Banging Your Head Against a Wall

7 January 2025

By Frank Scoblete

Casinos have the edge over the players.

It is a rare moment in a rare game where the player can actually turn the edge against the casino. Very rare. Extremely rare.

Players can have skills at some games, such as blackjack by following basic strategy (the computer derived strategy for the play of every player hand verses the dealer’s up card). The house edge will hover around one-half percent, meaning a loss of 50 cents for every $100 wagered if the player uses this basic strategy.

Do all blackjack players play the “perfect” basic strategy? No. Sadly, no.

More players don’t play basic strategy perfectly and some casino “experts” rail against the strategy for reasons that they think are rational when, in fact, their ideas are dead wrong and costly to the players.

If you play at a full blackjack table (meaning six or seven players) the pace of the game is usually reasonable and the losses over time will probably not be horrendous. Even fast dealers are not really all that fast.

However, folks, here is the bad news: Your expectation is to lose. And given enough time (a little time to a lot of time) you will indeed lose. It’s in the cards. And how you play those cards.

Many casino gamblers have a crazy thought in their heads. They think that if they make more and more bets at the same time they have a better chance to win. Yes, they do; of course. But that thought is a trickster.

Why?

Because their potential losses will zoom skyward. In fact, at some games (craps being one) the average player rarely makes just one solitary wager. They rarely make just two or even three!

Craps players are ferocious gamblers. They are multiple bettors. My mentor, the late Captain, called some of the bets that craps players make “crazy crapper bets.”

The sky is the limit for many of these craps players.

They also make bets with horrible house edges, many of those bets zoom up into the double figures! What is the expectation of the wild betting craps players? Dim at the very best.

Craps can be a wild game; a wooly game; a mean game. Players should be aware of this and keep their betting low and their betting spreads (meaning total number of bets) even lower.

Few craps players heed the above wisdom and fewer have a winning career…or even a short-range winning career.

All the best in and out of the casinos!

Frank Scoblete’s books are available from Amazon.com., Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books, libraries, and bookstores.