Pretty accurate on the techniques used and the maths. But don't make it sound like he had some kind of control over the cards, or that he "only bet big when the cards were right". The only way you can manage that is via counting, which he wasn't doing. You don't get to see your cards, and THEN decide how much you're going to bet. He still had to put that $100k on the table first, and then play his cards according to basic strategy. Another question is, where did he get the bankroll to bet $100k per hand? You could easily lose million$ in the short term at those stakes.
@@officialghetty Right. That's what I said. He wasn't counting. I'm just saying that parts of the narration make it sound like he had some kind of foreknowledge of the cards, which then determined the amount he bet, which is, of course, impossible unless you're cheating.
Unless he was backed by people with big bucks, there was no explanation how he started with such a big bankroll.there was no indication from his background that he had anywhere that kind of money.so let's have it ?
@@Jeff-p5i2w It says he formed a company that took advantage of betting irregularities at the horse track. He problaby took the money from that company.
Exactly right. Thank you. He could have just as easily lost millions at those stakes, even if he did have a small positive EV with the rebates and rules.
The Holiday Inn casino in Skopje, Macedonia uses those rules on their regular blackjack tables. Soft 17 stand, no restrictions on splits or doubles. They even offer surrender. 5 deck, manual shuffle and deal. Best place to play blackjack.
@@TILT223 Oh yeah, and 3:2 for BJ. Oh and free drinks and the casino is pretty small (just 10 tables - roulette, BJ, and poker) so your drink is never empty because the waitress is only a max of 5 meters away. They have 2 BJ tables on their non high roller room. One is a 2 euro minimum and the other is 25 euro minimum. So if you just want go in with just 100 euro and just play for fun, the cheap table is perfect. If you are coming in with a big bankroll, then play seriously at the 25 table.
@@bruce4139 I think that is what they used. I don't count cards, so never paid too much attention to that aspect. I would usually run to the restroom whrn they shuffled.
@@kevinhendrix8786 I've never seen a casino use 5 decks unless it's a csm in which case you cant tell (they put the cards back in the machine every deck or so) it's either 1 2 4 6 8
Have been binging these lately. Picking up a lot of of the template that you make these videos with, it’s incredibly well refined, and I must applaud you on it.
8:24 These "tweaks to the rules" are nothing extraordinary. Tables where the dealer uses six or fewer decks, the dealer stands on soft 17, the player can double on any initial two cards, and the player can split to four hands can easily be found with a minimum bet of $100 or, at many casinos, even less. At some casinos, these are (or use to be) the standard rules at all tables. In fact, the Mohegan Sun allows unlimited splitting at every table (you can keep splitting as many times as you keep getting a pair and have sufficient bankroll).
Actually, playing perfect basic strategy reduces the house edge to 0.5%. Splitting cards is part of the basic strategy, that's nothing special. Doubling on certain hands is also part of basic strategy, so that's a part of the reduction in house edge as well. Once you get the house to a mere 0.5%, the only way to beat them is to count and play deviations well, and if you can do that, you will be very successful more times than not.
Max Rubin’s Radical Blackjack introduces the practice of designing betting strategies that optimize specific loss rebate terms. There is a huge advantage from collecting the rebate each time the loss level is reached and bet sizes that fluctuate depending on how close you are to the loss level. It is a very interesting angle to add to the game.
love the content! if you ever run dry on casino stories there are a lot of great stories about people beating game shows. just something similar to keep in the back of your mind :)
@11:10, you never told us what card he got with each double down before it was the Dealer's turn. I know it doesn't matter because the dealer busted, but it seems like something was accidentally left out there
He was definitely counting the cards without drastically changing bet levels...but.........would change any expansion of splits up or down depending on the counts....if that seems reasonable.
