Eliot Jacobson Ph.D.

How can a player legally beat a casino? When this question is asked of the typical gambler-in-the-street, the answer is almost universally “card counting blackjack.” When asked about card counting, this gambler talks about how smart you have to be and mentions the MIT team, but has no idea of what is actually involved in being a card counter.

The intention of this post is to put the gaming mathematicians out of business. Not really. But I do want to tell you how you can easily figure out the house edge for baccarat, its variants and most of its side bets.

Baccarat card counting is a hopeless endeavor. That doesn't mean that I can't develop better card counting systems or run more accurate simulations than I have in the past.

One of my long time clients knows a lot about California card rooms (see this post and this post).

Earlier this week I met at length with executives from one of the corporations that back wagers in California card rooms.  In anticipation of these meetings, I wrote this blog article. The main topic of these meetings was advantage play: what is possible and what they can do about it.

(flim′flam′) noun 1. nonsense; rubbish; humbug (ref. Webster's New World Dictionary)