The 50-50-80 Strategy

[heavy]

This particular strategy dawned on me while reading a series of jokes sent to me by my pal Bob this morning. I won't go into the joke itself because the numbers changed for this example. But it just breaks down like this. Craps players are essentially playing an even money game. Either the Pass wins or the Don't Pass wins. The same thing goes for Blackjack - either the Player Wins or the Dealer Wins - and Baccarat - the Player Wins or the Banker Wins - or Roulette - the Red Wins or the Black Wins. Any of the so-called "coin flip" games are essentially 50/50 games. Yeah, I know. The payoffs are skewed so that the house has a slight advantage. In craps, it's 1.41%. Negligible, really.

Now, fast forward over to the Casino Hold reports on the Mississippi Gaming Commission website. I looked at the most recent numbers posted - those for May of this year. It's broken down by region - Northern, Central, and Coastal. The Hold, for those of you who don't know, is the difference between the Drop and the amount in the table's banks at the end of the day. That's why the floor supervisors carefully count the table at the beginning of the shift, track how much money is in every chip fill, and keep track of every color up at the table. If you walk with chips without coloring up it's up to the dealer to provide the boxman with a good estimate of how much you walked with, because that ALL effects the table's HOLD. If the table Hold suddenly drops - the casino suspects someone on that table is stealing chips from the casino. If it suddenly goes up - the casino suspects someone on that table is cheating customers out of chips but not managing to get them off the table.

Anyway, when I averaged the Drop and the Hold for all three regions together for May, the hold percentage came out to about 19.6%. For the sake of this example, we'll call it 20%. It was over 25% in one region, and down around 16% in another. That difference can be explained by the fact that some regions offer better odds on their games than others. And some simply have players who are savvier than others.

So, a 20% Hold. That means the average player who buys in for $1000 will lose $200. Twenty percent of his buy in. The PLAYER will Hold 80% of his buy in. And THAT is if he just make Even-Money bets. Step up to the table and make nothing but $50 Don't Pass bets for the next two to three hours. What do you think the odds are that you'll break even or make a profit? According to long run casino math numbers - you're pretty much assured of losing $200. And that's the casino's 50-50-80 strategy.

Blackjack, by the way, is only slightly better if you can find a 3-2 game with good odds. Baccarat is better still. Some of your favorite games - Three Card Poker, for example, is terrible. Pai Gow Poker isn't much better. Both of those surprised me. Carnival games. Meh.

Gaming commission websites give you a ton of free information if you take the time to browse them. Highly encouraged.

[grinder2017]

Heavy, this still amazes me. I often check in on the gaming's website and it stays pretty consistent with your numbers. It just shows you how many dumb people are out there ( I wish I could phrase that nicer but I'm not the best writer and it is what it is). You would think with all the information available today that people would at least learn basic strategy on black jack before they went to the casino. Many that know the games are just bad gamblers, they play beyond their bankroll, play scared not hitting when they should or make poor prop bets trying to win big on small bets. Thank goodness for all the dumb masses keeping the casinos open for you and me. Thank you also for all your information that you provide to educate us. Just think all those people that turn a 50/50 game into a 20% hold for the casino get to vote. Good luck at the tables fellas and don't be one of the dumb masses.
Cheers
Grinder

[Tgold]

Good posts Heavy/ grinder2017.

I frequently review data from the UNLV Gaming Research Center for long-term revenue.
The following link is from 2000--23. If we scroll down to page 7 (Craps) and the far right column, one can see the Win%(Hold for the casinos). I wonder how much the following Hold % would change if players only wagered one line bet per cycle.

https://gaming.library.unlv.edu/reports ... gaming.pdf

All the best,

[heavy]

Hey T-Gold. It wouldn't change much, because they'd keep playing the same bet over and over until got their gambling "fix" in, then they'd go to the house down almost 20% on average - at least according to those numbers. People are people and they just don't want to change - even when you hit them over the head with the facts.