A.P Heat

Baccarat and blackjack have one important commonality: the house edge for each changes as cards are played from the shoe. The advertised house edge is based on the initial composition of the shoe, but that value is not fixed throughout the game.

I wonder what the future will hold for game protection when devices like Google Glass become part of the mainstream of technological gadgets.

I am back from my travels. I spent over three weeks in Macau, and learned a lot about Asian gaming from the experience. Mostly, I learned about baccarat. Try and picture a casino with hundreds of baccarat tables. It's not an image that fits easily into the Ameri-centric vision of what "casino" means. There was one advantage play technique that was the most surprising to discover.

Non-negotiable (NN) rolling chip programs are used by casinos to award cash rebates to their high-rollers for their play. The rebate is based on returning a fixed percentage of all NN chips purchased and lost by the player.

I spite of what most people in the industry believe, few APs are card counters making their living playing blackjack. They just aren't. They are finding edges and opportunities that are much stronger. And these opportunities aren't just other games and side bets. One of the strongest sources of ongoing income is poorly conceived promotions.

Non-negotiable (NN) rolling chip programs are used by casinos to award cash back rebates to their high-rollers for their play. The rebate is based on returning a fixed percent of all NN chips purchased and lost by the player.

Let it Ride (LIR) and Mississippi Stud (MS) have a lot of design elements in common. Both games involve no competition against the dealer. Both games pay based on the final poker-value of the player’s five-card poker hand. Both games have a minimum hand that pays (a pair of Tens for LIR and a pair of Jacks for MS). They both involve an Ante bet, and raises after cards are exposed.

Sometimes a side bet comes along that dwarfs the others in terms of its card counting vulnerability. Such was the case with the Slingo Bonus Bet 21 side bet for blackjack.

The mission to teach casinos that they should not fear blackjack card counters is one that I have been on for a long time. This fear arises from two memetic misconceptions. First, that there are a lot of card counters. Second, that there is a lot of money to be made from card counting.

Although baccarat is dealt from a shoe, it does not have a substantial vulnerability to card counting (see this post).

The Dragon Bonus (DB) baccarat side bet is by far the most popular baccarat side bet in the domestic market. Internationally, I have not seen it that much in my travels, but maybe I just haven't been to the right places. I considered card counting DB in this post, where I concluded that counting was useless.

In “Blackjack Attack, Playing the Pro’s Way, 2nd edition” (BA), author Donald Schlesinger presents the “World’s Greatest Blackjack Simulation.” One of his achievements was to determine the win-rate per 100 hands for six-deck blackjack, using the Illustrious 18 (see this post), and four additio

I recently received an e-mail from an individual at an overseas casino, asking if I would review his casino's baccarat loss rebate program for advantage play vulnerability. Like many similar programs, it included not only the standard loss rebate, but also incentives like airfare, room, food & beverage, and agent's commission.

Illustrious: (1) clear, conspicuous, distinguished (2) famous, eminent, outstanding. – Webster’s New World College Dictionary ©, 1996

Edge sorting in baccarat takes place when the player can observe the back of one or more cards before making his wager (see this post for an introduction). If the player is able to sort the cards, then this knowledge allows the player to gain an edge.