You forgot to mention the “hand signals” if a dealer messed it up or misunderstood the meaning it was a “push” meaning 50/50 game that you push some loses turns into a game you can win at You did mention his own attempt to distract the dealers and this is why
In a recent interview, Dana White talks about neglecting the usual Whale perks and concentrating on setting the game terms instead… especially the amounts he’s allowed to bet. Needless to say, he isn’t welcome either in many Vegas casinos anymore 😅
@@TILT223Dana white is a high roller recreational player. The reason certain casinos won't take his action is only because he wants to bet insanely huge. Simply put, a casino has no reason to subject themselves to that sort of variance
Sounds great, until you dig deeper and find that Dana White has lost MILLIONS of $$$ and is a crappy player. A small time winner is smarter than a big time loser.
@@imilliemedina666Dan took his three big wins and ran with the 15 millions. Hopefully he managed that windfall well, he may never be able to duplicate it once he told how it was done.
Thats pretty cool!! Can you request players or is it just who you get. Definetly can put drinks on in. It will take a while for the polyurethane to break down.
3:05 Blackjack's house-edge does come indirectly from "dealer goes last", but not because "they know what hand they need to beat". Dealer's have to follow set play patterns dictated by the table's rules, regardless of the players' hands. Ex. If table rules says "Dealer hits under 17" and I have a 15, but dealer shows 16, even though they're winning, they HAVE to hit (less than 17) if I stand. The majority of the house-edge actually comes simply from that if you and the dealer both bust, it's not a tie/push, it's a house-win. This is also part of why card-counting flips the edge in the player's favor when the count is high. The players will not only make more blackjacks, but they'll also win some hands solely because more high cards means the dealer will bust more often.
@@imilliemedina666John Scarne died in 1985. People have figured more things out about blackjack and card counting since then. They've had time to run the math, try it for themselves, and see that in the long run, it works out. It doesn't work every time. Bad sessions happen. Bad months, even. Good bankroll management, patience, accepting bad runs are part of the game, and a large enough bankroll on the front end increases the chances of weathering bad runs. The player advantage comes from getting good rules and adjusting bet size when they know it's more likely they're gonna get high cards and Aces and dropping when it's more likely to come low. The 3:2 payout for a blackjack is the one rule that makes it work more than any other. You don't just win that hand - you get 50% more on top. It lowers the bar how often you have to win. More tables, especially on the Vegas Strip, counter this with 6:5 blackjack where you only get 20% on top. Add in doubling down on 12 when there are fewer 10s and taking insurance when it's more likely the dealer has blackjack so the hand is a wash and you have the elements needed for a winning game. If they were betting the same thing every time or doing a betting scheme like the Martingale, where they react to the last hand instead of looking at what's left in the shoe, of course they would lose over the long term.
@@imilliemedina666 If it didn't win long term, or was an outright losing strategy, Casino's would ENCOURAGE it, not kick people out. Casinos WANT losers. That's how they make money. Go into any casino saying you have "a system" for almost any other game and they'll happily let you sit down. Say you're a card-counter and you get trespassed. Why is that? As above stated, Scarne died nearly 40years ago. And his "debunk" was done in and based on the rudimentary systems of the 1960s. Card counting has been drastically researched and reiterated on during that time. The math checks out.
@@imilliemedina666 John Scarne also claimed that poker in card rooms wasn't beatable because of the rake. That would only be true if all the players had about the same skill level, which is rarely the case. He was wrong about that and he was also wrong if he said counting doesn't work. I suspect he wasn't considering that the player could greatly increase his bet size when the count favored the player. Penn Jillette (another sleight of hand artist) thought card counting was a big waste of time because of the low return on the investment. That is until Anthony Curtis explained to him that the 1.5% return on the blackjack wager was every hand, not for the year. And you can bet about 100 hands per hour!
@@imilliemedina666 I read Scarne's books decades ago, that's how I know what he said about poker. He was wrong about that, and if your claim about card counting is accurate, he's wrong about card counting too (I don't remember him addressing card counting, I'm taking your word for it).
