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Gambling Facts and Fictions
Blackjack
 
Gambling Facts and Fictions: The Anti-Gambling Handbook to get yourself to stop gambling, quit gambling or never start gambling
Copyright © 2004
 by Stephen Katz
ISBN: 1418472409
Library of Congress: 2004094023
Blackjack
Chapter 23

Many books and articles have been written and many stories have been told about the game of blackjack. After gaining the knowledge of this book, you will know that all casino games will financially destroy you. But hardcore blackjack players who will only play blackjack, never any other casino games, really might believe that they could make money playing this game.

You hardcore blackjack players feel important when sitting down in that high chair at the blackjack table. You feel as though you are a classy cut above the other gamblers in the casino. Your spouse who is ignorant about the rules of gambling games, plays non-thinking games such as slot machines or roulette. While you, the smart gambler, plays the intelligent thinking game of blackjack. Basic strategy players may even fantasize if only for a second that they could get real hot. Imagining that the pit boss may think that you are a card counter. You will feel good about getting the attention of the casino. Want-to-be card counters think that they can sit at the blackjack table, count the cards and make a fortune. You imagine that the casino has enough money. You imagine that the casino surely would not mind giving you some of their money. You imagine that the casino surely would not miss a couple hundred thousand dollars or so. All blackjack players have been cleverly duped into this mind frame of thinking.

Casinos spend billions of dollars to build and operate their lavish palaces. But when it comes to giving something away to their gambling customers, casinos throw around quarters as if the quarters were hundred pound manhole covers. They are not about to really give anything away. They are not about to let you win money. When gambling the equivalent of losing a few hundred dollars, they may comp you to a free chicken and ribs lunch. That is a very expensive lunch.

The casinos know that if there was any chance whatsoever of anyone winning at blackjack then they simply would not offer it. You must understand this fact to get rid of that blackjack bug that you have in your brain. There are rows and rows of blackjack tables in large casinos. Every single one of the players on those rows will lose, maybe not today, but it is a guarantee that they will all eventually lose. Even all of the card counters will lose. If some of them win money for one day or one week it does not matter because they will return, gamble back the money and then lose more every time without exception.

Have you ever heard of a consistent blackjack money winner documented by a reputable independent company? Of course not! Have you ever consistently won at blackjack? Of course not! Does someone you know brag about winning at blackjack? Of course they do! They brag while knowing that they are fibbing. They fib to make themselves feel important. You must realize that they are not being truthful. You may however want to believe this lying talk. You may want to believe winning is possible so that there would be hope of you winning someday. Winning money at blackjack cannot ever happen for you or anyone else.

Books were written years ago and even today about making money by counting cards at blackjack. All of these books are self-serving, sometimes even fictional stories written by authors with ties to the gambling industry or simply wanting to make money from book sales. If money could be made by card counting, then everybody with very good memories would have been winning at the casinos years ago and now. The casinos would have simply shut down the blackjack tables. There has never been any major casino discontinuing the game of blackjack because of players winning money. Pretend though that the remote possibility existed that these old-time "how to win at blackjack" books and their stories were once partially true. Casinos now use multiple decks and shuffle the cards often enough so that over time the cards become random. Counting the cards would be useless. Card counters may actually believe that sometimes the deck is in their favor but it never truly will be. Casinos are never going to allow a game of skill in their premises from which you could win money. Wake-up! Wake-up to the fact that you cannot win at blackjack.

An old saying is that if taking an infinite amount of monkeys banging on an infinite amount of typewriters, then sooner or later one of them would produce the works of Shakespeare. If taking enough new card counters banging on enough blackjack tables, sooner or later one of them will produce a short-term winning streak for a lot of money. The casino may possibly bar that person as a card counter because of that. The casino will bar that person to cause publicity in order to suck in more card counters, not because of being afraid of that person winning money. If that person happened to be taught at a blackjack school, the school will then point out that person to other students, deceitfully showing how it is possible to win.

This one winning card counting player simply had a short-term winning streak. This winning streak absolutely would not have continued and the casino owners of course know that. Virtually all card counters lose immediately. Then they immediately or eventually hopefully quit playing blackjack. Some will keep playing and losing. Those who keep playing will eventually win money in a short-term period but only for the reason of getting the right random cards. Then they could start believing that they can finally beat the casinos. Casinos will never bar a player such as this because that player is an established loser. Casinos will usually only bar a new player to create the maximum publicity. This is a greedy casino joke played upon gullible, usually intelligent people who are fooled into believing that card counting can beat a casino. Please do not be one of those fooled, but if you are then immediately give up this hopeless, impossible task.

In the blackjack game of today, card counting winners are an absolute myth. This myth may not have been started by the casinos, but the myth is being continued and perpetuated by casino owners to maximize their profits. Maybe casino owners many years ago thought that a sharp card counter could possibly beat them. But those days are long gone now. Of course even back then the major casinos never did get rid of their blackjack tables. The casinos continue this myth by not allowing card counting devices such as a computer at the blackjack tables. As though having a computer track the cards would prevent you from losing. If you had access at the blackjack table to the greatest computer in the world, you would still lose money.

The casinos of today put out a mirage acting as though they fear card counters. They even train their employees to believe in fearing card counters so that the employees do believe and that helps to better sell the mirage. The pit bosses may be trained to spot and bar a few new winning card counters just to keep the fable going. Of course most of the new card counters are losing. The losers are playing and counting cards the exact same way as the few new card counters who are temporarily winning. The current losers just are not getting the right random cards. So the losers are allowed to keep on playing because of losing even though playing and counting cards the exact same way as a barred card counter. The luckiest thing that can happen to a new card counter who is temporarily winning is to get barred. If not getting barred, then that person will lose back the winning money and then lose a lot more. The casino owners know that any temporarily winning card counter will always eventually lose back the money and then lose more. This whole illusionary game that casinos play with card counters of training their employees to spot them and then barring a few who are temporarily winning, must give casino owners a good hearty laugh. Their good hearty laugh is at your expense.

Casinos are very expensive to operate. Casinos would never take-up valuable floor space with a gambling game that had any chance of losing money for them. Do not believe their lies stating that they only make money on the ignorant blackjack players, for example those who split tens. Do not believe them stating that they do not make money on the smart blackjack players such as card counters. The ignorant blackjack players who do not follow the basic strategy will go broke quicker because of increasing the house edge percentage. However, every single one of those smart blackjack players including the best card counter in the world will always, every time, without exception, eventually go broke. An ignorant blackjack player who starts with $1,000 will lose that $1,000. A smart blackjack card counter who starts with $1,000 will lose that $1,000 usually slower than an ignorant blackjack player, but all the money will be lost. The smart blackjack player is still being foolish for sitting in on a game that will always crush a bankroll.

Stories of blackjack players winning money because of card counting are false fables which are hard to kill. The stories nevertheless are false fables. Just like a fisherman who casts a shiny artificial lure into the river getting a fish to bite thinking it is food, the casinos throw out an artificial lure at you. The lure is you believing that money can be made at blackjack. Please do not get hooked on the artificial lure of the casino. Their shiny, sharp hooked lure is real but there is not any money there. Use some common sense. Casinos would not offer blackjack unless they were making a fortune on it. Be smart and get rid of that blackjack bug. That blackjack bug will continue to cost you a lot of money if it is not squashed.