Bet Gamble Matrix
Not everyone has the bankroll to play at high stakes, purchase a new Rolex, get front-row seats, order bottle service, or dine on some of the absolute best cuisine around while on a trip to Las Vegas.
Sin City isn’t the bargain it once was, but there are still a few lower-cost options to consider when heading to gamble a bit, take in a show, or grab a bite to eat.
Excited by some good fortune, a breakthrough, discovery or realization, you’ve probably heard someone say “bingo!” And you do know that bingo is a type of lotto game, right? I mean, like, come on guys, I’m writing this in the twenty-first century.
But did you know that bingo games require players to use their skills to win? The skills needed to win at bingo include active listening and quick processing. But whatever age you are, you should be able to keep up with other players.
Onlinebingo is played slightly differently because part of the game is automated. Bingo is an easy gambling game to play, and the rules are quite simple. So, what follows is a summary of how to play bingo, but further into this article, I explain bingo rules and what your odds of winning look like.
Knowing how to play bingo is a process of buying scorecards, then listening for numbers being called and marking off any of those numbers found on the cards in front of you.
Each player buys one or more scorecards. The cards have a grid layout design containing an arrangement of random printed numbers (most commonly from 1 to 75).
So how do you play bingo when you’ve bought one or more scorecards?
The objective of the game is to be the first player to mark off a winning pattern that, depending on the rules, the pattern of numbers could be five in a row (horizontally, vertically or diagonally). Other ways of winning are explained below.
To those who’ve heard about bingo the game, the word is probably strongly associated with people over the age of 60 (and those in their late 70s and even older) sitting in community halls, former picture houses or ex-theaters, marking off numbers on scorecards whilst nibbling on cheese sandwiches on paper plates and drinking diluted orange squash from plastic cups. I must admit this was the perceived impression I held about bingo goers for many years.
In 2010, I was invited to attend a bingo hall. At first, I was hesitant. I don’t know if it was the thought of losing concentration, looking around at others, focusing on the bingo numbers being called out, or the fear of ending up undergoing metamorphosis into an old folk, joining along — head down dabbing numbers on bingo tickets hoping to win a jackpot. But I attended a bingo event for research and had a lot of fun playing.
And I discovered I was wrong because bingo is indeed a popular game for people in their 20s to 50s too. Since the early 2000s online bingo has been a huge home for the game and this growing market attracts new players all the time. I think it’s because of the big bingo prizes and relatively low odds of winning.
The UK remains the spiritual home of bingo, and according to the National Bingo Game Association, in 2025 there’re well over 3 million active players in the UK.
I’ve created a chart showing bingo demand every 10 years since the 1900s. As you can see, since the turn of the century, the number of regular bingo players globally has increased — in part because bingo games are accessible via the internet.
The five points I’ve set out below on how to play bingo pertain to the bingo rules.
When it comes to the size of prizes the range of bingo jackpots span from modest to jaw-dropping. I can break this down into three categories.
Large bingo jackpots run into the millions and at least £1 million can be won from a bet costing less than 50 pence. Bingo is a game for those hoping to win huge prizes and you don’t need a large bankroll to stand a chance of winning a big bingo jackpot.
Bingo is popular in U.S. casinos these days. Some of the big casinos promote bingo jackpots ranging from $10,000 right up to $100,000. For example, the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut and the Palazzo in Las Vegas regularly host bingo events with big, guaranteed prizes.
When it comes to daily bingo games at your local bingo hall, depending on the game type and admission costs, you can expect prizes to range from around £50 to £1,000.
Waiting for players to try their luck at landing big bingo jackpots online, sites like 888casino frequently advertise a variety of bingo games, some with progressive jackpots.
Online daily bingo games tend to offer smaller prizes within the £5-£500 range but come with the advantage of convenience and frequency. To attract new players, some sites advertise free games, with real cash prizes as low as £1-£10.
The world of bingo is vast and varied, with venues ranging from glitzy to the humble, traditional to digital. Here are some of the places you can play bingo.
Today, bingo is popular in bingo halls and still popular in homes for the elderly and at community centers. And bingo for fundraising is one of the biggest crowd pullers to this much-loved game — whether in physical locations or online. Charity bingo events for good causes attract jackpot hungry players.
Most casinos have bingo games people can play at their land-based sites and some via their online casinos. The digital bingo revolution has made bingo games accessible 24/7 and 365 from anywhere with an internet connection. Most online bingo games use random number generators, and players can use features like auto-daub to mark off numbers.
***If this article interests you, keep reading. Alternatively, explore other topics like how to win at slots,craps strategy, androulette odds. ***
Visiting a bingo hall for the first time can feel like entering a foreign country where everyone knows the language but you. Below I explain the bingo rules you should be aware of:
Knowing how to play bingo is knowing how the bingo rules work. Understand that the five columns with numbers, represent the letters that form the name of the game—”bingo.”
| Column 1 = “B” and contains numbers from 1 to 15. |
|
Column 2 = “i” with numbers from 16 to 30. |
| Column 3 = “n” with numbers from 31 to 45.The square at the centre acts as the free space. |
| Column 4 = “g” with numbers from 46 to 60. |
| Column 5 = “o” with numbers from 61 to 75. |
A big part of knowing how to play bingo is finding out what the odds of winning are, especially when you play online bingo.
Understanding bingo odds can help manage expectations and potentially improve your bingo playing strategy. The mathematics behind bingo probabilities reveals interesting comparisons with other games of chance.
Your chances of winning bingo games depend primarily on:
For example, in a standard 75-ball game with 100 players each holding one card, your basic probability of winning is 1 in 100 (1%). However, if you play 10 cards, your odds improve to roughly 1 in 10 (10%).
And for a standard 75-ball game requiring a five-number straight line, mathematical models suggest the average number of calls before someone wins are between 41-45 numbers.
Also, for a full-card coverall in 75-ball bingo, expect approximately 62-65 numbers to be called before someone wins.
Bingo odds are substantially better than most lotteries:
Even specialized bingo games with complex patterns offer better chances than scratch-off lottery tickets, which typically offer top prize odds between 1 in 175,000 to 1 in 4 million.
While bingo remains predominantly a game of chance, understanding these odds suggests some strategic approaches as follows:
Players should receive a random set of numbers therefore everyone’s chances of winning are equal. Statistically, you could increase your chances of winning bingo games by buying more sets of numbers. But because games are random there’s no guarantee of gaining any advantage.
When it comes to the culture concerning games of chance, bingo occupies a unique position:
Bingo is a community game, but it’s also a game where strategic gamblers can take advantage of the favorable odds of winning when compared to larger lotto games. The evolution of bingo from community halls to casino floors and onto digital devices demonstrates the game has remarkable adaptability and a flourishing future.
Michael Kaplan
‘s Articles
Everyone loves to gamble. But the unfortunate fact of life is that our top casino games are meticulously designed to favor the house.
Unless you’re the kind of hyper-focused person who deploys an advantage playing strategy that allows gamblers to turn the tables, tilt the odds and out-house the house – those people and their techniques centerpiece my new book Advantage Players – you will essentially pay to play.
Despite that – and here is the good news — in the short run, you can get lucky and leave the casino with your wallet bulging.
But, over time, casino-game mathematics are impossible to overcome. The house edge will catch up with you and take your hard-earned money. That said, there is a way to minimize the bleeding. You can choose to play the games that take the least as long as you approach them correctly.