@@GRice999 Scarne laid out a method for high count-low count, including how to use your chips to keep count, then pointed the obvious, that a rich deck favors neither the player nor the house, the odds of getting blackjack are (3.25 × 13)÷2, and that an eight deck shoe in which only half the cards are used makes it pretty much a waste of time. If you want to count cards, God bless you. It would be easier to simply count aces,, as Scarne also pointed out. Casinos love it when people come in with the Thorn card.
you sound pretty similar to a different +ev gambling channel... i wonder if you're expanding by doing multiple channels, or if it is just a coincidence. Either way, great video!
Does the bank benefit from players going first? I thought they had preset rules on twisting/sticking? The house advantage is when player and house bust the house wins ?
Even as a low stake but frequent player there was a time Tropicana would give even me tons of comps and free slot play that even if i lost a few hundred gambling i would still profit at the end of the weekend but ever since the pandemic all the Atlantic City casinos have cut back on such frequent and easily obtained comps
Did no one notice that the dealer didn't give the guy a 3rd card on his double down on the hands with the split 8s? Also, you wouldn't deal the 2nd card on all four 8s in a row like that. It should go "card 2, card 3, card 2, card 3 and so on...
I think the dealer did give him a third card but it just wasn’t mentioned because the dealer busted. So it doesn’t really matter what his third card was for each one
@@SiriusV21 but what's so weird was that anyone that plays blackjack would notice that immediately. plus, don't you play the hands in order as well? you'd never see all 4 8s with 2s and 3s on them. you play each hand to completion once split.
He got the house edge down to nothing, it was a 50-50 proposition but he still had to get incredibly lucky to still come out that much ahead. It was basically a coin flip.
Split after split would be a dream. Doubling 9,10,11, even after split is pretty standard in my part of Australia though. Doubling any two cards would be a dream too. Soft 17 is $50 minimum tables.
Most common tables are Hit soft 17 or H17 (S17 gives about a 0.2% edge to the player which isnt much but when the house is playing with a 0.5% edge or even 1% edge it becomes a lot DAS is a pretty common rule but made sure he had it Re-splitting aces is also a decent rule but not all casinos have it (sometimes you can split them but not resplit them) Surrender does wonders to your ev since there are certain hands that no matter how you play them you're losing in the long run (like 16V 10) and not all casinos have them again
3:08 I have studied counting methods, but I play no bust black jack. I won't hit 12, so the dealer has to land between 17 and 21. They bust quite often. I also only shoot 1 barrel, after playing poker, so the most I can lose is 1 bet, but if I win I can win x - 1 (I quit on the first losing hand). I accidently stayed on 10 once, and won. They were suspicious, but it worked. .
This guy's edge was really the 20% rebates. If he loses a million at one casino and makes a million at the next, he would be up 200k due to the rebate from the first casino even though he played a break-even game.
Has anyone else besides me noticed there are a couple of incorrect graphic in this video? At 13 min. & 24 secs. into the video the narrator makes a reference to Five million dollars, ($5,000,000,) But the graphic on the screen indicates 5 BILLION dollars. ($5,000,000,000.) A few seconds later, the narrator makes a reference to 11 million dollars, ($11,000,000,) but the graphic reads 11 BILLION dollars. ($11,000,000,000.)
@@kemokiddingthe 2s and 3s weren’t the double down cards, you get 2 cards for each hand so when he split 4 times they deal an extra card to all 4 hands and he then doubled down on those hands. They never showed us what his double down cards were.
Does anyone know that when the numbers show up on the video, it's incorrect when the narrator quote the amount?? It was reading hundreds of millions of dollars and billions of dollars.
If they can figure out the pattern of your betting, and it does not correspond with what they'd expect a card counter to do, they won't 86 you. A "paroli" system, if you're patient, may have you ahead at a particular point, so as long as you're not greedy, and you don't go to the same casino every day and quit while you're, say, $100 ahead on $10 bets, the house is willing to let you play, because there are days you will never get ahead, and they figure it all equals out.
