Help with money management?

[Richard Pugh]

Hi I'm new here and am looking to improve my money management during sessions - can anyone offer any tips or systems that are easy to employ?

I'd consider myself a good basic strategy player and mainly use online casinos
so you get 6-8decks, continuous shuffle, DOA, DAS, No Surrender etc as a usual set of rules.

My problem is if I could manage my bankroll properly I could easily supplement my income - when I'm disciplined I started with maybe 250units and aim to make 10%. Over a week or so I can build a bankroll slowly, dipping in and out of play by short sessions with clear win goals.

This can be achieved quite easily on 80-90% of sessions but when it comes too easy I play more sessions and then probability returns and I lose a bit, chase it and lose a lot more.

What I need is some realistic methods that I can employ to help me overcome the urge to chase e.g. before a session perhaps decide on a lower bankroll limit and if I drop to it maybe I should stop the session, re-evaluate the bankroll and begin again on a new day looking for 10% of the new lower bankroll - not a quick fix to get to where I started the losing session.

Over the last 2 months I've lost 1000units and then being disciplined won it back, then I lost another 1000 and over the last week I'd steadily made 785 back.

Then all of a sudden I lost my discipline after a short loss streak which took me backwards to 600 and ended up going suicidal trying to get back to my 785 starting point and in doing so I visited 100,500,400,550,200,75,100,0

I enjoy the game too much to give it up completely - I'm hoping someone can give me some helpful pointers.

Sorry for the long first post

Richie

 

[Sonny]

If you’re only playing basic strategy then you are still playing against the house edge. There is no money management system that will give you an advantage over the house or make you a long-term winner. There are systems that might help you win more often, but you will still lose your money back eventually. You can’t expect to beat the house unless you can get an advantage somehow. If you are playing against a continuous shuffler machine then that will not be easy.

-Sonny-

 

[Harman]

Martingale betting strategy if the min - max bet allows 11+ double ups

 

[Richard Pugh]

Martingale betting strategy if the min - max bet allows 11+ double ups

I tend to play a martingale variant when I'm being disciplined looking for short term swings e.g. 5, 10, 20, 45, 100 units

I throw in the increased bets on the assumption you wont lose forever but when I get to 100 to win 5 I would tend to back off and begin the sequence again - that said I would correctly explore all split and double opportunity during the losing streak

The last casino I played at has table limit of 1 to 1000 so 5,10,20,40,80,160,320,640 gives you 8 possibles 'martingales' but 320 or 640 to win 5 would scare me off as not worth the risk so I'd probably go flat at the 100-150 level hoping to turn the streak and win 2 or 3 'on the bounce'

 

[ihate17]

What if you lose over 20 in a row???

Martingale betting strategy if the min - max bet allows 11+ double ups

In a 24 hour of blackjack play you should have an average on one streak of 10 consecutive loses. Now in over 30 years of blackjack play I have had at least 4 streaks of over 20 straight loses. My worst was about 25 or 26 and that is not counting a few doubles and splits included (not counting any pushes either) which probably brought the true number to about 30.
Martingale that!!! Hope you have the assets of a mid sized nation and a casino that handles your bets.

No the real answer is about what Sonny said. Basic strategy is simply the strategy that we base the house edge. It is the way to play with no advantage and lose the LEAST amount of money in the long run, but it is in no way a winning strategy.
If playing on line, there at least used to be guys who made money bonus hustling. Having never played on line, I have no experience in that. Playing against a CSM you will gain no advantage trying to count.
So to me, playing on line is like playing slots but with a lower house edge than slots. The thing is already programmed according to the rules and the CSM to prevent you from getting any kind of advantage. Forget progressions or any other system, they just do not overcome or even reduce the house edge. At best the martingale will give you many small winning sessions but there will always be that bad streak that will kill off your bankroll just around the corner.

ihate17

 

[Richard Pugh]

In a 24 hour of blackjack play you should have an average on one streak of 10 consecutive loses. Now in over 30 years of blackjack play I have had at least 4 streaks of over 20 straight loses. My worst was about 25 or 26 and that is not counting a few doubles and splits included (not counting any pushes either) which probably brought the true number to about 30.
Martingale that!!! Hope you have the assets of a mid sized nation and a casino that handles your bets.

