When Do You Raise Your Bet In Blackjack

Adjust your betting. When you put your calculations to practice, raise the amount you bet when the count is high in the positives. Remember to remain inconspicuous. Remain natural, talking to other players and the dealer rather than muttering to yourself. Raise your bet by small amounts when you can and lower your bets when you lose. I n the game of blackjack, the opportunity to double down is the chance to increase the value of your initial bet by up to 100 per cent. In return, the player must stand after taking one more card. As a player you want to capitalize on a good run of cards and this strategy has some merits. Start with a 2 unit bet. If you win you reduce the bet to one unit. If you win that bet you increase to 3 units. Once the dealer wins you go back to your original 2 unit bet. A run of 10 hands could look like this: Wager Result +/-2 W +2; 1 W +3; 2 W +5. Before anyone plays their hands the dealer will offer insurance (or even money if you have a Blackjack). You can put up a wager equal to half your original wager or less, which will get paid 2 to 1 if the dealer has a ten as their hole card. So, put simply, you’re betting on whether or not the dealer has a blackjack.

I recently read an article where someone asked for advice on changing your bet size while playing slots. The idea was, when you get ahead, you raise your bets to try to hit a bigger win.

Over the years, I’ve also seen questions about betting more when you’re losing to try to make up for past losses when you hit a win.

These look like two different questions, but they’re actually the same question. And the answer should be the same to both questions.

In the article I just read, the answer was decent, but it didn’t cover the real reasons in enough depth. Anyone asking either of these questions doesn’t understand how slot machines work. They also don’t really understand how expected value and long term expectation works.

Slots and Expected Value

Every slot machine in existence, whether located in a casino or online, has a built in house edge. The house edge is how the casinos make money, and it’s impossible to legally overcome the house edge on a slot machine in total. What I mean by “in total” is that slot machines make money collectively.

A few players win more than they lose in the short term, and a few lucky players win a big enough progressive jackpot to come out ahead. But overall, the slot machine industry is wildly profitable.

Expected value is a term often used in gambling that is a way to express the value of a betting decision. It’s used most often in poker to determine the best way to play a hand in a certain situation. You can also use it in games like blackjack to determine the best way to play a hand.

In games like poker and blackjack, you can make strategy decisions based on expected value. Bets on slot machines also have an expected value, but they’re all negative. A negative expected value means that, on average, you’re going to lose money.

Here’s an example of expected value on a slot machine.

If a slot machine has a house edge of 5% and you bet $1 on every spin, the expected value is -.05 per spin. On an individual spin, you might lose your entire $1 or win something, but the expected value is the amount you expect to lose on average over thousands of spins.

Expanding this example, if you make 500 bets in an hour, you’re expected value is -$25. In other words, you can expect to lose $25 an hour playing this slot machine. Once again, this is an average, so in any single hour, you can lose more or win.

The house edge is the same whether you bet $1 or $100 per spin. It’s also the same if you lost the last three spins or won the last three spins. The house edge doesn’t change, so changing your bet sizes doesn’t help you win more often.

Slots Long Term Expectation

This is going to sound similar to what you learned in the last section because it’s closely related. The mistake many slots players make, like the ones asking the two questions in the opening section, is thinking past results in some way change future results.

But, if nothing you can do changes the house edge, how can you believe that you should raise your bets after a losing streak or after a winning streak?

The belief is that because the long term results must come very close to equaling the expected results that there must be a correction one way or another after a winning or losing streak. But the problem with this is that the house edge and expectation are based on a large number of outcomes.

Instead of it being based on 10 or 100 spins like many players act, it’s based on hundreds of thousands or millions of spins. Even if you win 10 spins in a row, it doesn’t change the odds of what’s going to happen on the next spin because the machines are based on such a large number of spins.

I’m trying to show you why without getting into complicated mathematical principles, but you can run the math on the effect of short streaks in large pools of results to prove what I’m saying is true.