You did not explain how he managed to beat the casinos You said the free bets and rebates along with the rule changes shave the houses edge to .25% and then called it "basically 50:50" which goes to show how little you understand the subject matter your making videos about if after all rebates free bets and rule changes, the edge comes out to .25% for the house, then they are still long time winners, and technically this man ONLY got lucky. if anything it was more risk than they were willing to take on, but it is not as though he had an actual advantage over the casino in any way. he managed to reduce the houses edge but only got lucky that he won anything. all of these bets should still be -EV, unless you are not explaining the full story.
It doesn’t make sense. On that first big split 8’s hand he had 11’s and 10’s, the dealer had 15 and hit for another 10. He lost when he had 11 right? Or am I confused?
The house has two edges, the first and biggest being that the player can bust out before the dealer makes a move. The second edge is....well, you wouldn't understand.
@@parkerbohnn The second edge is human behavior. When people are losing, they tend to lose all sense and bet massive amounts to try to win it all back in one fell swoop. When people win, they do the opposite and get conservative. One big loser will pay the casino for five winners. And you are right, they have ways to mess you up.
…yeah, a lot of this is wrong. splitting is something you can do anywhere. you don’t have to have 2 of a kind to double. the dealer going last doesn’t mean they have more information with which to win, seeing as they always draw to 17 - it just means that the dealer still wins if both bust, since the player busted first. do more research please
Also, you got a lot of the numbers wrong, and he couldn’t “just not play when the cards were bad.” While that is possible, it requires card counting, which don wasn’t doing
i dont get it, today you have soft 17 games, if your winning you dont get the rebate back, and the free perks dont make sense the only thing i can think of here is the free play excess of 50k ? im still lost
Honestly the only way I can see this working is if he was counting and playing deviations at minimum. With perfect play the house edge is maybe 0.25 After massive rebate and free bet he could be profitable. But winning 15M not going to happen without being massively lucky.
With the 0.25% house edge all the dealer needs to do is fuck up once every 399 for Don to have an edge since the next hand will be free. Probably pretty easily achievable.
So there was no loophole. He was just lucky. He made the casinos think he's a bad player when playing low limit tables and then plays perfect basic strategy on the private table. Still he did not have any edge. That's not a loophole.
I always think these concessions sound crazy but to the casino, even if their margin is much worse, it's still a bigger piece of pie to take 80% of a whale's losses than 100% of a thousand Joe Smoe's.
WATCH NEXT: The Man Who Outsmarted Global Gambling - ua-cam.com/video/ku2el6FGPaA/v-deo.html
😊😊
Pretty accurate on the techniques used and the maths. But don't make it sound like he had some kind of control over the cards, or that he "only bet big when the cards were right". The only way you can manage that is via counting, which he wasn't doing. You don't get to see your cards, and THEN decide how much you're going to bet. He still had to put that $100k on the table first, and then play his cards according to basic strategy. Another question is, where did he get the bankroll to bet $100k per hand? You could easily lose million$ in the short term at those stakes.
The video literally states that he wasn’t counting cards and his bet sizings weren’t consistent with someone who is counting cards.
@@officialghetty Right. That's what I said. He wasn't counting. I'm just saying that parts of the narration make it sound like he had some kind of foreknowledge of the cards, which then determined the amount he bet, which is, of course, impossible unless you're cheating.
Unless he was backed by people with big bucks, there was no explanation how he started with such a big bankroll.there was no indication from his background that he had anywhere that kind of money.so let's have it ?
but if he can split any double, and up to 4 times, that enables him to bet bigger when the cards on the table are right.
@@Jeff-p5i2w It says he formed a company that took advantage of betting irregularities at the horse track. He problaby took the money from that company.
This guy made millions by simply playing basic strategy 😮. Wish we were all so lucky
Yep non of this makes sense. Even playing basic strategy with a .25% edge should have gotten these results anywhere near his outcomes.