Here, then, is a plan for enjoying the high-flying risk/reward of gambling while tamping down the risk part.
Play these games, follow simple strategies, and extend your longevity at the tables.
Card counting at blackjack provides players with a tiny edge over the house, but the volatility is serious, there is a small learning curve, and you tend to lose the most when you get unlucky during the best situations – i.e., the times when you are betting peak amounts because the count has gone through the roof.
A simpler approach for those who aim to hit 21 – at a game that is rooted in the 17th century and blew up 400 years later when it became the most popular offering on the casino floor (the name likely stems from a bonus that was once paid to players who had a black-suited Jack and the ace of spades) – is to play perfect basic strategy and to stick with it through thick and thin.
You can sit at the table with a basic strategy card, which will tell you to always split 8s (even against a dealer’s 10) and to double down with 11 against everything except the dealer’s ace. Follow those blackjack strategy rules as if they are law.
This system was created in the 1950s by a quartet of army officers, known as the Four Horsemen. They used military-grade calculators to figure out all of blackjack’s mathematically optimal plays. It worked then and works now.
Stick with perfect basic strategy and the house edge will land somewhere between 0.5 and 2%, depending on the rules (most critically, find games that pay 3-2 on blackjacks). This means that for every $100 you bet, you give up something between 50 cents and $2.
For casual gambling, especially after a few glasses of wine, roulette is a prime option.
Roulette, which was the brainchild of a French physicist in the 1700s (he was trying to invent a perpetual motion machine and wound up with a game that has snagged cameos in moves such as Oceans Thirteen, Batman, and Indecent Proposal), offers opportunities to blow off gambling steam without doing a whole lot of strategizing.
You put your money on a number (with 38 choices, including zero and double zero in the United States) or else go for black or red and hope for the best. It’s simple and fun. Bet on anything but the first five numbers as a group in the United States, and the house edge is 5.26%. If you can’t help but avoid the first five (which you should shun), you’ll be giving up 7.89%.
Play the game in Europe, or just about anywhere in the world outside of America, and the house edge (thanks to the loss of double zero, which yields 37 possible numbers instead of 38) dips to 2.7%.
Take roulette for a spin in the U.S. and you’ll be giving up a little more than $5 for every $100 wagered. Do it in Europe or beyond, however, and each $100 spin will cost a much more palatable $2.70. Sometimes, as is the case here, the European way is the better way. Take that into account when determining your own roulette strategy.
It can be difficult to walk through a casino and not be hijacked by a craps game in full force.
Stemming from a 12th century innovation called Hazard, craps enjoyed a stint as a favorite of back-alley gamblers who only required two cubes and a sidewalk to get things going. These days, the modern casino-version draws crowds and gives off so much energy that it can feel as if the table will levitate.
You’ll see people shouting out all kinds of wagers – boxcars (two 6s), the field (a single-roll bet that the dice will total 2 -4 or 9 – 12), and hard-way (betting that the dice will drop as a chosen number with two matching numbers – like a pair of 3s for a total of 6) – but if you want the best bet at the table, pay those gamblers no mind.
The sharpest craps wager you can make is a pass-line bet – wagering that a point will be reached – followed up with odds on that number. If, say, the point is 6, then take odds on the six, which means you lay down additional chips on the point being made. Miraculously, the odds bet pays at the actual odds of rolling that number – no house edge.
Wagers don’t get any sweeter than that in a casino and taking odds should be part of any craps strategy.
The pass-line bet gives the house a reasonable edge of 1.41%. So, with the odds bet thrown in, you are getting as fair a gamble as you can hope for in a casino. Figure that a $100 pass-line bet and 4x odds for a total of $500 will cost you a bargain basement price of $1.41. Just remember to hold onto your chips when all those longer-odds bets beckon.
Kelly Sun, who famously engineered a multi-million-dollar baccarat spree with the help of poker great Phil Ivey, employed a technique called edge sorting to beat the game big time. Along the way, she was given the nickname Baccarat Machine.
But you don’t need to edge sort to be a baccarat machine in your own right.
Though baccarat, which dates to 15th century Italy (its name supposedly derives from the Italian word bacca, which means zero, and that is the value of face cards in the game), comes off as one of the most elegant gambits in the casino, it is also one of the cheapest to play.
Despite a black-tied James Bond anteing up in movies such as Dr. No, the truth of the matter is that if you bet banker the casino has a totally manageable 1.06% advantage. This makes baccarat affordable even for those of us who are not globe-trotting spies.
Pay a little more than $1 per $100 bet to the casino and you won’t need to stint on the drying cleaning of your tuxedo.
Stephen R. Tabone is an English Writer from Great Britain. He is a casino games professional pattern player and outcomes systemiser. He is the Author of Bestselling Baccarat books, ‘The Ultimate Silver Bullet Proof Baccarat Winning Strategy 2.1’ and ‘The Ultimate Golden Secret Baccarat Winning Strategy 3.0’.
In 2011, Mr. Tabone earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours in Creative Writing and Philosophy from the University of Greenwich, London. And holds qualifications in Law and in Business.
Mr. Tabone has been developing and testing his rule-based gaming systems since 1997 and began publishing these in 2017. As well as Baccarat, he plans to publish books on Roulette, Blackjack and other casino games. He has a fascination with number combinations, cryptanalysis, patterns and is a strong concrete and abstract thinker. He also designs stock market trading concepts.
He is methodical in constructing powerful rule-based betting systems to combat the complex problems of finding ways to profit from randomness. Mr. Tabone’s systems help gamblers improve the way they play casino games. Back in the 90s he even bought his own Roulette Wheel to practice on.
In this article, I write about what I call, “Blackjack Decision Overload” (BDO) and present my blackjack strategy tips so players can think about ways to adjust their gameplay so the stressful effects of BDO are reduced.
Blackjack is often portrayed as a straightforward card game, but there’s a complex interweave of decisions and psychological tension going on that can lead to high levels of player stress.
This is a multi-layered topic where much could be said about why blackjack is stressful i.e. decisions that need to be made and how a number of factors play a role in this. Because this is a short blog post, I’ve had to decide what information you should find the most helpful which includes:
The importance of each decision you or other players make in trying to better your blackjack hands to win money or protect your bankroll is at the heart of the game.
Every blackjack hand involves a number of decisions, but with all the decisions being considered by players in multiple hands, blackjack can be a stressful game. Situations of hands, on the table are in a constant state of flux and uncertainty lingers in the air.
Being required to make rapid decisions in blackjack casino games lays the groundwork for mental overload. Analysis paralysis due to possible options and outcomes and the fear of making wrong decisions are key triggers. Understanding the decisions that cause stressors is crucial for players who wish to design personalized strategies that enhance performance but at no cost to mental well-being.
Blackjack decision overload is the feeling of being overwhelmed by the many choices and possibilities players face within blackjack games. BDO can occur due to factors such as:
The pressures of one or more of the above factors can cause players to experience indecision. Moreover, in the chart below, I’ve included other stress factors that can impact your bankroll.
Unless you’re dealt a 21 blackjack you’re faced with decisions to do or not to do one or more of the following to improve your hands or protect your wagers:
But determining what decisions you’re going to make is largely based on the hand your dealt vs. the dealer’s upcard. This is the key to understanding how to win at blackjack.
All decisions should be based on, optimal pure blackjack basic strategy which gives you a mathematical advantage, because the house edge is narrowed in your favor. Yet depending on the blackjack table rules and number of decks in the game, the rules of your gameplay should alter so basic strategy can be fully effective.