No the real answer is about what Sonny said. Basic strategy is simply the strategy that we base the house edge. It is the way to play with no advantage and lose the LEAST amount of money in the long run, but it is in no way a winning strategy.
If playing on line, there at least used to be guys who made money bonus hustling. Having never played on line, I have no experience in that. Playing against a CSM you will gain no advantage trying to count.
So to me, playing on line is like playing slots but with a lower house edge than slots. The thing is already programmed according to the rules and the CSM to prevent you from getting any kind of advantage. Forget progressions or any other system, they just do not overcome or even reduce the house edge. At best the martingale will give you many small winning sessions but there will always be that bad streak that will kill off your bankroll just around the corner.

ihate17

You're right of course - a pure martingale is fundamently flawed as you can't 'double up forever' based on your own bankroll and the table limit.

I too have had losing streaks in the 20's when the dealer can seemingly do no wrong - hitting 16s into 21s and drawing naturals against 20s, even pushing ur own BJ (and always on 10 up card so you can't even end the streak by taking Insurance.)

I also tink most online casino have gotten wise to the bonus hustlers - this last casino I joined offered 45GBP but had a 65* wager requirement, so you'd have to bet almost 3000gbp to claim your 45 (and betsunder 10GBP didn't count)

Try turning 45 into 3000 - you better be hoping for a good early run of luck.

I think I'll have to learn to count and only play at 'real' casinos once in a while

 

[Sonny]

I also tink most online casino have gotten wise to the bonus hustlers - this last casino I joined offered 45GBP but had a 65* wager requirement, so you'd have to bet almost 3000gbp to claim your 45 (and betsunder 10GBP didn't count)

That's not too bad. You have to bet 3,000GBP so if the house edge is 0.2% then you would expect to lose 3,000 * 0.002 = 6GBP on average. That still leaves you with 39GBP profit. If you bet the 10GBP minimum and play proper basic strategy then you will have a decent chance of making some money. Using any kind of progression system could have you at the end of your bankroll pretty quickly if you lose a few hands.

-Sonny-

 

[moo321]

Here's some advice: learn how to count cards.

 

[Kasi]

this last casino I joined offered 45GBP but had a 65* wager requirement, so you'd have to bet almost 3000gbp to claim your 45 (and betsunder 10GBP didn't count)
Try turning 45 into 3000 -
I think I'll have to learn to count and only play at 'real' casinos once in a while

You mean wager 3000? Or achieve a 3000 balance? Both?

If it's wager, no need to bother with counting lol. Depending on the fine print lol.

 

[Richard Pugh]

You mean wager 3000? Or achieve a 3000 balance? Both?

If it's wager, no need to bother with counting lol. Depending on the fine print lol.

It was a wager requirement so you couldn't make a withdrawal against the £45 until you had made overall bets totalling £2945 and only £10 bets counted.

So e.g if you started with £250 and they added £45 your bankroll would be £295 and in simple terms you'd have to 'turnover' the whole bankroll 10 times - doesn't matter if you made 10 bets of £295 or 100 bets of £29.50, only criteria was bets had to be a minimum of £10 to count toward the requirement.

 

[Richard Pugh]

That's not too bad. You have to bet 3,000GBP so if the house edge is 0.2% then you would expect to lose 3,000 * 0.002 = 6GBP on average. That still leaves you with 39GBP profit. If you bet the 10GBP minimum and play proper basic strategy then you will have a decent chance of making some money. Using any kind of progression system could have you at the end of your bankroll pretty quickly if you lose a few hands.

-Sonny-

Didn't quite work like that :-

£10 bet - Dealer pushes 20s
£10 bet - I hit 16 and get 20, dealer draws H14 to 21 with 2 As and a 5
£10 bet - Dealer BJ
£10 bet - Push
£5 recovery bet - I win
£10 bet - I hit S18 against his 10 and get an A, he hits 15 and get 20
£15 bet - I bust a 12 v an 8, hole card was a 8
£5 bet - I win
£10 bet - Another Dealer BJ

....and there endeth the lesson - even 0.02% can bite you on the A*** when you have to play large proportions of a bankroll before you can ease off

 

[Sonny]

…even 0.02% can bite you on the A*** when you have to play large proportions of a bankroll before you can ease off

That's very true. The variance can swing pretty wildly when you're making big bets, but it is just as likely to swing the other way as well. Maybe next time you will win those bets instead of losing them. In the end your results will average out to a net win if you play them well enough. Using a progression system will help you to reach the wagering requirements sooner but it will increase your variance a lot. With a small bankroll you will end up going broke very often. If you want to limit the variance you should be flat betting. As long as you only play when you have an advantage and you are aware of the variance you can still make some decent money if you play enough.