@@kalinfoster3671 yeah idk I guess variance was in his favor
@@kalinfoster3671 the only way to get ahead in blackjack is just getting lucky with pressing into wins and pulling back ahead of losses
@@kalinfoster3671 thats cuz of his special rules, like 20% rebates and 50k free bets. it swings the odds in his favour
Saved me watching the video and wasting 17 min, cheers👍
This guy is EXTREMELY lucky. He did not even have an edge. He just got positive variance at the right time. Kinda dumb when u think of it.
Exactly right. Thank you. He could have just as easily lost millions at those stakes, even if he did have a small positive EV with the rebates and rules.
If you add in the rebates of up to 20% that were mentioned this guy had a MONSTER edge over the casino - they won't make that mistake again!
The rule change he set up was the catalyst for him to win not really just luck.
understand the math, game has a 1% edge and he got a 20% loss rebate
Exactly right @@fifiwoof1969
The Holiday Inn casino in Skopje, Macedonia uses those rules on their regular blackjack tables. Soft 17 stand, no restrictions on splits or doubles. They even offer surrender. 5 deck, manual shuffle and deal. Best place to play blackjack.
Interesting! definately the place to be playing by the sounds of it.
@@TILT223 Oh yeah, and 3:2 for BJ. Oh and free drinks and the casino is pretty small (just 10 tables - roulette, BJ, and poker) so your drink is never empty because the waitress is only a max of 5 meters away. They have 2 BJ tables on their non high roller room. One is a 2 euro minimum and the other is 25 euro minimum. So if you just want go in with just 100 euro and just play for fun, the cheap table is perfect. If you are coming in with a big bankroll, then play seriously at the 25 table.
5 decks?
@@bruce4139 I think that is what they used. I don't count cards, so never paid too much attention to that aspect. I would usually run to the restroom whrn they shuffled.
@@kevinhendrix8786 I've never seen a casino use 5 decks unless it's a csm in which case you cant tell (they put the cards back in the machine every deck or so) it's either 1 2 4 6 8
The numbers show as billion, not million, on the screen. $5,000,000,000 rather than $5,000,000 etc.
Dammit! Several revisions from multiple people and still, something slipped through. Sorry, will try harder :)
@@TILT223try harder!? Just keep it up. You’ve got the best mastermind videos made since the show masterminds.
Wow, those rebates _were_ generous..!😊
No one really minds, the over-arching thing is the content is engaging and well presented. Keep it up :)
@@TILT223we know who you are Mr Berry
Thanks
Oh wow, thank you for the super. Much appreciated, if you have any suggestions for topics etc please let us know.
Have been binging these lately. Picking up a lot of of the template that you make these videos with, it’s incredibly well refined, and I must applaud you on it.
8:24 These "tweaks to the rules" are nothing extraordinary. Tables where the dealer uses six or fewer decks, the dealer stands on soft 17, the player can double on any initial two cards, and the player can split to four hands can easily be found with a minimum bet of $100 or, at many casinos, even less. At some casinos, these are (or use to be) the standard rules at all tables. In fact, the Mohegan Sun allows unlimited splitting at every table (you can keep splitting as many times as you keep getting a pair and have sufficient bankroll).
Actually, playing perfect basic strategy reduces the house edge to 0.5%. Splitting cards is part of the basic strategy, that's nothing special. Doubling on certain hands is also part of basic strategy, so that's a part of the reduction in house edge as well. Once you get the house to a mere 0.5%, the only way to beat them is to count and play deviations well, and if you can do that, you will be very successful more times than not.
I love these gambling videos so much keep up the great work!
Glad you like them! thank you for the feedback, we're trying to improve - always.
W vid as always, keep grinding
Max Rubin’s Radical Blackjack introduces the practice of designing betting strategies that optimize specific loss rebate terms. There is a huge advantage from collecting the rebate each time the loss level is reached and bet sizes that fluctuate depending on how close you are to the loss level. It is a very interesting angle to add to the game.