The belief many players have about short term streaks is made worse when they guess correctly about the next result after a streak. This reinforces what they want to believe, even though the math shows it isn’t true.

If you win 10 spins in a row, what do you think is most likely to happen on the next spin? Some players say a loss, because the machine is due for a loss. Other players say a win, because the machine is hot. How can both opinions be true?

The fact is that neither opinion is true based on why they think they’re correct. The true chance of a win or loss is 100% based on how often the machine is programmed to produce a winning spin.

Is It Ever Correct to Alter Your Slots’ Bet Size?

When I play slots, I operate in what I call the “jackpot or bust” mode. I set aside a bankroll to chase a jackpot and keep playing until I either hit a jackpot or run out of money. Most of the time, I run out of money, but every once in a while, I get lucky and hit a small jackpot.

I know that, in the long run, I’m going to lose unless I hit a big slots jackpot. I’m okay with this, just like I’m okay with buying a lottery ticket chasing a big prize. The odds of winning are low, but I’m willing to risk a set amount for the chase.

I always bet the minimum amount on my chosen slot machine that allows me to qualify for a jackpot. I tend to look for machines that have a low bet threshold to unlock the jackpot, because I want to take as many spins as possible.

If you buy a lottery ticket, do you ever spend more money than the ticket costs? Do you give the store clerk $5 for a $3 ticket and not expect to get your $2 in change?

This is how I feel about betting more than I need to while playing slots. This is why I never bet more than the minimum to qualify for a jackpot while playing slots.

The question of changing your bet size while playing slots has two answers. The first answer is if you’re betting more than the minimum, then you should bet less. The second answer is that it doesn’t matter if you change the size of your bet for any other reason. As long as you understand that the more you bet the more you lose, you can do whatever you want. It’s your money, and you can play any way you like.

Conclusion

You’re welcome to change the size of your bet while playing slots any time you like. It doesn’t matter if you’re winning or losing, changing the size of your bet isn’t going to alter your chances to win. The only thing that matters is the house edge you’re working against and the average bet size of your wagers.

When you bet more after a win, you’re just going to lose more in the long run. When you bet more when you lose, you’re just going to lose more in the long run. The only way to lose less money playing slots in the long run is to bet less.

The best way to lose less playing slots is to stop playing. But that’s not much fun, and you’re never going to hit a jackpot if you don’t play. I don’t recommend that you stop playing. But use smart money management so your bankroll lasts as long as possible and you have the best chance to hit a jackpot before you run out of money.

The only way you can possibly come out ahead in the long run playing slots is to win a jackpot big enough to cover all of your previous losses. This doesn’t happen often. The best chance to do this is to make the minimum bet that unlocks the chance at the jackpot and hope for the best. Changing your bet size isn’t going to help in the long run.

BETTING AT BLACKJACK

By Henry Tamburin

One of the most often asked question from blackjack players is 'how should I bet?' You've got several options and I'll discuss them in this article and offer my recommendation.

Flat bet

This means betting the same amount all the time. Most players don't like to bet this way because they figure if the dealer wins more hands then them they'll never win any money. Also players feel it's boring betting this way. They prefer the thrill of sometimes betting more in the hopes that when they do so, they will win the hand and make a nice profit.

Here are the facts on flat betting. If you bet say $5 on every hand in a standard multiple deck game the house will have an edge of 0.5% against the skilled basic strategy player. That means you will lose on average 0.5% of every wager you make. So if you bet $10 on every hand and average 80 hands per hour you will have made a total of $800 worth of bets. The casino expects to earn 0.5% of the $800 or $4.00. Of course the more likely result is that you'll win or lose much more than $4 after an hour of play. But on average you can expect over time to lose at the rate of $4 per hour.

Let's take an example of a player flat betting $10 on every hand. It's is a conservative betting strategy that leads to a relatively low theoretical loss rate. The fluctuation in this player's bankroll will also be low which means the likelihood he'll have a big winning or losing session is not great.