The following examples demonstrate the correct blackjack gameplay:
Your first two cards:
And with three cards or more in one hand your choices are reduced to only hitting or standing.
A hard 17 or 16-value hand limits your decision making and basic strategy is the default gameplay. But a soft 17 hand (where you hold an Ace [value 1 or 11] counted as = 1 plus the 6 card) generally means that the correct basic strategy gameplay is for you to hit when:
Hard and soft 17:
Sticking to the default basic strategy gameplay, is going to test your nerves vs. risking deviating away from a seemingly safe 17. Because you could end up standing with a lower total or more likely busting trying to improve by gaining from 1 to 4 card values higher.
Furthermore, with a soft 17, you’ve got to make another decision whether to limit your hand to only one more card, by taking the double down option. If you double, (where you can) you’re risking more money and limiting your otherwise ability to improve your hand.
Hard and soft 12 to 16:
With hard 12 to 16 the default is hit if the dealer’s up-card is 7 through to an Ace and stand if the dealer’s upcard is 2 through 6.
With a soft 12 to 16 the effect of the stressor is the risk of not improving or coming off worse by hitting, seems to be a lower level than soft 17 hand situations.
But you’re still subject to pressure when having to decide how many cards to take without busting or whether you double down if allowed to.
If you want to advance on the flow state wave of minus 1% house edge in blackjack (down to lows of around 0.5%) you’ve got to ignore your instincts and trust using perfect strategy as your default game plan.
Problem is, even if you do, you’re probably going to stress yourself out just thinking about the what if and kicking yourself when — had you gone against basic strategy, the result would’ve been winning hands.
***If this article interests you, keep reading. Alternatively, explore other topics like craps strategy, roulette strategy, and blackjack side bets.***
Blackjack has similar characteristics to poker, in that, after players lose hands, they overanalyze the scenarios that resulted in those negative outcomes.
But with blackjack, the narrative of each lost hand isn’t as emotional, since hands are based on the order of the cards — without the additional element of player vs. player bluffing and aggressive raising to consider.
Card counting can work in certain circumstances i.e. with a limited number of decks and when constant shuffle machines are not in use. But when it does succeed, card counting only has a slight effect on the house edge. With all the other decisions blackjack players need to decide on, card counting adds another level of stress to games.
I’ve noticed that cards tend to cluster in matching groups or classes. You can evaluate this for yourself with one or more decks of cards. Try to shuffle cards so they are randomly mixed. Then deal them out face up. It’s almost impossible that they don’t cluster in classes here and there.
So, my card counting blackjack strategy tip is to rank the likelihood of what the next card—if only one card is needed or allowed— (or cards) might be based on cards already out. If the majority of cards are:
Rather than counting cards, with just a glimpse of most dealt cards in a round (including any bust hands before the dealer removes the cards) you can narrow likelihood based on two indicators:
If the two indicators just mentioned connect then you could try this as your signal to decide the list of decisions, you need to consider as I outline earlier in this article.
Each player’s hand is in an independent battle against the dealer’s final total. But any player may bust; or by taking or not taking one or more cards, could cause your hand to bust (after you hit) even though your hand is also in an independent battle against what ultimately will be the dealer’s hand.
In this respect, the one or more players before or after your seat have an impact on your hand. Unless a player allows you to decide what happens in their hand you have no control. To mitigate I would:
Take the last seat. This will give you the advantage of:
Play on a table where it’s only you against the dealer. Although there are pros and cons:
Consider opening two boxes with the first box having a lower stake. This will give you the following advantage:
The blackjack strategy tips in this article are aimed at creating a flow state approach to the game. I designed them to counter the indecisive effects of blackjack decision overload and reduce stress — so players are in a mindset to continue making sensible decisions.
As I mentioned earlier, my blackjack strategy tips are open to reflective criticism where you may structure your own to offset the effects of BDO. But remember, whether because of your decisions and or the decisions of other player’s, ultimately the outcome of blackjack hands are in the fate of the order of the cards.
Mastering roulette is a long and lonely road. We will help you keep going. With original ideas, well-thought-out strategies, truthful confessions and experienced guidance, we will be your companion in your pilgrimage to randomness.
Roulette 30 is more than just a source of knowledge with ready made recipes. It’s about creative thinking and developing a new attitude. To understand not only probability or the physics of the wheel, but also the underlying philosophy and psychology of the game. And find the inspiration to move forward in your exciting journey.
Roulette 30 is different than any other roulette site. It’s personal, it’s real, it’s witty and it sticks its neck out. We say it like it is and put our money where our mouth is. We are true roulette players. We played, tested, lost and won. And we are still here to tell the story, share the knowledge and inspire you to take your game to the next level. Free.
Whether you are a novice who wants to learn the rules of the roulette or an experienced player who wants to become a pro gambler, we have you covered. As for December 2018, Roulette30 has officially join 888casino family and you will be able to find all of our posts here or at the roulette strategy section.
Ioannis Kavouras created Roulette 30 in 2010 first and foremost as a project of love and passion. Monetary gains were never a concern. This is still our philosophy: “for the love of the game”. However, although we would prefer from an aesthetics point not to, we do run casino ads on our site. We do this for two reasons.
Most roulette sites out there are in essence casino portal sites that provide some basic info about roulette as an afterthought and as an excuse to appear in search results. They were created with the sole purpose of making money with affiliate casino links. Their owners have no idea about roulette and their contents are copied and paraphrased from somewhere else. And there are also those “roulette expert sites” in which all the content serves only one purpose: to convince you to buy their “winning system”.
There’s nothing wrong trying to make a buck from your site. Everyone would like that, me included. But when your driving force is making money from roulette players and you have no real knowledge or love for the game, then naturally your site will be either a casino promotion prospect with thin real content or even worse a sales pitch about your method of winning full of misinformation and false promises.
Roulette 30 is different. Thanks for reading.
How to Play Roulette for Beginners: Rules, Odds and Payouts
Understand the Roulette Wheel: 10 secrets revealed
The Kavouras Bet Roulette Strategy
How to Calculate Roulette Probabilities (Mathematics)
Roulette Analysis and Statistics: Five Numbers Bet
The 9 Best Winning Roulette Systems
Electronic Airball Roulette: Fair or Fake?
Win Roulette: The Romanosky Secret Strategy
Simply the Best Roulette System for Dozens or Columns
Bias and Hot Numbers System
The Law of the Third
Why the House Edge Can’t Stop You From Winning
11 Free Roulette Books You Must Read
33 Gambling Movies
Labouchere Progression (in-depth Analysis & Variations)
Oscar’s Grind System – Pluscoup Progression
American vs European vs French Roulette Rules and Tables
How to Cheat at the Roulette Table
Can Roulette Computers Predict Numbers and Win
The Psychic Professional Roulette Player
The Martingale Progression
The Secrets of Immersive Live Roulette (Evolution Gaming)
Reversed Labouchere With Stop Loss
Bet Few Vs Betting Many Roulette Numbers
Tier et Tout Roulette System
Square Ro-let: Positional Roulette by Jack Kennedy
Online Roulette, Bots and RNG
7 Rare Personality Traits of the Pro Gambler
Dostoevsky: Life and Gambling in Baden Baden
The Biased Roulette Wheel Attack
Rigged Roulette Wheels (Online, Live, RNG, FOBT)
Pro Gambler Advice: 8 Problems and Tips
The 4 Pillars System (Notes of a Madman)
How 7 Ingenious Cheaters Beat the Casinos
Character and Psychology of the Roulette Player
The Hollandish Roulette System
Math Professors Beat Casino With a Roulette Computer
How to Use and Reverse the d’Alembert Roulette Betting System
Why All Gamblers Lose (From Slots to Poker)
Roulette Vs Stock Market
Using Physics to Create an Electronic Roulette Computer
Tao of Roulette: Make Your Numbers Win
Gamblers Fallacy: The Big Lie?