-Sonny-

 

[Kasi]

Didn't quite work like that :-

£10 bet - Dealer pushes 20s
£10 bet - I hit 16 and get 20, dealer draws H14 to 21 with 2 As and a 5
£10 bet - Dealer BJ
£10 bet - Push
£5 recovery bet - I win
£10 bet - I hit S18 against his 10 and get an A, he hits 15 and get 20
£15 bet - I bust a 12 v an 8, hole card was a 8
£5 bet - I win
£10 bet - Another Dealer BJ

....and there endeth the lesson - even 0.02% can bite you on the A*** when you have to play large proportions of a bankroll before you can ease off

Like you say playing 300 hands with a 4.5 unit roll is tough lol.

Much better I'd think is do what u said before buy 250 or 450 or 950 and have a 30 or 50 or 100 unit roll. You'll almost always survive 300 hands and, more than half the time not even lose the $45 they gave you. And with a 100 units, you have to room to play a system that picks up a unit very often.

Blackjack is a messy game to apply betting systems against. Games that pay even money are much more predictable.

 

[Richard Pugh]

Like you say playing 300 hands with a 4.5 unit roll is tough lol.

Much better I'd think is do what u said before buy 250 or 450 or 950 and have a 30 or 50 or 100 unit roll. You'll almost always survive 300 hands and, more than half the time not even lose the $45 they gave you. And with a 100 units, you have to room to play a system that picks up a unit very often.

Blackjack is a messy game to apply betting systems against. Games that pay even money are much more predictable.

For info then and a bit OT - there's a new 'Zero Edge' Blackjack and Roulette game @ Betfair.com

Dunno if anyone's seen it but in the Blackjack game you get 2-1 for a Suited BJ or a 5 card Charlie - not quite as favourable as a double bust is a push but an improvement which apparently negates the house edge

In Roulette there's no Zero so you get perfect odds

 

[EasyRhino]

First, to get to the point, the only way to make money on online casinos is to a) find games with a positive player expectation (usually because of a bug) or b) exploit bonuses.

Full stop.

End of story.

Anything else is just wasting time. If you want to whore some bonuses, there's good info over at http://www.beatingbonuses.com.

So e.g if you started with £250 and they added £45 your bankroll would be £295 and in simple terms you'd have to 'turnover' the whole bankroll 10 times - doesn't matter if you made 10 bets of £295 or 100 bets of £29.50, only criteria was bets had to be a minimum of £10 to count toward the requirement.

Still, you've got 29 bets to work with over about 300 hands. I've played similar wagering requirements, and there is a still-significant chance you'd lose it all, but that wouldn't scare me away. I wouldn't, however, waste any time resizing bets or using any sort of progression.

A more important problem with that bonus is that it's only like a 20% bonus with a wagering requirement, so it's value is fairly marginal if you relate it to dollar per hour.

You can use math to get an idea of what your bet size should be to survive a wagering requirement:

http://wizardofodds.com/blackjack/appendix12.html

After a while, you might just get a feel for appropriate bet sizing.

 

[Kasi]

A more important problem with that bonus is that it's only like a 20% bonus with a wagering requirement, so it's value is fairly marginal if you relate it to dollar per hour.

It's value is constant per hand played. Click 3 times - 13 cents of EV, win or lose. Play 300 hands an hour, that's $39/hour. Just use enough roll to make losing it all in 300 hands irrelevant. And pray you could play it 8 times a day forever lol.

If that's the way it actually works (allowing a buyin and still only wager 3000)lol. I used to think if it seems too good to be true, it probably isn't true. On the internet it really used to be true lol.