Progressive betting

This is where things get interesting. Progressive betting means varying your bets in some way from one hand to the next rather than always betting the same amount on every hand. There are all different types of betting progressions but they all have one common denominator. You either decrease or increase your next bet depending upon whether the hand you just played won or lose.

Win progressions encourage you to increase your bet size after a winning hand. For example you make a minimum bet of $10 and if you win, you raise your next stakes on next hand to $20.

There are all different kinds of win progressions. The most common is a 1-2-3-5 progression. This means you increase your bet by the above multiples after each winning hand but as soon as you experience a loss, you start the progression over with a 1 unit bet.

Proponents of win progressions will tell you that you'll win more money if you win 5 consecutive hands compared to the amount you lose if you lose 5 consecutive hands. Of course what they don't tell you is that you never know when that 5 consecutive winning hand streak will occur.

There are also betting progressions in which you increase your bet following a loss. These Martingale type betting progression are dangerous and you never consider using them

There is also hybrid betting progressions, which have you increase your bets following a win, but after two or three success wins you lock up some profit and gradually regress your bets. The creativity of progressive bettors is never ending.

First of all, betting progressions do not change the 0.5% house edge one iota. There has never been a correlation between the hand just won (or lost) and you chance of winning the next hand. In other words using the criteria of the result of one hand (W/L) to base how you bet on the next hand has no scientific validity. So betting progressions in the long run don't work in the sense that won't improve your long-term chances of winning.

But here's what betting progressions will do. First off they increase the fluctuation in your session bankroll compared to flat betting. This means you can win more using a betting progression compared to flat betting but you can also lose more. Secondly, betting progressions will increase the amount of money you wager per hour compared to flat betting. If a $10 bettor uses a 1-2-3-5 betting progression, his average bet will $20. Over an hour he will average $20 times 80 hands or $1600 worth of bets. The casinos expected win is 0.5% of $1600 or $8. In other words a $10 progressive bettor stands to lose twice as much per hour as a $10 flat bettor.

Here's a tip to save you some money in the long run if you insist on using a betting progression. Instead of starting your progression at $10, start at a lower amount (ie. $5). This will reduce your average bet to $10 per hour and cut you hourly theoretical loss rate in half.

But in the long run flat betting and betting progressions don't work in the sense they won't change the house edge against you and you will lose in the long run. So what betting system works? That my friends is as card counting.

With card counting you know when you have the edge based on the change in the composition of the decks and therefore you'll know when it's the right time to bet more. So unlike betting progressions that are based on whether you win or lose the previous hands, card counting is based on the mix of cards that were played on previous hands. If more small value cards were played in previous rounds, there are more big value cards left in the unplayed cards and the edge shifts from dealer to player. This would be the best time to bet more.

But I'm realist. Not a whole lot of average blackjack players have the time or mental concentration during play that is required to master one of the popular point count card counting systems. These are readily available in blackjack books. But even though millions of blackjack books have been sold since Ed Thorp's classic book, Beat The Dealer (circa 1962) first revealed card counting to the masses, the number of players who can successful win money in the long run at blackjack number in the hundreds and thousands.

So what's the answer to betting at blackjack for the average player? I asked Don Pronovost that same question about 2 years ago. Don is a software developer that markets blackjack training software (www.HandheldBlackjack.com). He spent the better part of 2 years and 36+ billion computer simulated hands looking for the solution to this dilemma. What he developed is nothing short of revolutionary - Speed Count.

Speed Count is unlike any conventional card counting system. It's much simpler to master and requires much less concentration when you play. And unlike progressive betting systems, Speed Count will give you a verifiable advantage over the casino. Frank SCoblete and I teach Speed Count in a weekend course. For more information visit www.goldentouchblackjack.com or call 1-866-WIN-BJ21.

When Do You Raise Your Bet In Blackjack Games

So now that you know the scoop on betting at blackjack, I wish you many aces and faces the next time you play.