The Winning Room
• • • • •

Yes, there ARE a few gambling secrets that can help you beat the casino. In the nine years I worked at the Leelanau Sands Casino near Suttons Bay, Michigan, I saw a lot of hopeful schemes and ideas. Some of them even worked. Here are a couple examples.

Card Counting Secrets

Card counting is a technique for beating the house at the blackjack tables. If the deck is “rich” enough in face cards (10,J,Q,K), the odds tilt slightly in favor of the player. This has been proven statistically. The idea then, is to monitor the cards as they come out, and when the deck has many face cards left in it, bet more. If you bet less when the house has the edge, and more when you do, you can make money in the long run.

This is a simple explanation, and you need to study a good counting book (and practice) to make this work. Your play needs to be precise to really have the edge. One gentleman I dealt to for years would sit at the table for hours, almost always betting the $2 minimum. I watched as he shifted chips from one hand to another, his way of tracking the “plus or minus count.” Then, when the shoe (five decks of cards) happened to be rich enough in face cards, he would suddenly be betting two hands at $20 each.

I am fairly certain that he made money, but not much. Depending on how well you do it, and how many decks are used, you may only get a 1.5% edge on the casino overall. If between your minimum bets and the others you average $8 per hand, and the dealer deals 75 hands per hour, you’ll make about $9 per hour. That assumes you can tolerate alternating losing and winning days and hours of concentration. Betting more brings that hourly rate up, of course, along with the risk of bigger losing days.

Roulette Secrets

For years I watched people foolishly writing down the numbers that came up on the roulette wheel. I say foolishly, because their their theories were mostly nonsense. Most casinos will always welcome these players and even hand them the pen and paper.

There was one player, however, who was actually scientific about it. He found a bias in the wheel, after “charting” it for 5,000 spins. This means he simply wrote down every number that came up during that time.

Once he identified the bias, he made thousands betting on just one or two numbers. When a number comes up (the ball lands in that pocket), it pays 35 to 1. In this case, one of the numbers, because of manufacturing imperfections or whatever, was coming up 1 in 27 spins, instead of the average 1 in 38 spins (There are 38 numbers on most American wheels).

This guy bet $10 a spin, and he profited $90 for every 27 spins of the wheel in the long run (a $350 win minus 26 losing bets of $10 each). When I ran the wheel, I often was doing over 50 spins per hour, so if you can do the math you can see he was doing well. The ups and downs are dramatic though, so this isn’t for the faint-hearted. I watched this player lose $700 some nights, but he later confided that he profited over $80,000 before the casino changed the wheel.

Promotional Gambling Secrets

Learn to figure the odds. Casinos often give the edge away for various promotional reasons. If you know when the odds are in your favor, you can take advantage of these promotions. For example, one man made thousands betting the “money wheel,” which is normally the worst bet in the house. However, in this case the casino was selling $20 in tokens for $10, with no limit on purchases. The man played the tokens once each as required, then repeatedly cashed in the real chips he was paid with, and bought another $20 for $10. When the odds are in your favor, it’s investing, not gambling, and that may be the most important of these gambling secrets.

Steve Gillman has been hunting down obscure knowledge and useful secrets for years. Learn more and get a free gift at: The Secret Information Site (http://www.TheSecretInformationSite.com)

Betting exchanges are a recent introduction into the betting world that
have taken the UK gambling community by storm. In the past, bets had
to be placed with bookies, where the punter would back a team or entity
and the bookie would lay the bet. In this system, the bookie would lay
the bet backed by the punter and offer the odds. Betting exchanges cut
out the bookie and allow punters to both back and lay bets and offer
odds. In this sense, they work not unlike stock exchanges. This article
will primarily discuss bet laying on races and how to effective use a
horse racing system to find your horses and lay the right odds to
maximize the opportunity for a payout.

It is probably worthwhile at this point to discuss what is meant by
“laying a bet.” When you lay a bet, you are betting that a particular
horse will lose. This is the position that the bookie typically takes.
Betting exchanges seek to hook up those who back and lay a horse and
allow them the opportunity to agree on odds. At this point, simple math
comes into the equation, and it is time to find a strategy. Any horse
racing system that focuses on lay betters needs to keep several
considerations in mind.

The first thing any horse racing system will tell you is that you
should never stake more than you can afford to lose. Betting is at its core
a game of chance and even the most careful horse racing system will
experience bad luck occasionally.