See you at the buffet after they break you 😂
Another Gem thanks so much
My pleasure!
This channel came out of nowhere and is very cool
Another sizzling video my friend! The format is top notch! Keep it coming!
Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated!
Great and compelling content. Consistently impressive work.
love the content! if you ever run dry on casino stories there are a lot of great stories about people beating game shows. just something similar to keep in the back of your mind :)
Sounds like an idea! Thanks for sharing, one person we were looking up actually has a history of game shows aswell as gambling success.
Another great video. I knew about Don Johnson before but you told the story with a new angle. Well done!
One note though. The split 8s hand would play from right to left.
Thanks, we try our best. I don't think people realise how much hard work goes into the creation process :)
Noted, will feedback to the team thanks.
@charless2684 hardly matters when he doubles down on each (NO chance of him busting) and dealer busts - YOINK!
LOVE this channel. Keep this quality content coming! Every video has been a well worth watch all the way through.
Good videos first time watcher hope you grow I liked and subscribed and I never do that lol
@11:10, you never told us what card he got with each double down before it was the Dealer's turn. I know it doesn't matter because the dealer busted, but it seems like something was accidentally left out there
he took them all face own and never turned them over
Left you a sub and a like. keep the great work up 😁
im so confused lmao. splitting is always allowed in blackjack so why would he need to get those terms?
I think in many casinos, you’re only allowed to split once.
I've watched a few of these videos, and there seems to be a part of the story missing from each one.
yes, but it depends on how many times you can split. some allow only splitting once, so playing 2 hands.
Another class video. 🎉
He was definitely counting the cards without drastically changing bet levels...but.........would change any expansion of splits up or down depending on the counts....if that seems reasonable.
You forgot to mention the “hand signals” if a dealer messed it up or misunderstood the meaning it was a “push” meaning 50/50 game that you push some loses turns into a game you can win at
You did mention his own attempt to distract the dealers and this is why
It’s about sponsorship/brand collabs can’t reply to your comments in previous videos
Great work
Thanks man, really appreciate it.
In a recent interview, Dana White talks about neglecting the usual Whale perks and concentrating on setting the game terms instead… especially the amounts he’s allowed to bet. Needless to say, he isn’t welcome either in many Vegas casinos anymore 😅
I hadn't seen that, keen to look it up. Dana is an advantage player? I assumed he was just a high-rolling recreational.
@@TILT223Dana white is a high roller recreational player. The reason certain casinos won't take his action is only because he wants to bet insanely huge. Simply put, a casino has no reason to subject themselves to that sort of variance
Sounds great, until you dig deeper and find that Dana White has lost MILLIONS of $$$ and is a crappy player. A small time winner is smarter than a big time loser.
@@imilliemedina666Dan took his three big wins and ran with the 15 millions. Hopefully he managed that windfall well, he may never be able to duplicate it once he told how it was done.
@@theodorehsu5023 Bet big when you're winning, bet small when you're losing, and get a 20% rebate on your losses.
Dude was patient and went bananas when those 8’s came up!!! Waited for the opportunity, then smacked em in the mouth! Lol
Live your channel mate!!
Thank you, trying our best.
Thats pretty cool!! Can you request players or is it just who you get. Definetly can put drinks on in. It will take a while for the polyurethane to break down.
Awesome video! Thank you!
3:05 Blackjack's house-edge does come indirectly from "dealer goes last", but not because "they know what hand they need to beat". Dealer's have to follow set play patterns dictated by the table's rules, regardless of the players' hands. Ex. If table rules says "Dealer hits under 17" and I have a 15, but dealer shows 16, even though they're winning, they HAVE to hit (less than 17) if I stand. The majority of the house-edge actually comes simply from that if you and the dealer both bust, it's not a tie/push, it's a house-win.
This is also part of why card-counting flips the edge in the player's favor when the count is high. The players will not only make more blackjacks, but they'll also win some hands solely because more high cards means the dealer will bust more often.
