Casino Surveillance Pro

I had a reader ask, so here is the house rules at the single deck Blackjack game that we offer at the casino that I deal at. I've also included a basic strategy chart for those rules.You should know that our table limits are very low, usually $5 to $50 per hand. And unless there's only one player at the table we shuffle after just two rounds. A single player will be able to get in 3 rounds before a shuffle.  This low deck penetration pretty much negates any advantage play techniques that a player might use, such as card counting or tracking Aces.  But, if you know your basic strategy, and especially know how to use surrender properly, it's not a bad game. A 1.5% house advantage is actually pretty good these days. Especially in a table with only a $5 minimum bet. No I'm not going to tell you exactly where I work, but without too much trouble you should be able to figure it out. I will tell you that it's in Northern Nevada, as opposed to the Vegas area. Anyway  here ...

So last month I posted about some questions that I get from people when they find out what my job is. This is the follow-up to that post and it’s mostly going to be about what cheating from the inside, or cheating by the dealer, would look like if it was going on. The easiest way for a dealer to cheat, on the player’s behalf, would be simply to dump the game. Dumping the game is when you pay the player for a losing hand or overpay the player on a winning hand. If you’re in surveillance and you happen to see this happen oh, the best thing you can do is keep quiet at least for a moment or two and see if it continues. It’s possible that the dealer just made a mistake and paid a losing Hand by mistake. If you continue to watch you’ll see if he’s doing it on a regular basis and if so if he’s doing it to a specific player. This would indicate collusion, or a conspiracy between the player and one or more players to do so. It’s always best to have plenty of information and evidence before movi...

OK, so i havent been blogging as much for the last month or so. Here’s why.  I am back to dealing blackjack and it is taking up a lot of my time. I got a new job at a small, northern Nevada casino (you could track me down without too much trouble, but i am not going to just come out an tell you which one) as a dual rate Manager on Duty and Dealer. Having not dealt cards for over three decades, I have had to do some on the job training to get back in shape.  It’s not quite like riding a bike, in that you never forget how to do it, but it is close. Having spent many of those years in surveillance I still have the mental chops to do it, but the muscle memory is long gone. Throw in some arthritis in my knees (plus chronic leukemia) and standing at a table for 40-60 minutes at a time has been a challenge also.  But enough about my troubles, what I really want to talk about is the “typical” blackjack player that I have been running in to. If I were going to describe them in jus...

I found an awesome house edge calculating webpage online. Click  here  to go to it. If you have a smartphone you should consider placing a link to it on your desktop for quick reference. I’m going to use it to calculate the house advantage at the casino that I deal cards at. Here is the breakdown of our single deck ($5 to $50) Royal Match game rules: Dealer peeks. DD on any first 2 cards. Split Ace’s get one card only. Double after split allowed. Split up to 4 hands. Early surrender. BJ pays 6 to 5 (sorry). 6 card Charlie (6 cards w/o busting wins automatically). Add it all up and you come to a house advantage of 1.121%. the only really disadvantageous role is the 6 to 5 payout on a blackjack. Is it was a standard 3 to 2 payout the house advantage will be down to 0.239%, which on a single-deck game is about as close to even as you can get. At any rate, please use this blackjack House advantage calculator to your advantage, no pun intended. It’s important to know just how much ...

OK, here is how I would go about masking the fact that I am counting cards like a madman.

Hi everybody, before we start I want to remind you about my Patreon page. If you enjoy my content, and would like to see more of it more often, please consider becoming a patron. Click here to go to my page. On to todays topic: Hit and Run Gambling. I don't really gamble for fun or entertainment. I would rather go see a movie, or read a book. For me, when there's money involved with something, it's not 'just for fun' or "entertainment". It's not that I'm morally opposed to gambling for fun or entertainment, it's just not my thing. If you want to do it that's fine, go right ahead. As long as you're playing small amounts and not betting money that's meant for the rent, there's no real harm in it. Instead, I like to engage in what I call "hit-and-run" gambling. Goal number 1 is to walk out a winner. To that end, goal number 2 is to only make bets that have a very small house advantage, percentage-wise. Goal number ...

Before I begin, I'd like to remind everyone that I have a Patreon page now. If you enjoy my content, and would like to see more of it more often, please consider becoming a patron. Click here to go to my page. Okay, on with the show. I was playing Blackjack the other day. I lost about 40 bucks, no big deal. But I got to talking with the Pit Boss and that's what this week's blog is about. Our conversation, that is. I asked the Pit Boss if there were any 6 to 5 games in town, here in Reno. (For those of you that don't know, 6 to 5 games refer to Blackjack games that don't pay out 3 to 2 if a player gets a blackjack, but only payout 6 to 5. These are horrible games, and you should avoid them like the plague.) She didn't really snswer, but said  that 6 to 5 games were a reaction by some casinos to the fact that they felt like they were losing money on their Royal Match games. Well, I know better. 6 to 5 games are just another attempt by the corporate casinos t...

This post is a reprint about a video on Youtube.  It's all about todays electronic slot machines, their random number generators and how cheats are hacking them!  Click here to watch it And click here to visit my Patreon page. If you enjoy my content, and would like to see more of it more often, please consider becoming a patron. I am also looking at expanding into audio and video podcasts if I can get enough donations. 