The Positive Aspects of Loss in Gambling
The Value of Bankroll
Paroli System (Parlay Your Winnings)
Roulette Professional: Life in the Casino
The Roulette Computer Attack at the Ritz Casino
Tips to Win at Roulette for Beginners
Evolution Gaming Live Roulette and Casino Critical Review
Roulette Terms and Definitions (Roulette Betting Glossary)
Online Roulette: 9 Things You Must Know
The History of Roulette in 10 Spins
Roulette Spins. Independent or Related?
Isolation, Creativity and Nietzsche
Gambling Vs Trading (a Comparison)
We Compare the Best Live Roulette Game Providers
The Best Casinos of Las Vegas
Evaluation of Roulette Systems
Introduction to Roulette Betting Systems
The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Audio Book + PDF
How Is It Possible to Beat Roulette?
The Intriguing History of Roulette From Europe to Vegas
6 Benefits and 11 Problems of Online Casinos
3 Astonishing Winning Tips for Online Roulette
Progression Analysis: Fluctuation and Streaks
Personality Test: What Type of Gambler Are You?
Roulette Expectation Vs Probability
Reality Check: Betting Triggers, Probability and Other Mysteries
Claude Shannon, Information Theory and Computers
My Roulette Philosophy
Virtual Roulette: Which Software Provider Leads the Way
High Rollers and High Stakes
Responsible Gambling Tips, Help and Resources
Manage Your Money Smartly in Online Casinos
5 Astonishingly Huge Casino Winners
The Problem of Prediction
Human Brain Vs Computer
Mathematics Vs Thinking Vs Gambling
Introduction to Online Casinos
The Seven Woes of the Pro Gambler
Roulette Player Vs Math Professor (Dialog)
Vintage Gambling Photos
The Immodesty of Gambling
The Top 5 European Casinos
The Amazing Life of Wyatt Earp
How Long Is the “Long Run” in Roulette?
Theory Vs Praxis of Random Events, Probability and Gambling
Scandinavians’ Newfound Love of Online Gambling
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The Significance of the Green Zero
This expert strategy guide explains how to play blackjack when you’ve been dealt a pair of 4s. If you want to activate a lower house edge in blackjack games—you need to make the right decisions by using basic blackjack strategy.
Knowing how to play a pair of 4s can be tricky especially when the stakes are real and the value of the dealer’s upcard is placing you under pressure. This, how to play a pair of 4s blackjack guide is written by blackjack expert Henry Tamburin who’s figured it all out for you, so you’ll know what the best decisions are.
When you are dealt a pair of 4s in blackjack you have three viable playing options:
Which blackjack strategy you should invoke depends upon:
When it comes to a pair of 4s (total hand value = 8), if you want to increase your chances of winning, this blackjack tips strategy guide explains in what situations you should hit, split or double down. Because it contains expert, blackjack game odds analysis, it will help you navigate blackjack rules for pairs of 4s and the use of basic strategy.
The basic strategy for a double- or multi-deck game where doubling down after pair splitting is not allowed (NDAS) is to
If the blackjack rules allow doubling down after pair splitting (DAS)
In a single-deck game, the basic playing strategy is
The following color-coded blackjack charts summarize the basic strategy for a pair of 4s.
(Note: P = Split; H = Hit; Dh = Double Down if allowed otherwise hit.)
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | A |
| H | H | H | H | H | H | H | H | H | H |
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | A |
| H | H | H | P | P | H | H | H | H | H |
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | A |
| H | H | H | Dh | Dh | H | H | H | H | H |
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | A |
| H | H | P | P | P | H | H | H | H | H |
Whether you should hit, split, or double down is based on one of these three criteria:
For example, suppose you are dealt a pair of 4s in a six-deck game with DAS and the dealer’s upcard is a 6, the basic playing strategy (shown in the above chart) states to split. The reason is because using a blackjack splitting strategy has a greater positive expectation of winning than either hitting or doubling down.
In other words, you will win more money in the long run by playing two hands, each starting with a 4, than by either hitting or doubling an 8 (i.e, a pair of 4s).
Here’s another example: suppose you are dealt a pair of 4s in a six-deck game with NDAS and the dealer’s upcard is a 3. Doubling and splitting have negative expectations whereas hitting has a positive expectation, making it the best play.
Understanding the strategy of blackjack pair splitting and knowing exactly when to resplit those 4s can significantly impact your long-term success at blackjack tables.
A final example is being dealt a pair of 4s in a single-deck game against a dealer’s 6 upcard. If the rules specify NDAS, all three viable playing options (hitting, splitting, and doubling) have positive expectations but doubling is more positive making it the better play.
If the playing rules allow you to resplit a pair of 4s, then it is advantageous for you to use a blackjack resplitting strategy.For example:
If the blackjack playing rules don’t allow you to double down on an 8, then you should hit (see single-deck chart above with NDAS).
*** For even more blackjack strategies, check out our article on blackjack side bets. ***
When facing a pair of 4s in blackjack, mastering basic blackjack strategy is crucial for any player aiming to improve their odds of winning. By integrating this knowledge into your overall approach to learning how to play a pair of 4s in blackjack, you can gain a long-term edge of increasing your chances of winning.
You will always win more or lose less if you follow the above basic playing strategy for splitting, hitting, or doubling down on a pair of 4s.
[For a complete basic playing strategy for any set of playing rules, consult Chapter 3 in the Ultimate Blackjack Strategy Guide.]
Is basic strategy used to decide how to play a pair of 4s?
Yes, because basic strategy is a rule-based structure players can use for playing blackjack when faced with pairs of 4s, basic strategy suggests the mathematically advantageous play in the long run.
Does card counting give you an advantage when playing pairs of 4s?
Using basic strategy, the recommendation is you to split against a dealer’s 5 or 6, but some players deviate from this and double their blackjack hand if the card count is 2 or higher.
Card counting is a higher-level blackjack strategy that deviates from basic strategy rules. With a pair of 4s, card counters could work out that certain value cards are due which could lead them to go against basic strategy and try to gain a stronger advantage over the house.
What is the best way to play a pair of 4s in blackjack?
If a player has a pair of 4s, it’s best to split if the dealer’s upcard is 5 or 6. Also, it’s a strong play to double after splitting (if blackjack rules allow) if the dealer’s upcard is 5 or 6. When the dealer’s upcard value isn’t 5 or 6, the best thing to do is to hit to try and improve your hand.
Should pairs of 4s be resplit in blackjack games?
The best way to play a pair of 4s from a single blackjack hand is to resplit if dealt another 4 and blackjack rules allow resplit. It’s best to continue to resplit multiple pairs of 4s if you can.
When to hit with a pair of 4s in blackjack hands?
Try to improve your pair of 4s hand by hitting if the value of the dealer’s upcard isn’t 5 or 6.
