![]() Newsletter Signup
Stay informed with the
NEW Casino City Times newsletter! Recent Articles
Best of Alan Krigman
|
Gaming Guru
Play Multiple Spots at Blackjack to Moderate Bankroll Swings20 August 1996
The issue for now is, with the same total at risk in a round, whether and how a player's chances are affected by spreading bets across multiple positions. For instance, does betting $5 on each of two spots differ in prospect from $10 on a single hand? In terms of the player's theoretical loss due to "house advantage," it's all the same. In a game where the rules and a player's decision strategy give the casino a 1 percent edge, the bettor's expectation is to lose a cent on every wagered dollar no matter how the money is allocated. Picture what can happen when $10 is bet on a single blackjack spot. a) The player usually wins or loses $10. b) Some decisions are "pushes" and nothing changes hands. c) An uncontested A-10 pays $15. d) With splits and doubles, players increase their exposure but can win or lose $20, $30, or more. e) Insurance and surrender produce occasional $5 outcomes. Together, these factors yield single-spot fluctuation of roughly $11.20 per bet - compared with $0.10 the house "earns" from edge. What if $10 is split between two spots? Fewer net $10-and-up transactions occur because they require simultaneous wins or losses. Amounts under $10 are won or lost regularly. And pushes, especially due to one winner and one loser, become routine. Edge doesn't change, but fluctuation drops to about $9.70. The accompanying table gives estimates of how fluctuation falls when a single "bet unit" is spread across multiple positions. Figures for several spots in a single game posit that concurrent bets are partially correlated, owing to the unifying influence of the dealer's hand. For example, everybody who plays properly wins if the dealer busts with an upcard of three through six; nobody wins if the dealer gets a 10-up blackjack. Is it good or bad to moderate fluctuation by playing multiple blackjack hands? As often in gambling, the question begs an easy answer. Low fluctuation cuts effective bankroll requirements and can keep players off their fiscal or emotional bottoms during normal downswings. But it also limits the gain during upswings. Sumner A Ingmark, a muse who moderates his meter but not by penning multiple poems in parallel, pointed out the paradox pithily:
Recent Articles
Best of Alan Krigman
Alan Krigman |
Alan Krigman |