Offbeat Gambling Strategies

Basic casino gambling strategies can’t overcome the house edge in the long run. If you play long enough, the mathematical edge that the casino games hold over you will eventually eat up your bankroll.

You can find multiple ways of getting an advantage in gambling. They all take lots of work and study but if your idea of a good time is winning at gambling consistently and over the long run, then advantage gambling techniques might be right for you.

We recomend offbeat gambling strategies that will add a little spice to your next real money casino outing.

Strategy of maximum boldness

You can take multiple approaches to managing your bankroll, but one of those is the minimum boldness strategy. Another is the maximum boldness strategy.

The minimum boldness strategy means that you’re making the smallest possible bet you can with your bankroll. If you’re playing a game where you have an edge, you minimize your chances of going broke because of a short term streak of bad luck.

But if you’re playing a game where you don’t have an edge, you maximize the chance that eventually your opponent (usually the casino) will eventually win all your money.

The maximum boldness strategy, on the other hand, means you’re going to bet your entire bankroll once. If it’s an even-money bet, you’ll either double up or go broke.

An example:

You have $100 to gamble with. You don’t like baccarat or blackjack, and you want to try to double your money. You decide on roulette, since it’s easily understood and practically effortless. You put all your money on red.

But you don’t have a 50% chance of doubling up; your odds of winning that bet are only about 47% because in roulette, in addition to red and black, there is also a zero. That’s still pretty close, though to 50%.

But if you tried to play $20 per bet ten times in a row, you’d be a lot less likely to double your initial bankroll–every bet you make brings you that much closer to the long run. The closer you get to the long run, the more likely your actual results are going to resemble your mathematical expectation.

Most people don’t think the maximum boldness strategy is exciting.

But here’s one fun way to put it to use:

Suppose you’re just playing slots, and you’ve been lucky—you’re up $2000 for the trip.

Take those winnings on the last day of your trip. Put them on red or black at the roulette wheel. You have a reasonably good (47%) chance of going home with $4000 instead of $2000.

On the other hand, you have an even better chance of going home broke.

Parlay into Million Strategy

The odds of winning $1 million the traditional way, via a progressive jackpot or a lottery, are at least 1 in 8 million—maybe worse, depending on the game you’re playing.

But if you parlay your winnings at an even-money bet 17 times in a row, your odds of winning a million dollars are a lot better. As it turns out, their better by several orders of magnitude.

Parlay $10 into $1 million strategy works:

• On bet $ 1, you bet $ 10 and win. You now have $20.
• Now you bet $20. You win again and have $40.
• Bet that $40 and win again. Now you have $80.
• Bet $80; you now have $160.
• Bet $160; you now have $320.
• Bet $320; you now have $640.
• Bet $640; you now have $1280.
• Bet $1280; you now have $2560.
• Bet $2560; you now have $5120.
• Bet $5120; you now have $10,240.
• Bet $10,240; you now have $20,480.
• Bet $20.480; you now have $40,960.
• Bet $40,960; you now have $81,920.
• Bet $81,920; you now have $163,840.
• Bet $163,840; you now have $327,680.
• Bet $327,680; you now have $655,360.
• Bet $655,360; you now have over $1.3 million.

You’ll run into a couple of problems with this strategy. For one thing, most casinos have table limits way below these numbers. In fact, you’ll be lucky to find a casino that will allow you to make an even money bet at any game for over $50,000.

The other problem is that the longer you play, the more likely it is that the house edge will kick in.

If your odds of winning an even-money bet are 49%, then you have an almost even chance of winning that bet.

But the odds of winning 17 bets in a row are calculated by multiplying the odds of winning for every bet. The odds go down dramatically the more times you try to win in a row.

Suppose your goal is to just win twice in a row. The odds are 0.49 X 0.49, or 24%. Add in a third number to that, and the odds drop to less than 12%. Then under 6%, 3%, and so on… until the odds become tiny indeed.

Michael Bluejay did the math on casino games and determined that the odds of parlaying $10 into $1 million at baccarat are about 1 in 125,000. Long odds, yes, but way better than what you’d expect playing the lottery.

Since that’s a moot point, he suggests that you set a more conservative goal of winning $100,000. The odds of parlaying $10 into $100,000 are only about 1 in 12,000.

Dice Control

The idea behind dice control, or “dice setting”, as it’s sometimes called, is that—with practice–you can develop enough skill at throwing the dice to reduce the house’s edge. So in a sense, dice control can be compared to throwing darts.

The idea is that you hold the dice in a certain position in your hands before you throw them. Then you throw them with just enough force that they barely tap the back wall and land where you want them a little bit more often than they otherwise would.

Since craps has a low house edge, if you can gain even a couple of percentage points against the casino, you can turn craps into a positive expectation game.

Straight 60 System

Straight 60 system is one of video slot machines offbeat gambling strategies. It’s just an arbitrary bankroll management scheme.

This gambling strategies makes your slot play a little more mindful.

How straight 60 system works:

You set an arbitrary amount as your bankroll for the session. Once you’ve won or lost 60% of that bankroll, you quit playing.

Suppose you have $100 budgeted for this session. You’ll quit if your credits drop to $40. Or you’ll quit if your credits get up to $160.

Taking the odds in Craps

If you’re sticking with the simple bets on the craps table–pass/don’t pass and come/don’t come–you’re playing one of the lowest house edge games available. But you can make that house edge even lower by taking as much of the odds bet as you can every time.

The odds bet is an additional bet that you can place when a point is set. The maximum wager on the odds bet is a multiple of your initial pass/don’t pass or come/don’t come bet. At some casinos you can bet twice as much. At others you can bet five times as much–the higher the limit, the better.

The exciting thing about the odds bet is that it pays off at true odds. It’s the only bet in the casino that doesn’t have a house edge.

By combining a large bet with no house edge with the already small house edge on your initial bet, you’re reducing the house edge dramatically and playing one of the best games in the real money casino.

Advantage Play

Advantage play is when you find a way to get an edge over the casino.

An example:

Card counters get an edge over the casino by tracking the ratio of aces and tens in the deck to the lower value cards in the deck. When a deck still has a lot of aces and tens in it, and the fives and sixes have already been dealt, your chances of getting a blackjack (and the corresponding 3 to 2 payout) go up dramatically.

You bet more on those hands, and you put the odds in your favor.

In poker, you bet more when you’re more likely to have your opponents beat. Or you bluff when your opponents are likely to fold. When you’re less likely to win, you avoid putting your money in the pot. If you do this consistently, you’ll have the odds in your favor.

You can’t win in the long run against the casino unless you’re an advantage gambler. Becoming an advantage gambler requires tremendous dedication and hard work.