*** For further reading, check out our article on roulette odds andcraps strategy. ***
I was not able to attend this year’s Blackjack Ball because of my wife’s unexpected surgery that occurred the week of the Ball. Nevertheless, my good friends Rick Blaine (co-author of the excellent Blackjack Blueprint book) and Max Rubin (co-host of the Ball) provided me with the details that I used to write this article.
As is always the case, this year’s 24th Blackjack Ball was held at a closely guarded, secret location in Las Vegas. The 103 invited guests, which included some of the most dangerous players from the USA and abroad, gather each year to socialize, cast votes to determine who will be inducted into the Blackjack Hall of Fame, and compete in a skills competition to determine who will win the title (and bragging rights) for the “World’s Greatest Blackjack Player.”
(Note: Thirteen members of the Blackjack Hall of Fame attended. There is also a waiting list of players who would like to be invited to the Ball. Each potential candidate must be approved by a committee of Blackjack Hall of Famers.)
The event begins with hors d’oeuvres with plenty of champagne (each guest is required to bring one bottle of “premium” champagne), a delicious buffet courtesy of Barona Resorts and Casino (guests also pony up $100 to defray some of its cost), a charitable Calcutta, and the 21-question test and table competition. There is also an after-party where guests can continue to schmooze and exchange casino stories and blackjack strategies until early the next morning.
The list of attendees includes some of the world’s best (and most dangerous) active and retired advantage players, as well as others who have contributed to the craft. Some of the attendees may be familiar to you: Edward Thorp (inventor of card counting); Johnny Chang (MIT Team); Don Johnson (who beat several Atlantic City casinos out of $15 million); and James Grosjean (considered by his peers to be the world’s best and brightest blackjack player).
This year, there were also several invited guests:
• Jean Scott (recently retired “Queen of Comps,” and author of several popular Frugal Gambling books)
• Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale (who lost more than $13 million in bets on the Houston Astros to win the 2019 World Series to hedge a potential $20 million loss on a promotion at his Houston furniture store)
• Todd Dewey (writer for Las Vegas Review Journal, who wrote an article on this year’s Blackjack Ball that appeared in the 3/1/2020 edition of the newspaper)
• Roger Gross (publisher of Global Gaming Business magazine, the leading trade publication for the gaming industry)
Attendees voted for the following nine nominees. (Note: After you read each of the nominees’ accomplishments, whom would you have voted for?)
Cat was selected as one of BBC’s 100 Women of 2016 – an honor given to “high-profile women from the spheres of entertainment, sport, business and politics.” Chosen for being the first woman to break through the glass ceiling of professional blackjack in 1978, she played on the Czechoslovakian blackjack team in over 300 casinos worldwide. Cat’s aggressive play and fearlessness changed many opinions on the mathematical and emotional capabilities of women to bet it up under pressure.
Selected by Card Player Magazine in 1996 as one of the best and smartest card players in the world, she was one of only eight professional gamblers to be included in Richard Munchkin’s book, Gambling Wizards. Along with teaching a women-only poker class for many years at the Hollywood Park Casino, Cat also wrote Outplaying the Boys, a humorous book and guide for women, published in NYC in 2005, teaching ladies how to become more competitive in life and at the tables.
Cat was featured in LA’s The Daily Breeze and the Sunday LA Times for her top-notch card-playing abilities in blackjack and poker. Also a contestant on Blackjack’s Tournament of Champions, Cat has been a guest on numerous radio shows including NPR, Gambling with an Edge, and BBC’s The Conversation. She is often sought out due to her unusual successful life choices and her mission to change how women are viewed – by men and by themselves alike. On December 7, 2016, the BBC published a biographical article based on her remarkable exploits that claimed to have received a million reads the first day it appeared on their homepage.
Mike was one of the earliest card counters to realize that there were opportunities in blackjack beyond straight counting. Credited by many for creating some of the earlier shuffle- and ace-tracking methods, he was one of the very few APs who could walk through a casino, see a game or procedure, and often design unique plays to exploit new opportunities “on the spot.”
When Mike’s name comes up among those in the know, the word “creative” often begins that conversation. As the brain behind many successful sports and blackjack projects, many famous APs relied on the lessons learned from Mike to accumulate massive bankrolls and mostly all of them attribute money they’ve made over the years to his influence. Renowned professional blackjack players including Tommy Hyland, Bill Benter, John Chang, Peter Wagner, Richard Dougherty, and many, many more often pay homage to Mike for taking their games to new heights.
Although Mike has been inactive for more than ten years due to serious health issues, some of his more clever blackjack “inventions” are still being used by talented APs across the globe to harvest money from casinos that continue to remain unfamiliar with the unique playing and betting techniques that he created decades ago.
Starting in 1981, Mark enjoyed a blackjack career that included many of the usual suspects (counting, shuffle-tracking, etc.). In addition, he traveled the world as one of the early computer players, and was instrumental in pioneering advanced non-counting methods of getting an edge. Many of these exploits are recounted in his book, The Ultimate Edge. Roulette was next, taking over where Doyne Farmer and the Eudaemons had left off and succeeding in a way that had to be seen to be believed. (Book to follow.)
Richard has long been one of the blackjack players casinos fear the most … and most often. Casinos have sent out literally hundreds of flyers, bulletins, and alerts about Richard during his more than three decades as a blackjack “Road Warrior,” and yet he still marches on.
Throughout his long, illustrious and (in)famous career, blackjack has been Richard’s virtually only source of income. No matter how many times the casinos back him off, assault him, and even go so far as to have him arrested for his legal activities, he never stops his relentless attack on their games.
Not only does Richard refuse to be intimidated by casino and surveillance personnel, he’s also “turned the tables” on casinos and extracted hefty scores via profitable lawsuits after suffering through illegal “back roomings” and outright beatings in front of the public on the casino floor on the Las Vegas Strip! As if that weren’t enough to put Richard in the casinos’ crosshairs, as a fearless and fun-loving casino prankster, he’s also pulled off a number of clever and legendary practical jokes that leave everyone (other than the casinos) laughing with glee.
Maria is the co-founder and one-time manager of “The Greeks” blackjack team. Having quit their day jobs as very successful New York attorneys, she, her brother, and highly respected colleagues formed the largest single group of players in history; at one time she simultaneously managed over 40 individual players. She recruited only the top talent, having the most notoriously difficult set of tests required to pass in order to get onto the team. Additionally, Maria’s team won countless millions utilizing a “slash and burn” technique in which BPs would wade into the middle of a game, often betting 3 x $10,000. Needless to say, each BP didn’t last long, but the enormous bets resulted in some of the largest card counting wins in history.
An extraordinary businessperson, she utilized her business acumen, extraordinarily high I.Q. (even among the best of the best), along with common sense to guide the most successful single card counting team this century.
Along with being a master at sequencing, tracking, and now a high-stakes poker professional, Maria is also the only woman to have ever won the coveted title of “World’s Greatest Blackjack Player” at the Blackjack Ball (even in the days when arm wrestling, chip shuffling, card tossing, and more were among the 11 events at the final table).
Not only is Anthony the most successful publisher of professional gambling books in history, with over 100 titles to his credit (including eight by members of the Blackjack Hall of Fame), he is also unequivocally the most famous gambling expert in the world.
With a career spanning some 40 years as a highly successful professional player in blackjack, casino tournaments (of all stripes), sports, and other forms of gambling, he is also the creator of “Couponomy,” as featured in his monthly Las Vegas Advisor (in print and Internet form). The latter is the most successful, longest running, and ongoing Las Vegas gaming publication ever written and published.
