Casino gambling is a lot of fun and there is the possibility of winning rewards when you place real money wagers. Of course, you don’t win all the time; the casino wins more than you do. There are betting systems that claim to be able to help you win more consistently but they don’t work. What does work is advantage play or advantage gambling.
On this page we will try and explain advantage gambling – what it is, basic techniques involved, how it works and the games you can use this method on.
What is Advantage Gambling?
Advantage gambling involves techniques that give you the advantage over the casino and, thereby, a chance to increase your odds of winning. And you don’t depend on luck or chance to achieve this; you depend on the ability of these methods to lower the house edge and make it work for you.
The Wikipedia definition of advantage gambling gives you an exact idea of what it is:
Definition
“Advantage gambling, or advantage play, refers to legal methods used to gain an advantage while gambling at real money casinos. The term usually refers to house-banked games, but can also refer to games played against other players, such as poker. Someone who practices advantage gambling is often referred to as an advantage player, or AP. Unlike cheating, which is by definition illegal, advantage play exploits innate characteristics of a particular game to give the player an advantage relative to the house or other players.”
Advantage gambling is not quite the same thing as a betting strategy - they are like chalk and cheese, in fact. Advantage gambling provides you with actual strategies to help you lower the house edge. A betting system, on the other hand, cannot do that. You can raise your bet or lower it based on previous outcomes all you like; it will not make any consistent difference to the house edge.
Understanding Advantage Gambling
Advantage gambling is a reality, but it doesn’t come easy; it requires a thorough understanding of the factors that come into play when you are gambling, for starters. And it needs a lot of patience. The two factors that you must be aware of to be able to understand and use advantage gambling are the house edge and the expected value of your bet.
House Edge
The house edge is the advantage the casino enjoys over a player when it comes to the probability of winning. It is the reason why the casino always wins more than you do. This advantage is based on mathematical probability and is represented as a percentile value. Let us try and understand house edge with the following example.
European Roulette has the numbers 1 to 36 in slots of red and black, and a single 0 in green. The chances of you winning should ideally be 50-50 – on the red or black – when you place a real-money bet. However, the presence of the green zero skews the numbers and odds somewhat. The possible game outcomes are now 3 instead of 2 – the ball could stop on red, black or green.
So when you wager $5, your expected chance of winning, instead of being 50% or 18/36, is 48.6% or 18/37. In simple words: if you bet on red, there is a 48.6% chance that the ball will stop on red and a 51.4% chance that it will stop on black or the green zero. Play the game an infinite number of times and you stand a 48.6% of winning, resulting in a house edge of 2.8%.
The house edge varies depending on the game. For blackjack the typical house edge is 0.5%, while for roulette it varies between 2.5% and 3%. For slots it is 3% to 7% and comes with a number of accompanying factors, like the availability of a jackpot, free spins, in-game bonus rounds and more.
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Expected Value
Knowing the expected value of your bet is important.
There are 4 factors that determine this value:
- Possible win amount
- Possible loss amount
- Win probability
- Loss probability
The formula to calculate the expected value is quite simple:
- Take the win probability and multiply it by the possible win amount.
- At the same time, take the loss probability and multiply it by the possible loss amount.
- Subtract one resultant value from the other to arrive at the expected value of your wager.
Advantage Gambling Techniques
Advantage gambling involves you, as a player, using techniques to bring down the house edge. There are different ways of doing it, some simple and easy but dependent on a number of external factors including luck, and some complex ones. Most of us commonly associate advantage gambling with card counting but that is not the only technique. Here are a few other techniques that you could use.
Advantage gambling can be as simple as picking the right bonuses and promotions to work with! A good example is the cash back offer, for instance. It could help swing the odds your way since it usually comes with low or no wagering requirements and offers cash rewards.
Comp points can be a big help as well. Once you have accumulated enough comp points you can redeem them for bonus credits. Advantage gambling can also be used by placing certain types of bets, depending on the game you are playing; e.g. arbitrage bets in sports betting, but more of that later.
Does Advantage Gambling Work for All Casino Games?
One thing you should know right off the bat: advantage gambling works for specific casino games, usually games that involve a degree of skill – be it in terms of game play or the bets you decide to place. Pokie games, for instance, is a game of pure luck and no strategy or advantage play will be able to swing the house edge in your favor over the long haul!
