definition, just as it is impossible to gain a mathematical edge from cranking the handle of a one-armed-bandit, it must also be impossible to get a mathematical edge from a blackjack cards game.

This is the reason why using a card counting system or tracking the cards as the dealer shuffles them is perfectly legal at least in the United States. If the government passes a law against counting cards, or shuffle tracking it would mean that politicians are admitting that blackjack and keno aren’t the same.

It would mean that blackjack isn’t a random pick-6 lottery but requires skill to gain an edge, and that’s not the can of worms they want to open.

Advantage gamblers are players who use mathematical and statistical strategies to gain an edge required to overcome the inherent edge of the casino. The expression that ‘the house always wins’ is correct since every game in the casino was designed to give the house a statistical advantage over the player.

That’s the reason that pit bosses base comp rewards primarily on the amount of time a player spends at the table. Every casino boss knows that the longer you play, the more you will lose due that magical casino edge.

What if all blackjack players had a 1% advantage over the casino and not the other way around? The casino would throw out blackjack that same day. Yet it’s possible to have a 1% advantage over the casino in blackjack by using smart strategies.

When a player is counting cards, picks a weak dealer, makes the correct decisions on every hand, they transform from a wide eyed intoxicated tourist into an advantage gambler. (Yet they better give an award winning performance of acting as a wide-eyed intoxicated tourist who got really lucky, or they will get banned).