@@imilliemedina666John Scarne died in 1985. People have figured more things out about blackjack and card counting since then. They've had time to run the math, try it for themselves, and see that in the long run, it works out. It doesn't work every time. Bad sessions happen. Bad months, even. Good bankroll management, patience, accepting bad runs are part of the game, and a large enough bankroll on the front end increases the chances of weathering bad runs. The player advantage comes from getting good rules and adjusting bet size when they know it's more likely they're gonna get high cards and Aces and dropping when it's more likely to come low. The 3:2 payout for a blackjack is the one rule that makes it work more than any other. You don't just win that hand - you get 50% more on top. It lowers the bar how often you have to win. More tables, especially on the Vegas Strip, counter this with 6:5 blackjack where you only get 20% on top. Add in doubling down on 12 when there are fewer 10s and taking insurance when it's more likely the dealer has blackjack so the hand is a wash and you have the elements needed for a winning game.
If they were betting the same thing every time or doing a betting scheme like the Martingale, where they react to the last hand instead of looking at what's left in the shoe, of course they would lose over the long term.
@@imilliemedina666
If it didn't win long term, or was an outright losing strategy, Casino's would ENCOURAGE it, not kick people out. Casinos WANT losers. That's how they make money. Go into any casino saying you have "a system" for almost any other game and they'll happily let you sit down. Say you're a card-counter and you get trespassed. Why is that?
As above stated, Scarne died nearly 40years ago. And his "debunk" was done in and based on the rudimentary systems of the 1960s. Card counting has been drastically researched and reiterated on during that time. The math checks out.
@@imilliemedina666 John Scarne also claimed that poker in card rooms wasn't beatable because of the rake. That would only be true if all the players had about the same skill level, which is rarely the case. He was wrong about that and he was also wrong if he said counting doesn't work. I suspect he wasn't considering that the player could greatly increase his bet size when the count favored the player.
Penn Jillette (another sleight of hand artist) thought card counting was a big waste of time because of the low return on the investment. That is until Anthony Curtis explained to him that the 1.5% return on the blackjack wager was every hand, not for the year. And you can bet about 100 hands per hour!
@@imilliemedina666 I read Scarne's books decades ago, that's how I know what he said about poker. He was wrong about that, and if your claim about card counting is accurate, he's wrong about card counting too (I don't remember him addressing card counting, I'm taking your word for it).
@@GRice999 Scarne laid out a method for high count-low count, including how to use your chips to keep count, then pointed the obvious, that a rich deck favors neither the player nor the house, the odds of getting blackjack are (3.25 × 13)÷2, and that an eight deck shoe in which only half the cards are used makes it pretty much a waste of time. If you want to count cards, God bless you. It would be easier to simply count aces,, as Scarne also pointed out. Casinos love it when people come in with the Thorn card.
Love your videos man..just subscribed! Keep them coming
Thanks for the sub!
12:49 - too many 0's
nah he won 6 billion 🤣
Great video!
you sound pretty similar to a different +ev gambling channel... i wonder if you're expanding by doing multiple channels, or if it is just a coincidence. Either way, great video!
Does the bank benefit from players going first? I thought they had preset rules on twisting/sticking? The house advantage is when player and house bust the house wins ?
He was just lucky, although he shaved off most of their edge. Good for him
Never knew you could just ask for your own rules
When you bet big money it becomes a thing. They start asking what you want etc
Even as a low stake but frequent player there was a time Tropicana would give even me tons of comps and free slot play that even if i lost a few hundred gambling i would still profit at the end of the weekend but ever since the pandemic all the Atlantic City casinos have cut back on such frequent and easily obtained comps
Did no one notice that the dealer didn't give the guy a 3rd card on his double down on the hands with the split 8s? Also, you wouldn't deal the 2nd card on all four 8s in a row like that. It should go "card 2, card 3, card 2, card 3 and so on...