The following are 3 games where you can use advantage gambling to work the odds in your favor:
Blackjack
One game that offers the best way to reduce the edge for a prolonged period is blackjack. Of course you will need to know your math, your blackjack strategy and rules. But it is logical and based on science and, most importantly, works!
Here is what you need to do. First up, familiarize yourself 100% with the rules of the game. Knowing the rules gives you a very good idea of how each game works and how the house edge could be lower for certain games. The next step is to achieve mastery in terms of strategy.
Armed with these two skill sets, you can now start looking for games with a slightly lower house edge. But that is just the start; you are not going to win all the time, or even win all too frequently. For that, you will need to take the next step forward, which is to learn the art of card counting.
Learning card counting will help you figure out the way the cards are likely to be stacked in a deck or in a shoe. That in turn gives you an idea of the ratio of high cards to low cards. You then have the option of lowering or raising your bet based on the kind of cards in the deck. In simple words, a shoe with a high ratio of high to low cards means a lower house edge and a chance for you to capitalize with a win.
There are other ways too for you to engage in advantage gambling in blackjack. One of them is shuffle tracking: you keep tabs on the shuffle to get an idea of where the high cards end up after each shuffle. Another method is edge sorting: you try and get the dealer to change the card direction: one way for high cards and another for low. But dealers nowadays are too savvy to fall for that one.
All of this mastery is not going to lower the house edge drastically, but it will do just about enough to give you an edge, which means more winnings over a period of time compared to other players!
Poker
If blackjack is the game that one instantly associates with advantage gambling, the actual game where advantage gambling is reasonably easier is poker. Sounds far-fetched? It isn’t, actually! Because poker is the one game that you don’t play against the house; you play against other players. All the casino or poker room takes is the commission, referred to as a rake for a game.
Of course, there are other determining factors as well, like your poker skills versus your competitions’, the game you are playing and more. There is an element of luck involved of course, but skill and experience definitely come into play over a longer period of time.
Playing poker games over a long time gives you an idea of how things work. For instance, over a period of time you get to learn the various aspects of the game, like the odds involved, pot odds, hand strength, raising your ante at the right time and more. This in turn helps you determine your play format.
In a physical game, you get to observe your opponents and learn about player behavior – do the big bets materialize only on a solid hand? Is bluffing part of your opponent’s armory? Will he yield and fold if you pressurize by raising the ante consistently? Body language can give you an idea of the hand a player has and help you formulate your game strategy accordingly.
Sports Betting
If you are into sports betting, the way you bet could definitely give you the advantage of more wins. For instance, placing different bets at the various sports books offering different odds – or placing arbitrage bets, as they are called – could be a good way to beat the house. Of course, there is no guarantee; it all depends on the factors on the ground.
Another popular option is to play at betting exchanges; advantage players can reap rich rewards there because these exchanges charge a commission or fee only on the net wins accumulated. Skill-based examples of advantage play include the now-infamous art of card counting, or even shuffle tracking, for that matter.
One of the biggest problems that you come across when we talk of advantage gambling in sports betting is the dynamic nature of the event itself. The game or sport may be the same, but the performances always vary. And, even more importantly, the online and even physical sportsbooks pick up betting patterns and the pulse on the ground and adjust their odds accordingly.
So while it is possible to engage in advantage gambling in sports betting, it is not as easy as in poker, or even blackjack, and definitely not the first option.
Advantage play is possible in some other games as well, such as Pachinko, but these are not so much skill-based and some strategies may sound downright off. For instance, a good way to work the odds in your favor is to simply gather information – this is normally inside info – about machines that offer high payouts. You could also keep an eye out for a machine where a player has consistently lost and, once they walk off in frustration, play at that machine for a possible chance to win!
Use Advantage Gambling in your Favour
Advantage gambling is a great way to ensure you work the house edge in your favor and increase your win consistency and rate over a prolonged period of time. What we have discussed here are some of the basic techniques available.
But remember, not everyone can engage in advantage gambling. It requires, as we mentioned earlier, skill and a whole lot of patience. For most players, the best option then would be to just stick to the basics and play the games for fun; any reward you win is then a bonus!
AuthorSharon Kingsby
Sharon lives and breathes online casinos. She answers all your how, why, where questions to make your online gambling journey fun and successful. read more about the author