I got another good question last week, from a reader wanting to know what a surveillance room is like, how it is laid out and how it is staffed and run.  So here goes. I have worked in surveillance departments at six different casinos in the last 25 years. Some very small (300 slots, 6 blackjack tables) and some very big (3000 slots, 60-70 table games of all kinds). When I started in the early 90's it was all VCRs and not all cameras were recorded all the time. We used a lot of "multi-plexers" and "quad screens". A multi-plexer used one VCR to display and record up to 16 screens on one monitor. Since the VCR still records at 30 frames per second, that meant that if you did a review on any one of those 16 screens you would be looking at a "freeze frame" effect, where you only got 1.8 frames per second of the shot you were looking at. A quad would record all four screens at 30 fps, but the size of the picture on the screen was 1/4 (obviously) of the to...

This post is sponsored by Amazon Prime .  You can get a free 30 day trial of  by clicking  here . Speaking of Amazon, they have some great books about how to win at blackjack, craps, and other casino games. Click on this link:  Good books about Casino gambling And don't forget about my article, called " Sports Betting: Advanced middle techniques for college and pro football wagering ." It's all about a way to bet on sports with very little risk but high potential rewards. Click  here  to go to the eBay listing. It's only $4.99 plus fifty cents shipping.  Now on to this weeks topic.  This is a repost from a year or so ago, but it's still good info, if I do say so myself. Whenever I meet people and tell them what my profession has been for the last 25 years, I always come away with the feeling that they equate card counting and advantage play as cheating. It is not, of course, as most of the readers of this blog undoubtedly know. It is just...

I am not going to tell you how I know this, but I am sensing some blow back from certain segments of the gaming industry about what I am doing here. SO.... I am going to open up on that segment of the industry with both barrels.  I am going to reveal the dirty little secret about tribal gaming that none of them want the public to know.  This secret is a little outside the realm of blackjack and how surveillance watches it, so you will need to indulge me. So what's the secret? The "slot machines" in tribal casinos are ripping you off. Let me explain. In most corporate gaming locations in this country, like Nevada, Atlantic City and other jurisdictions where the casino is owned by a corporation and not an Indian Tribe, the slots machines work this way: Each slot machine is basically a desktop computer. It has its own CPU, and a memory chip called an EEPROM that run the game and display the graphics that you see on the screen. Each machine has its own built in random numbe...

OK, here is how I would go about masking the fact that I am counting cards like a madman. Order a drink. At least it looks like a drink to surveillance. It can be a coke or club soda, of course, the camera cant tell the difference. It's not smell-o-vision. Engage the other people at the table. Laugh, smile, fist bump, high five and talk with the other players. Talk with the dealer. Flirt with the cocktail waitress. Be friendly, dont sit there stone faced with a 1000 yard stare watching each card as it is delivered or exposed.   Look away from the table once in a while. Especially if the cut card has come out or it is the last hand of a hand held game before the next shuffle. Try to appear relaxed and casual. By the way, you should never get caught off guard by a shuffle. Know the house rule, in this case, how deep the dealer should go in to the deck before shuffling. You dont want to put out a bet that is five or ten times your base bet, only to see the dealer start to s...

I was going to post more about count checks this week, but I got a question from a reader that i decided to answer instead. We'll get back to count checks next week. This readers question, request actually, is for me to outline what I do when I go out to play blackjack. And I will be happy to talk about that, with a couple of warnings. Even though I play baclkjack very seriously, I am not a professional player. There are very few people in the world that can legitimately lay claim to that title. But you can be a good player, maybe what the casino would call an advantage player, without being a professional. What separates a professional from everyone else, is usually the bankroll (which will be a small part of their total net worth) and the proper attitude. You have to have both, otherwise your betting decisions, along with your hit/stand decisions will be tempered by a fear of losing.  Your ability has to be top notch also, of course. You need incredible focus and observation...

Ok, so here is what I would expect some gambling sessions look like, if you are using your powers of observation and the correct mind set to influence your money management and exit strategy. Losing session. Lets start with the bad. Lets say you start with 100 units and you decide to set a stop loss for your self of 60 units. So you buy in for $100 at a Five dollar minimum, single deck table.  Its you and two other people at the table, you sit at third base. At the top of deck you bet 5 units, a lot of small cards come out during the hand, and you win. At a plus 4 with no aces out, you decide to double up, so you bet 10 units. You draw two face cards, but the dealer has a BJ and you lose.  Now the count is minus 1 with 2 aces out, so you drop back down to 5 units and lose again. Shuffle.  You've lost two in a row, so, even though its top of deck, you bet 10. Again, you draw two face cards, but the dealer gets a four card draw to a twenty one. Lose. At minus 4 with 1 ac...

I realize that New Years day is still a week away, but I am getting a jump on resolution to start blogging. I've always wanted to be a writer and everyone says that blogging is a good way to start, so here goes. And also, I have a lot of free time on my hands, having just been fired from a large casino here in Reno, for what basically amounts to having cancer.  I was diagnosed with CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukemia) about 3 months ago.  I won't go in to specifics about what happened, but lets just say that my employer went from "I'll do anything to help" to "you're fired" in record time.  Oh, well. So, this is the start of my blog. I will try to post something new every few days or so, mostly having to do with the industry that I have been making my living at since I was literally 21, but that now no longer finds me to be employable.   See ya soon.