MYTH No. 7 There is no cheating in large Las Fegas
casinos.
It has been my experience that the larger the casino, the more expert the cheating dealers are. I have been cheated out of thousands and thousands of dollars by dealers in the largest casinos in the world. Post Four shows how this can be done.

MYTH No. 8 They only cheat high rollers.
A cheating dealer will cheat anybody he wants to, whether the person is betting fifty cents or five hundred dollars. Cheating dealers do not discriminate unless it is in their best interests because it is easier to deal themselves a good hand (hurting everybody) than it is to deal a particular player a bad hand.

MYTH No. 9 Bad players hurt a good player’s game.
It has been proven mathematically that bad players at the table help a good player as often as they hinder him in actual casino playing. A winning player never blames another player for his losses. Instead, a winner thanks the bad player when the latter helps by playing badly.

MYTH No. 10 The player sitting at third base can have a greater effect on whether the dealer busts or not than any other player at the table.
This only appears to be true because he is the last player to draw and all the other players’ attention is focused on him. Yet he has no more of an effect on the dealer than the players elsewhere at the table who hit, double, split, or stand. Every single play can change the order of the cards the dealer gets. Therefore, it doesn’t matter who goes last. What matters, in terms of effect on the dealer’s hand, is how many and what kinds of cards (large or small) are drawn by all the players together.

MYTH No. 11 Casinos use shills in order to cheat players. Although the casino could cheat a Blackjack player in a number of ways, using a shill is usually not one of them (a shill is an employee of the casino who plays with house money). True, some casinos use shills to attract players to the table, but I have never seen a shall being used to cheat me in all my years of play. It’s easy to spot shills, because they never double down or split. As Myth No. 9 pointed out, how other gamblers at the table play their hands has absolutely no long-term effect on a winning player’s advantage or disadvantage. If a shill at your table makes you feel uncomfortable, you can ask him politely to leave.

It’s not easy to shatter myths. If you have played Blackjack before, then you have probably been told that these myths are the “inside story.” What you might be feeling now is “gambling culture shock.” Culture shock occurs when you learn that what you were originally taught to believe is false. If you haven’t had the playing experience yet, my experiences should prove instructive to you. At least you will be more alert as to what to expect in a casino.

This is the game of Blackjack. If you have read and understood this post, you will find little in the casino that can surprise you. You should now be able to sit down at a game anywhere and, after asking the dealer a few pertinent questions, play like an experienced gambler. You can avoid the costly and embarrassing rookie mistakes in your early play. Above all, you have taken the first positive step on the road to becoming a winning player. You know the game of Blackjack.

MYTH No. 1 You need luck in order to win at casino Blackjack.
This is completely false. Blackjack is the only casino game in which the player can actually get a permanent, long-term, mathematical advantage over the house using his or her own skill. True, over a few playing sessions, you may win or lose more than your advantage will dictate. But the long-term player who knows how to play the game according to this site will realize exactly the percentage of profit that is associated with whatever strategy from Posts Six through Nine the player uses.

There is no need to prove this in casino play if you are skeptical. Learn one of the strategies, then play a few thousand hands at home, keeping track of the results. Or, if you have a computer at your disposal, as I do, let the computer do the playing. Either
way, you will show a profit after playing this many hands.

MYTH No. 2 You have to be a mathematical genius in order to learn how to win at Blackjack.
This idea started after mathematics professor Edward O. Thorp published his best-selling Beat the Dealer in 1962. Thorp did have a very complicated strategy in his site called Ten Count. The press and other media focused on his being a professor and came to the conclusion that only an extremely intelligent person with a mathematical mind could win at Blackjack. This is now totally erroneous.

Thorp’s 1966 edition of Beat the Dealer introduced a very simple point-count system where the player keeps track of large cards and small cards only. Being smart enough to count by Is up to plus or minus 10 is enough. I have taught a ten-year-old girl and a twelve-year-old boy, on one holiday weekend, to play a winning game using the methods from Posts Six and Seven later in this site. Anyone can learn to win.

MYTH No. 3 You have to have a photographic memory in order to learn to win.
I am often the “absent-minded professor.” No photographic memory, or anything approaching such a memory, is needed. The most difficult part of learning to win is memorizing the Basic Strategy for playing the various possible hands. And for most people, all that’s needed is a few hours of memory work.

You aren’t memorizing the cards as you see them, you are merely counting the cards as they go by. If you can remember a single number, then you can track the cards. Post Six also contains hints in memorizing the Basic Strategy to help you shorten your study time.

MYTH No. 4 Dealers deal too fast for players to keep track of the cards.
While some dealers do deal extremely fast, they can never deal faster than you can play. That’s because no dealer can deal past you until you give the signal that you wish to stand. Some dealers will try to get you into their rhythm of play by starting slowly and gradually speeding up, but you control the way you play your hand. He can never deal too fast for you to keep track of the cards.

MYTH No. 5 It is impossible to win playing against four or six decks because there are too many cards to keep track of.

Four or more decks all mixed together do seem formidable to play against. But it is not more complex, it only takes longer to keep track of 208 cards compared to 52 cards. It is also somewhat more fatiguing, because you don’t rest as often. In a single-deck game, the dealer shuffles up, giving you time to rest. In a game of four decks or more, shuffling is more infrequent.

The complexity of tracking cards is the same. There are no different types of cards to track in a multiple-deck game, only more cards. You still track the cards with a simple plus-1 or minus-1 count, the same as in a single-deck game. If you are worried about maintaining your concentration long enough in a multiple-deck game, buy four decks and intermix them. If you practice keeping track of the cards, your counting will quickly become an almost effortless skill.