As well as being featured on countless high-profile television programs ranging from The Today Show to 20/20 and more, he has also consulted as a gambling expert for Premium Movies (Disney, Ocean’s 13, etc.), and acted as the “go to” writer and expert for scores of print media companies, including The Wall Street Journal, LA Times, Newsweek, USA Today, The London Times, and more.
Norm is the foremost blackjack software developer in the world today, and his line of Casino Vérité products has come to be known as the quintessential tool for analyzing virtually any problem associated with the game of live blackjack. The incredible graphics and the realism of the practice modes of CV have received the highest praise from the thousands of satisfied customers who have honed their skills on this magnificent product.
Norm has made a great many of his computer studies and applications available free of charge on the internet, and you will be amazed at the sophistication of his analyses as you visit his website at qfit.com. A consummate programmer, Norm is an industry legend who continues to provide computer simulations and studies to answer problems on his blackjackforum.com while continuing his blackjack research. His two-volume Modern Blackjack is perhaps one of the most original and comprehensive treatments of the game in print, and represents hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of computer-generated insights into the game not to be found anywhere else.
Blair was a big player on Frank Salerno’s highly successful blackjack team in the mid-’70s. He began playing solo in 1971 and continued to run his own team in the late ’70s.
In 1977, Blair was intrigued by the financial markets and became a market maker on the Pacific Stock Exchange, where he founded Hull Trading. Using quantitative models, Hull Trading became one of the world’s premier market-making firms, trading on 26 exchanges in nine countries until being sold in 1999 to Goldman Sachs for $531 million. Worth Magazine named him one of “Wall Street’s 25 Smartest Players.”
In 2004, Blair sought the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in Illinois in a race that was won by Barack Obama. He currently serves as manager of Hull Tactical Asset Allocation (HTAA), which uses macro-economic, fundamental, and sentiment data along with machine-learning techniques to predict moves in the S&P 500.
Lance (deceased in 2016) was a university professor in Toronto who became fascinated with card counting at casino blackjack in the early ’70s after reading Blackjack Hall of Fame member Edward Thorp’s Beat the Dealer. Lance hired Thorp’s computer whiz, BJHoF member Julian Braun, to devise playing strategies for two counting systems he christened as Hi-Opt 1 and Hi-Opt 2 that Braun also tested via computer simulation, finding them to be quite powerful versus the typical Las Vegas rules and conditions. Lance started selling these systems via mail order in the mid-’70s, at which time he founded the International Blackjack Club and started publishing a newsletter that primarily printed reports from card counters on their experiences and win/loss results in Las Vegas casinos. He also hired BJHoF member Peter Griffin to devise multi-parameter (side-count) tables for his Hi-Opt systems.
Lance is primarily known as the co-author (with Carl Cooper) of The World’s Greatest Blackjack Book, published in hardcover by Doubleday in 1980, with a second edition published in paperback in 1987. Doubleday had extensive distribution and the Hi-Opt systems were soon among the most widely used card-counting systems throughout the ’80s. Because the Hi-Opt systems required a side-count of aces, they fell out of favor with players who preferred the simpler systems, like Hi-Lo. But Lance was responsible for bringing many thousands of serious players into the game in the ’70s and ’80s.
Congratulations to Anthony Curtis for being voted by his peers into the prestigious Blackjack Hall of Fame.
Note: Curtis garnered almost twice as many votes as the second place finisher. The other contenders are listed in the order of votes received: Mike Michalek, Maria the Greek, Blair Hull, Cat Hulbert, Mark Billings, Richard Dougherty, Norm Wattenberger, Lance Humble.
Curtis now joins an illustrious group of blackjack luminaries in the Blackjack Hall of Fame. (You can view the physical Blackjack Hall of Fame at the Barona Resort and Casino, located in San Diego, California.) The up-to-date listing of the members of the Blackjack Hall of Fame (and the year they were inducted) follows:
Al Francesco (2002)
Peter Griffin (2002)
Tommy Hyland (2002)
Arnold Snyder (2002)
Edward O. Thorp (2002)
Ken Uston (2002)
Stanford Wong (2002)
Max Rubin (2004)
Keith Taft (2004)
Julian Bruan (2005)
Lawrence Revere (2005)
John Chang (2006)
James Grosjean (2006)
Roger Baldwin, Wilbert Cantey, Herbert Maisel, and James McDermott, collectively known as the “Four Horsemen of Aberdeen” (2008)
Richard Munchkin (2009)
Darryl Purpose (2010)
Zeljko Ranogajec (2011)
Ian Andersen (2012)
Robert Nersesian (2014)
Don Schlesinger (2015)
Bill Benter (2016)
Don Johnson (2017)
Wally Simmons (2018)
Rob Reitzen (2019)
Anthony Curtis (2020)
Next on the agenda was the charitable Calcutta, which is sort of pari-mutuel wagering where the attendees can bet on who they think will win the coveted Grosjean Cup and title of “World’s Greatest Blackjack Player.” Below is the list of the seeds (i.e., THE PLAYERS) where attendees were slotted into an appropriate grouping. The second column (BEST FINISH) shows the results for each seed in previous Balls. Max posted the opening odds of winning (on his overhead slide at the Ball) for each seed, and then started the bidding. (The first row titled THE FIELD is everyone else who isn’t listed in another team.) Attendees in each seed are also allowed to purchase up to 50% of themselves from the highest bidder.
The competition for the title (and bragging rights) as the “World’s Greatest Blackjack Player” consists of several rounds, the first being a challenging 21-question written test followed by a series of subsequent rounds conducted on a blackjack table that test the player’s card-counting skills.
(Note: The written test includes a mix of questions on blackjack, gambling trivia, and general knowledge because, as Rubin puts it, “A world-class blackjack player should know lots of stuff because you never know when it might come in handy.”)
Below are instructions read by Rubin prior to reading the test questions. Put on your thinking cap and try to answer them.
Blackjack Ball 2020: Round One Questions
In order to eliminate opportunities for mischief, as always, as you fill out your game card, you must completely answer each true or false question or multiple-choice question and fill in the blank before we move on to the next question. All answers must be marked with dark ink. You cannot change your answer once you have marked your card. If there are any blanks or changed answers when your graded card is turned in, you will be disqualified. It’s happened before, right Anthony? So be sure to complete every answer. One time only ‒ with NO revisions.
Please write your name on your card now to make sure that your pens are working. If they aren’t, hold up your hand and we’ll bring you another one.
Also, those who look at their cell phones for any reason, other than to take an emergency call ‒ in which case we will all wait until that emergency has been dealt with ‒ will also be disqualified from play. You are allowed to use the back of your playing card to calculate your answers.
You may only play with one card and only write on the back of that card. All who haven’t completed their single cards within 45 seconds after the last question has been asked will be eliminated.
Anyone on a team can buy a piece, including if you’re in the field, you can buy a pro-rata share, so EVERYBODY CAN BE IN ACTION.
MAKE SURE YOU PENS WORK. READY? HERE WE GO.
I’ll read each question twice. Ready?
1. True or False? In his playing career, Hall-of-Famer James Grosjean has had a royal flush ON THE BOARD in Ultimate Texas Hold’Em; five Aces WITH A PAIR in Pai Gow Poker; and suited Quads in a 5-deck Spanish 21 game (meaning his first two cards and the dealer’s upcard and hole card were all the exact same rank and suit). In the past year, Hall-of-Famer Darryl Purpose had five consecutive blackjacks on the same spot in an 8-deck blackjack game. True or False? Darryl’s feat of five consecutive blackjacks is the most unlikely out of these rare hands.