And, almost certainly, it's likely only a 1-time offer. But I'm sure you know what could be done about that lol.

 

[Richard Pugh]

After reading through lots of threads here I've changed the way I'm playing online and so far it's been working - There's no logic to it because there's no way to gain advantage over the game so I'm still playing against the house but I'm doin' OK just by readjusting my style of play.

The game is 6decks, DOA, DAS, One card to Split Aces, S17, 3:2BJ, 2:1ins, play up to 3 spots (I only ever use 1), reshuffles every hand.

I was looking for a money mangement system to stop me going broke as I usually played some variant of a martingale hoping the win/loss hands would swing quickly enough to keep me in the game. I was playing long sessions which always give the house a chance to claw money back. In general I was doing OK but sometimes I get greedy and my invincibility cape would through in a non recoverable hail mary which would go wrong and I lose the lot chasing it. Also there were obviously occasions when the betrofit ratio would back me off and I'd be looking for 2 wins in a row to get back to the starting point.

So what's different :-

I started with a Bankroll of £200
I set up a very simple spreadsheet with a clear 'long term' win goal and a profit/session column.
I created some rules for my play e.g. I'd cash out £250 whenever I got to £450, A session would be +10% or -15% of the sessions starting bankroll whichever happened first and I'd wait 3hrs between sessions (struggling with that one).

How is it working - well I read about variance,kelly,hail marys, RoR, blah, blah etc.., and for the main it might as well be written in Russian but I have extracted some snippets that have proved useful.

The main one is the more hands you play (without a proper AP system) the more probability there is of the house establishing it's edge.

So now I'm playing £5 chips (more or less flat but exploiting BS as appropriate) and aiming to make £25 per session - thats only 5 winning hands before the house makes 6 hands.

So far playing this way I've made a PROFIT of £560 in 3days during actual session time of about 4hrs - that's £140/hr off a £200 bankroll.

I dare say I'll hit a bad swing soon but the win goal/loss limit/flat, martingale, hail mary/BS/short session system seems to be working so far and the speadsheet is keeping me in check because in the past I'd have left the bankroll intact and would've run it to the last chips if needed making my RoR 100%. This time I've already cashed out £750 and now I'm playing with theirs.

Apart from there being no truth to the system apart from a short term lucky spell - any thoughts?

 

[Harman]

The answer to this thread is that you aren't going to able to make consistant money on an online blackjack site using BS just because you have good bankroll management... sorry.

 

[Kasi]

Apart from there being no truth to the system apart from a short term lucky spell - any thoughts?

Without speaking to your "particular" system, and, I think like you, acknowledging at the same time, that if you live long enough in a constant negative EV environment, eventually you will lose.

But I think it is greatly underestimated how long such "systems" can last by changing unit sizes, bankroll, etc.

I do know in a couple hundred thousand internet hands I made-up 1800+ avg bets above the +213 units a flat-bettor would have won. I do know if I took those 2000 avg bet units I could play 1,000,000 more hands with that avg bet and still have a 50-50 chance of still being ahead. If I chose to flat-bet a min unit, it would be millions more hands I could play.

The only time I systematically tried to make-up units for the fun of it, I used a $6 unit with a goal of $100 day. 41 days later I had $4500+ in 7000 hands. In those 7000 hands I "made-up" 560 $6 units with bigger bets. They were a good 7000 hands because a flat-bettor would have been up 195 units. It was in a game with a much lower HA than yours which I'm sure made it easier. Probably a much larger unit roll too. I wagered $75,000 in those hands.

Good luck to you.

 

[EasyRhino]

Apart from there being no truth to the system apart from a short term lucky spell - any thoughts?

I think you need to keep reading.

It helps if you look at it this way: every hand you play costs you money, simply your bet size times the house edge. A $10 bet on a game with a 0.5% edge costs you 5 cents

Every. Single. hand.

If you're just fooling around online like a civilian, then the key is to limit your bet size and number of bets so that your losses are manageable. If you're bonus-whoring, they key is to ensure that the bonus is worth more than you expected loss (and you don't overbet from a volatility standpoint).

It even works with card counting. Every hand you play with a disadvantage costs you money, the plan is just to bet much more when you have an edge.