Another thing to keep in mind when building your horse racing system is
to remember that you don’t have to bet on every single race. Do your
homework, study the horses, study the tracks, and study the conditions
forecasted for race day and when you find that backers are willing to
take odds that you feel are in your favor, then it is time to lay your
bets. If you cannot get odds that you feel are favorable, it is best to
sit that particular race out.

Another thing to remember when consulting or forming your own horse
racing system is that you should not throw good money after bad. After
experiencing a run of bad luck, a punter may feel inclined to place
larger and larger bets in an effort to recover monies lost. While this
strategy may get you out of trouble on the rare occasion, it is almost
always a sure loser. Remember, in the game of gambling, losing money is a
part of life and a run of bad luck should not cause one to change their
strategy. Any horse racing system that changes based on the results of
a few previous races is a weak one at its foundation and it should be
discarded for a more consistent horse racing system.

It is possible to make money laying bets, but it is always necessary to
do your homework and be prepared for losses. Gambling in any form is
not for the faint hearted. Now, go out there, pick those sure losers,
offer odds and have fun! In the end, you may be able to make a little
bit of money as well.

Jay A has created a Horse Racing
Systems which Selects UK horses to Lay on Betting Exchanges ,visit his
website
http://www.horselayingsystem.com for more details.

After a hand is completed in online poker you’ll never find me showing my cards, win or lose, to the rest of the table. I always muck. In fact my settings are pre-selected to “always muck”. You pay to see my cards, and if I’ve lost a hand online there can be no reason to show my beaten hand. But now I ask myself if this is the best strategy? Because there are times in poker when it pays to show. That’s certainly true in live-game poker, but what about the online variety, which is a very different animal? Let’s look at this in more detail, especially as it pertains to online poker.

There are three very good reasons to show your hand when you have won a pot. The first is to create confusion in the minds of your foes. The second is to provide disingenuous information. The third reason is to get under everyone’s skin, and hopefully push some poor rube over the edge and on tilt. An example is when you win a hand with a stone bluff. You advertise those rags. Players are wondering how you could stay in with such slop, never mind bet, raise, or re-raise. Players might wonder out loud, and even get slightly miffed. All the better.

There are times when you want to show only one of your hole cards, something you cannot do on any of the online poker rooms, at least not to my knowledge (as yet – note to poker software developers: add that functionality, namely “show one hole card only”. It could be to online poker what the double-click was to computers, and if there are any royalties you know where to find me.) So this is a tactic of misinformation that only works in a live-game, and it can work very well.

Showing your cards can also be a forward-thinking strategy at your local card room in that it helps to create a table persona for you. Players now think you play very loose based on that bluff, and next time you come out firing it will be tough for them to put you on any hand. This is advisable if you’re about to spend a long session facing a mostly unchanging table.

Now for the cons of showing your cards online. First of all the value of a table persona is diminished in online poker because of the incredibly high rate of player turnover. You’re advertising for people who won’t be there in five minutes time, let alone five hours time, and who probably are not paying attention in any case. The fact is that in a number of online games the only players who will notice your hand are those still in the pot. The others have run to the kitchen before the cards are in the air for the next hand. Showing your cards online frequently looks like inexperience and nothing more.

I think a good player gains a lot by seeing other player’s cards at the conclusion of a hand, and my advice to rookies or even intermediate online players is to never show unless you are compelled. The good players already have an edge over you – why give them an even bigger advantage? There is no greater sign of weakness then when a beaten player still feels the urge to show the table his second-best hand. Your K9 outkicked by a KA? Don’t show me that in the misguided hope that I’ll feel sympathy for your plight. All I’ll feel is delight that you handed me a glaring weakness in your game, and the next time you play with a weak kicker like that pathetic 9 I’ll be right there to pick up the pieces.

You can read Marc’s general musings about online poker at http://www.online-poker-insider.com. Marc is a poker nut, there’s no other way to put it.

You may have noticed that while using your poker calculator it displays your hand odds while also using terminology like “hand rank”, “group”, or “group rank” all of which in some way or another refer to author David Slansky’s Group Hand ranking for hold’em poker. Originally described in the classic book, “Hold’em Poker for Advanced Players”, Slansky rated all the starting hands and put them in groups according to their similar win rate.