2. Which of these games that modern blackjack evolved from is the oldest? You may pick one of two answers that are correct.
a) Quince from France
b) Vingt-et-Un from France
c) Treinte y Uno from Spain
d) Trentuno from Italy
e) Sette e Mezzo from Italy
f) None of the above
3. How many standard clay casino chips would you have to stack to equal the height of a single chip standing up on its edge?
Fill in the blank: _______________
4. True or False? The “Data on the Nevada Gaming Abstract” from December 31, 2010 and ending on December 31, 2019, spans precisely nine years.
5. Which one of these businesses was founded as a Playing Card Company?
a) GLI
b) Bally’s
c) Nintendo
d) Harrah’s
e) Atari
f) None of the above
6. Spell Souvenir.
7. True or False? In 1910, Nevada passed a law outlawing all forms of legalized gambling. However, in 1915, Nevada legalized blackjack.
8. Another from blackjack’s Jedi Master (aka James Grosjean): Your aspiring blackjack wizard nephew tells you that for his 18th birthday this Tuesday, he wants to go to the Indigo Sky casino and turn his $5 bankroll into a fortune, without any help from you. He has only $5 on this earth. What additional bad news will you have to tell him about his plan?
a) The gambling age there is 21, so he will have to find a different casino.
b) There is almost no chance of finding a $5 table at the Indigo Sky.
c) Even if he finds a $5 table, he’ll need to give his ID to get a player’s card.
d) Casino security might ask him to remove his “MAGA” hat at the door.
e) The Indigo Sky has only slot machines, no table games.
9. This one could be a little tough for all of you, since by coming to the Blackjack Ball you’re all on your honor to NOT play at Barona. Now, while Barona generally has the most full-pay, pitch 21 games in the world (because they don’t have to worry about your setting up shop down there) and they’ll NEVER rip off their players with those ridiculous 6/5 games, Barona does have a LOT of other different blackjack games, because their players love them. Which one of these blackjack games is NOT currently being played at Barona?
a) Blackjack Switch
b) Dragon Blackjack
c) Down Under Blackjack
d) Zap it Blackjack
e) Zombie Blackjack
f) Double Deck Free Bet Blackjack
10. True or False? According to several respected publications, blackjack, in which players receive a bonus for having a natural, was invented, named such, and began play on riverboats and Wild West casinos in the 19th century. So according to those publications, the name blackjack and the enhanced 3/2 payout were invented, introduced, and played for the first time within the confines of the current contiguous 48 United States.
11. This is another Grosjean special: You walk into a Midwest casino and see that every table has a posted maximum of $100. If you knew that your starting two cards would be a suited Ace and King, which game would be worth the most money, assuming you only play the main game, and not the side bets?
a) 6:5 single-deck
b) 6:5 single-deck with “even money” allowed if the dealer shows an Ace up
c) Three Card Poker
d) Ultimate Texas Hold’Em
e) Mississippi Stud
12. Fact: As of December 31, 2019, downtown Las Vegas had fewer blackjack games of all stripes than they had as of December 31, 2010. Within 50, how many games were lost?
13. True or False? In Deuces Wild video poker with any pay schedule, you are exactly 10 times as likely to be dealt a wild royal flush (i.e., a royal flush containing one, two, or three deuces) than you are to be dealt four deuces.
14. In which of the following video poker games would the value of a suited AK be greater than the value of a suited AQ?
a) Triple Bonus Poker
b) Triple Bonus Poker Plus
c) Triple Double Bonus Poker
d) A suited AK is always more valuable than a suited AQ in these games.
e) A suited AK is never more valuable than a suited AQ in these games.
15. This is a two-part question: What are the most points that either a Division 1 NCAA or NFL football team can lose by in overtime? You must have the correct number and league.
16. True or False? The Silver Reef Casino that offers blackjack in Washington State is geographically north of the Casino de Montreal, in Montreal, and the Woodbine in Toronto.
17. You are playing head’s up No Limit Texas Hold’Em and are dealt AK of hearts. Would it be easier to flop a set, or flop a 3-of-a-kind from this position?
a) Flopping a set would be easier.
b) Flopping 3-of-a-kind would be easier.
c) They are the same.
18. Here’s another beauty from James. Although the law was later overturned, in 2010 the Black Hawk city council passed an ordinance banning which one of the following from all its casinos?
a) Bicycles
b) Dice games
c) Smoking
d) Bets exceeding $100
19. True or False? The Rolex Pearlmaster Oyster Perpetual Date Just is a lovely watch that will set you back $40,000 to purchase – or what some gentlemen in this room would call a cheap watch. True or False? The numbers on the watch are all typical Roman numerals – other than the twelve, which is replaced by the Rolex logo, and the three, which is replaced by the current day of the month.
20. You’re a BP in a casino where no one knows basic strategy at all, so cover plays are unnecessary. The dealer has a 2 upcard. You hit your hard 8 and make a 16, and your beast of a hole-card spotter tells you to stand. Which of the following is not true?
a) The dealer could have a 2 in the hole.
b) The dealer could have a 9 in the hole.
c) The dealer could have a 10 in the hole.
d) As a BP, my job is to follow signals, not try to infer what the hole card is.
e) They are all true.
21. And we finish with one last question courtesy of James. Make sure to answer this one and everything else on your card within 45 seconds after I repeat it. Here we go: Assuming the dealer always plays out her hand and you’re playing blackjack on a six-deck, H17 game in which everyone still in action ties if the dealer busts with a 22, within one percent, what are the chances that the dealer will bust with exactly 22? I’m going to repeat the question one more time and then you will have exactly 45 seconds to finish your card. Any blank answers will result in a DQ. I’ll repeat it one more time. And good luck.
Note: You’ll find the answers to the test questions in Part 2 of this article (including the names of the players who had the most correct answers) as well as a summary of the subsequent rounds in the competition for the “World’s Greatest Player,” and who won the competition.
For more details on the background of the Ball, read my article on the 2019 Ball or the section on the Blackjack Ball in my Ultimate Blackjack Strategy Guide.
Roulette is a game of numbers with three colors thrown in; red, black and green (sometimes the color blue substitutes for green). Players can bet on one number and on as many as 37 numbers in the European game and 38 numbers in the American game. They can also bet on the propositions of red or black, high or low, odd or even.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The European game of roulette, called the single zero (0) game, has the numbers 1-36 with every other number colored as red or black and with one single number, the 0, colored green or blue. The American game of roulette, which is the most popular roulette game in the world, has the numbers 1-36 in either red or black, and a zero (0) and double-zero (00) in green or blue.
[Please note: Strangely enough, the American double-zero game (0, 00), which is the most popular in the world, is not as good a game as the European single-zero game (0). The American game is almost twice as tough to beat.]
While the game of roulette is somewhat leisurely in the average number of decisions played each hour, the house edges are somewhat challenging. The American game has a house edge of 5.26 percent, while the European game has an edge of 2.7 percent. Translated into money, the American game costs the player an average of $5.26 per $100 wagered, while the European game comes in with an average loss of $2.70 per $100 wagered. Given a choice, the roulette player should play the European game.
