Some basic observations and questions about casino whoring

[RobDoral]

Please correct any errors in my observations:

1) If a player uses optimal BJ strategy, the house edge for blackjack is only around .5% (and I know it varies a bit but .005 is an easy number to work with so go with me on this). Say a casino offers a $100 bonus with a $1000 WR. If you’re required to bet $1000 (again just a simplified number), you can expect to lose around $5 on average over the course of betting that $1000, leaving $95 in bonus money. This is how casino whoring works as I understand it. Seems simple enough.

2) The strategy cards you see floating around are “optimal” strategy cards (some are adapted to the small variations from site to site). I know there are tons of books about blackjack but if you're not counting cards you can't really do better than these cards.

3) If you bet in smaller increments your actual results are more likely to approach the .005 edge but it will take more time for you to complete the bonus.

4) As far as I understand, there is no particular advantage to betting in smaller increments except that if you bet big to speed things along your short term variance may produce some big swings one way or another. But assuming you are always able to continue to play, your results of betting big will still approach the .005 mark over time so bet size is more a factor of risk aversion (or am I missing something?).

5) Online blackjack is a continuous shuffle, right? Meaning that each time you are dealt cards it’s as if the dealer just reshuffled the deck. This means counting cards is useless?


And here are a few questions for things I wasn't sure about:

A. Is there an advantage or disadvantage to playing more than one hand at a time? It seems to me that it's similar to betting big, more swings but more speed, but you really don’t gain an advantage by seeing a few more cards since you can’t really alter your bet after the fact to take advantage of counting strategies.

B. A number of forums have pay access private casino bonus forums. In general, what is the information available that’s worth paying for? My thoughts are:
1) News on bonuses that not everyone knows about that may offer better terms than elsewhere unless a ton of people suddenly start whoring it up and blow it for everyone who already knows.
2) Strategies for games other than BJ that might have an even lower HA especially if BJ is not allowed for bonus clearing.
3) There's MUCH more to it than the above and I either pay up or stay curious.

[Thremp]

Big bets help increase EV and variance. It allows you to clear Bonii faster and increase your hourly rate. I prefer it since I happen to be a variance freak.

Playing multiple hands reduces variance over the combined amount. I wanna say it's 3/4 for 2 hands and a little over 1/2 for 3 hands. But I could be totally wrong. Basically instead of betting 10 bucks on one hand you can bet $5 on three spots with the same variance.

Pay access:
1) Meh... More than likely yes.
2) Yes.
3) Gnoming.

[RobDoral]

Thanks for the reply. So they discuss little mythic creatures on the pay forums? Weirdos. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Oh, I noticed a BJ strategy link on the zoo, read it and followed all of the suggested links. Well thanks to Ed Miller and others my head hurts a LOT but I think I have all my questions answered now.

Thanks again.

[midwestkc]

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Big bets help increase EV and variance.

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Big bets do increase variance, and your hourly rate, however the EV of the bonus is the same.

Might just be semantics, but thought it should be mentioned.

[bpb]

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Big bets help increase EV and variance.

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Big bets do increase variance, and your hourly rate, however the EV of the bonus is the same.

Might just be semantics, but thought it should be mentioned.

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No, the EV of the bonus increases with bet size.

Take an example of a $100 bonus with 2x playthrough on a .5% HA game. Calculate the EV of 200 $1 bets vs 2 $100 bets. They are not equal.

[Yaboosh]

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[ QUOTE ]
Big bets help increase EV and variance.

[/ QUOTE ]

Big bets do increase variance, and your hourly rate, however the EV of the bonus is the same.

Might just be semantics, but thought it should be mentioned.

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No, the EV of the bonus increases with bet size.

Take an example of a $100 bonus with 2x playthrough on a .5% HA game. Calculate the EV of 200 $1 bets vs 2 $100 bets. They are not equal.

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A lot of people disagree with you.

http://www.bonusbug.com/cgi-bin/yabb...num=1109733503

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Here’s some math to chew on. Using the same StarLuck example, your expected profit is $90. That never changes, no matter what the size of your bet is. If you bet the minimum of $1 per hand, your standard deviation will be about $45.00. Your results, on average, will be within 1 standard deviation of the expected profit about 65% of the time. So 65% of the time you’ll book a profit of between $45 and $135 when completing the bonus at StarLuck

Keep in mind that when we say 65% of the time we mean just that, nearly a majority of the time. Not always, not guaranteed, simply 65% of the time, and actual results can still fall outside that range of 1 standard deviation. Or, more simply, roughly one-third of the time your results will fall outside of 1 standard deviation, causing you to make less than $45 or more than $135.

If you bet $2 a hand, your standard deviation is $65.00. So 65% of the time you’ll show a profit of between $25 and $155.

If you bet $3 a hand, 65% of the time you’ll show a profit of between $10 and $170.

If you bet $5 a hand, 65% of the time you’ll show a profit of between -$6 and $186.

So let’s combine all that. If you bet the minimum of $1, 65% of the time you’ll make between $45 and $135. You will essentially never lose all of your money. It will take you about 5-8 hours to complete the wagering.

If you bet $5 per hand, 65% of the time you’ll lose $6 or make $186. You will lose all of your money 4% of the time. You’ll complete the wagering in 1-2 hours.

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[jba]

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Take an example of a $100 bonus with 2x playthrough on a .5% HA game. Calculate the EV of 200 $1 bets vs 2 $100 bets. They are not equal.

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I definitely don't understand this. Are you asserting the last two sentences as fact on their own, or is there something about the bonus terms that changes the EV? I don't understand how 200 $1 bets would have any different expectation than 1 $200 bet.

FYI, i know basically nothing about casino bonuses and how they are structured.

[Thremp]

People are dumb. Case closed. Bigger bets = bigger EV.


Hint: You bust some of them sometimes.

[bpb]

Assume 1% HA for 2x playthrough on a $50 Deposit with $50 bonus. Total wagering required = $200

Wagering $1 a hand, your chances of busting are extremely small. Your expected loss will be $200*1% = $2. So you have a net EV of +$48 (bonus - expected loss)

Wagering $100 a hand on a game with a chance of winning = 49.5% and chance of losing = 50.5% (ie .. house advantage = 1%)

50.5% of the time you bust, losing $50
49.5*50.5% of the time, you win one, then lose one, netting +$50
49.5%*49.5% of the time, you win both, netting +$250

So EV = .505(-50) + (.495)(.505)*50 + (.495)(.495)*250 = +$48.5


The EV increases because you have decreased your total expected action, and you are going to bust 50.5% of the time by betting $100, instead of busting 0% of the time betting $1.

This effect becomes significant as you increase the wagering requirement and the house advantage of the game played.

[bpb]

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A lot of people disagree with you.


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A lot of people suck at math.