By clustering hands based on win rate and strength, it’s easier to keep track of basic betting strategies associated with each individual hand. For example, in Slansky Group 3 hands you will find 99, AQ, ATs, and JTs among others. The best cluster though is Slansky’s Group One which includes AA, AKs, KK, QQ, and JJ. They are going to show very high percentage win rates on your poker calculator as well as “raise, and re-raise” recommendations.

In adopting the Slansky Group of Hands your poker calculator could in effect make you a “book player”, because many, especially the mathematical poker calculators don’t take other factors into account at the poker table. However, as a guideline, your poker calculator is going to have the exact odds, and correct mathematical indication served up for you, David Slansky style.

Poker calculators have adopted this because, well they are just software designed by programmers, and not necessarily poker enthusiasts, but Slansky is a Poker icon, educator, and author. I have had several poker calculators running at the same time for testing, and have found very similar results and percentage recommendations, because they generally use the same statistical backbone as Slansky Group of Hands.

The difference between them lie in how their other features are factored in, such as how it monitors your position, how many players in the pot, how many tight or aggressive players, stage of a tournament, and if a player’s stake is up or down significantly.

Although published years ago, by using The Slansky Group of Hands, poker software offers credibility to the ranking system, although it sure didn’t need it. Professional players have known these rankings and what to do with them for years. Seasoned opponents will also know how to use them against you, if you are an obvious book player, so mixing it up is always a good idea.

Some other books published by David Slansky include The Theory of Poker, Tournament Poker for Advanced Players, and Hold’em Poker.

The people you meet at a craps table have any personality you can think of and a diverse group of characters. Many of these craps players will become your friends but others will have made it a fleeting visit to both the casino and a detoured stop at the table, so you are unlikely to ever see them again. What brings all of these different people together is one common goal. Every single player who has ever played or thought about playing craps pursue the once in a lifetime “monster roll”.

The much-dreamed of monster roll is borne out of greed. You can accumulate a lot of money from a craps table during a 20 minute roll if you know what you are doing. Most people won’t because they are just pressing and so never pick up the first chip. Others at the table are content (not happy mind you, but content) with small but steady mediocre wins. The majority, however, will be waiting on the table to run for the monster roll which will stand in a class of its own and give them something to brag about for years and years to come.

It’s often said you will only see one of those rolls in your entire lifetime although some people, usually those full of hot air, claim many more than one while others are just waiting on that “one roll” so they can call it a day and go home. If one of these rolls is experienced the player will just anticipate the next one, it is unlikely a dedicated craps player could give up the game altogether after taking the casino to the cleaners.

Craps is a lot like life in that when things are going good the optimist will expect that to continue because in life, it often does. The pessimist will rely on the “what goes up must come down” theory and full expect something bad to happen at any time following a spate of good fortune.

In craps, if you ever have the opportunity to catch “the monster roll” please understand there will be many other rolls which may not be as exciting as “the big one” but can still be very profitable.

You never know, a life changing moment may begin with the very next roll and it would be a shame for you to miss out on the thrill and more importantly, the profits!

David Walker runs online casinos UK and free bets websites. A free email course: “Seven Days to Better Betting” is available at both of these websites.

Founded in 1999, Playtech develops gaming applications for online gambling industry. Online casino, poker, bingo, lives gaming, land-based kiosk networks and fixed-odds games are some of the gambling applications that Playtech develops. Playtech also offers universal gaming platform that can be scaled to accommodate various players and games from the Playtech bouquet.

Playtech is also known for its innovation and its constant endeavor to offer exciting and creative games to its players. This is clearly evident with their newest edition, Titan Poker. Titan offers some of the best poker graphics and experiences availible today and only compliments Vegas Red and Casino Tropez. Their commitment to quality is also remarkable. Playtech’s clear focus on technology driven products also adds to their reputation

Most Playtech powered casinos offer several deposit methods to choose from. The popularity of Playtech Online Casinos can be attributed to the phenomenal percentage of bonuses offered by them to the players. Ideally Playtech Casino Bonuses are in range of 10-15%. Most bonuses with Playtech’s casinos offer bonuses as high as $1000 to their loyal and deserving casino players.

Playtech Casino Bonuses also enjoy the reputation of being completely hassle free and fair. Playtech Casinos offer a robust support system with a 24/7 support centre manned by qualified officers.

Playtech casino bonuses leave players with a huge smile and are most talked about in the online casino gambling industry. Find these and more online casinos reviewed at http://www.25-online-casinos.com