Saying something has an average loss of “x” amount for $100 wagered does not mean that for every $100 wagered the player is out “x” amount. It means that over time the losses will average as “x” amount for every $100 wagered. Players can win; they can lose, and they can break even on any given session.
[Please note: In 1958, the “Jones Boys” won $32,000 at roulette in Las Vegas. Many players have won more than that because a large win can also mean the player might be betting a large amount.]
First let me give you how the edges at the game are determined and then I’ll take most of the bets and we’ll see how these fit right in with the overall house advantage.
Interestingly enough, there is one option at the game that can give players only half the house edge at roulette at some casinos at some bets. I’ll get to these later in this article.
The American double-zero wheels have a 38 number game for the players. On average each number should appear once every 38 spins. In a fair game, meaning a game where the casino has no edge whatsoever, a win for the player should return $37 for every $1 wagered. The player will, however, lose $37 and thus the game is an even contest.
An even contest cannot be a long-term win for the casino, so the payback for the game is altered to give the casino a 5.26 percent edge. How is the payback altered? For every one-dollar wagered, the casino will only award a win of $35 on a number instead of $37. That $2 difference gives the casino its edge. Just divide 38 numbers into 2 and you get 5.26 percent.
[Please note: The Pierre Basieux Team won $153,000 in Bad Wiessee. Germany in 1981]
Some players consider that 5.26 percent edge as a tax the casino charges the player to play. Calling it a tax is fine with me. Whatever a player wishes to call it simply means the casino actually takes away money from a player’s payout in order to pay its bills. I guess even casinos have bills.
The European wheel operates the exact same way with one major difference. It has only 37 numbers. So instead of paying the player $36 for a winning bet of $1 in a fair game; it pays $35 and keeps $1, making the edge 2.7 percent. Just divide 37 into 1 and it equals 2.7 percent; an average loss of $2.70 per $100 wagered. Those darn taxes!
When a player bets directly on an individual number or directly on more than one number, such a bet is called an inside bet or a straight bet or a straight up bet. The more money bet this way means all that money is subject to the house edge. It doesn’t matter if you are betting $50 on one number or $50 spread out on five numbers, the house edge relentlessly grinds away at that $50.
[Please note: In 1873, Joseph Jaggers won $325,000 in Monte Carlo. Imagine what the inflation rate of that amount would be!]
You can also bet inside by putting a single chip on a line that incorporates two or more numbers. In this way you do not have to bet more money to cover more numbers. The house edge remains the same for these bets. Here are some inside bets of this type:
The Split Bet: If you want to bet two numbers just put your chip(s) on the line between those numbers. A win pays 17 to 1.
The Street Bet (also called the side bet, the trio, or the 3-number bet): Yes, this bet has a lot of names but they all mean the same thing; you are betting three numbers. You put the bet on the outside line that contains the three numbers on which you wish to wager. A win pays 11 to 1.
The Corner Bet (also called the square or the 4-number bet): Bet is placed on the square where all four numbers meet. A win pays 8 to 1.
The Beast Bet (also called every dirty name in the book!): Here you are betting that the first five numbers will hit. This bet (hold your breath!) has a 7.89 percent house edge and can only be found at the American game. A win pays 6 to 1 and perhaps proves you’ve lost your mind. Do not bet this monster.
The Line Bet (or the sixline bet or 6-number bet): You’d think this bet would be called the half-dozen bet. The roulette payout is 5 to 1.
[Please note: In 1951, the Helmut Berlin team won $420,000 in Mar del Plato in Argentina.]
These bets can be found along the outside of the main layout. You are betting on a proposition that contains many numbers. The house edge remains 5.26 percent for the American game and 2.70 percent for the European game. There is one (beautiful) exception which I will get to in the end. This exception gives the players a big, big break at the game of roulette.
You are wagering that one of the columns of numbers on the layout will have the winning number. You place your bet at the bottom of the column that you think will win. A winning bet is paid 2 to 1. Each roulette column has 12 numbers. The 0 or 00 are not a part of either column so if either one of these two show the wager is lost.
The bet is whether one of a roulette dozen numbers on the layout will hit. These are not a dozen consecutive numbers on the wheel; they are strictly layout numbers. You place this bet on First Dozen, Second Dozen or Third Dozen. You can bet two of the dozens. The payout is 2 to 1. Again the 0 or 00 will cause your bet to lose.
[Please note: The roulette wheel and the roulette layout are two totally different things. The numbers on the wheel are not in order, in fact most of the numbers are directly across from each other, as in 2 is across from 1, but the layout has the numbers in numerical order. Strange as this seems, some roulette players are not aware that the wheel and the layout handle the numbers differently.]
To be placed on either the Odd or Even section of the layout. There are 18 roulette odd numbers and 18 roulette even numbers but this is not an even or fair game because neither the 0 or 00 count for either bet and if one of the zeroes hits the house wins; the player loses. The winning bet is paid even money which means one-to-one and that is why this is called an even-money bet. Not paying on the 0 or 00 keeps the house edge consistent on all even-money bets.
This is another even-money bet that you can pick the color of the number that will hit. There are 18 black numbers and 18 red numbers. Again, if the 0 or 00 hits, the bet is lost and this factor maintains the house edge.
You can bet low numbers 1-18 or high numbers 19-36 on this proposition. As with all of the even-money bets the house wins if the 0 or 00 appears.
On all the even-money bets the player has 18 ways to win and 20 ways to lose in the American game and 18 ways to win and 19 ways to lose in the European game.
[Please note: In 1971 Richard Jarecki won 1,280,000 in Monte Carlo and San Remo.]
We saw that the beast bet of five numbers at the American game (0, 00, 1, 2, and 3) came in with a ridiculously large 7.89 percent house edge – an average $7.89 loss per $100 wagered. Otherwise all the house edges on all the bets at the American game and the European game remain the same. But there is a good “however” to this fact. Some casinos offer you a better game on the even-money bets, a far better game than normal. In fact, a game that allows the percent of the house edge to be reduced in half.
There are some casinos offering the American 0 and 00 game that will take only half of your losing even-money bets should the 0 or 00 be the decision. That means a $10 bettor will only lose $5 on the even-money bet.
Is this a good thing? It sure is. The house edge is reduced from 5.26 percent down to 2.63 percent!
You might have to ask the dealer if this bonus is available at their casino. Most of the time you will not see a sign indicating the casino offers surrender. So ask! Playing roulette on the even-money bets with surrender is the only way to go at the game when this option is available.
The European single 0 game has its own version of surrender titled en prison which also cuts the house edge in half. If the 0 comes up and the player’s bet loses, the bet stays in the box for the next decision. This bonus cuts that 2.7 percent house edge down to 1.35 percent. Now the even-money bets at the game become some of the best roulettebets in the casino.
Just as with the surrender option at the American roulette game, it would be foolish not to wager exclusively on the even-money bets at the European game. Again, you’d have to ask if the casino allows this bonus.
[Please note: If you are a high roller, it is possible that the casino might allow you to play those even-money bets with either surrender or en prison. Casinos will sometimes make special exceptions for the high rollers. Indeed, some casinos will offer to give back half of a high-rolling player’s losses.]
Roulette is certainly a numbers game and the biggest numbers are how much money you have as a bankroll and how much money your betting levels are. You must stay on top of your wins and losses and never bet over your head when the enthusiasm and thrills get to you.
[Please note: From 1986 through 1989, the Billy Walters Team won $4,810,000 in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.]
All the best in and out of the casinos!