I think the dealer did give him a third card but it just wasn’t mentioned because the dealer busted. So it doesn’t really matter what his third card was for each one
@@SiriusV21 but what's so weird was that anyone that plays blackjack would notice that immediately. plus, don't you play the hands in order as well? you'd never see all 4 8s with 2s and 3s on them. you play each hand to completion once split.
He got the house edge down to nothing, it was a 50-50 proposition but he still had to get incredibly lucky to still come out that much ahead. It was basically a coin flip.
Split after split would be a dream. Doubling 9,10,11, even after split is pretty standard in my part of Australia though. Doubling any two cards would be a dream too. Soft 17 is $50 minimum tables.
What game of blackjack does the dealer hit hus hand before you do. Am I the inly oersin whi caught that?
So in a nutshell this guy got LUCKY AS HELL!
You got it!!
i’m confused on how these rules are different from any blackjack table i’ve ever sat at
Most common tables are Hit soft 17 or H17 (S17 gives about a 0.2% edge to the player which isnt much but when the house is playing with a 0.5% edge or even 1% edge it becomes a lot
DAS is a pretty common rule but made sure he had it
Re-splitting aces is also a decent rule but not all casinos have it (sometimes you can split them but not resplit them)
Surrender does wonders to your ev since there are certain hands that no matter how you play them you're losing in the long run (like 16V 10) and not all casinos have them again
The million / billion slip. Was that your way of showing how slight distractions break concentration? Genius if so.
Bro really said “nah, I’d win”
3:08 I have studied counting methods, but I play no bust black jack. I won't hit 12, so the dealer has to land between 17 and 21. They bust quite often. I also only shoot 1 barrel, after playing poker, so the most I can lose is 1 bet, but if I win I can win x - 1 (I quit on the first losing hand). I accidently stayed on 10 once, and won. They were suspicious, but it worked. .
very good video.
This guy's edge was really the 20% rebates. If he loses a million at one casino and makes a million at the next, he would be up 200k due to the rebate from the first casino even though he played a break-even game.
This is don johnson, recommend his podcast with blackjack apprenticeship
Excellent vid, except your captions show billions (9 zeros) instead of millions (6 zeros)
all of those "conditions" is how any high limit table at a casino operates. He got extremely lucky
Has anyone else besides me noticed there are a couple of incorrect graphic in this video? At 13 min. & 24 secs. into the video the narrator makes a reference to Five million dollars, ($5,000,000,) But the graphic on the screen indicates 5 BILLION dollars. ($5,000,000,000.) A few seconds later, the narrator makes a reference to 11 million dollars, ($11,000,000,) but the graphic reads 11 BILLION dollars. ($11,000,000,000.)
I'd be curious to know what cards he got on his 4 double downs off the 4x 8 split??
2s and 3s - not at all clear to me why he would stand on 10 and 11!!!
@@kemokiddingthe 2s and 3s weren’t the double down cards, you get 2 cards for each hand so when he split 4 times they deal an extra card to all 4 hands and he then doubled down on those hands. They never showed us what his double down cards were.
15:58 then add in rebates of up to 20% - this guy has a monster edge without counting cards!
What do you mean by he only bet high when the cards are right? You have to bet before getting the cards right?
Watch the rest of the video and you will see! he didnt.
Missed the part after his double downs where he gets another card on each of those hands?
Fix the numbers in the video. But beside that - great story and a lot of work put up. Keep it the same way man! ❤
No matter how hard we try it seems something slips through!
I heard about this story a couple of years ago
Does anyone know that when the numbers show up on the video, it's incorrect when the narrator quote the amount?? It was reading hundreds of millions of dollars and billions of dollars.
Yes we were informed of this after release, will avoid it happening again.
And then there’s me wondering why he wanted the dealer to stand up 🤪😂
The hand where he split 8's...each hand received a card which would be an automatic double down, but he stood on 10's and 11's against a dealer's 5?
he did double
@@hieuvotran3096 you're right in that the commentary says he did but the production costs didn't extend to the graphics showing the hands being hit.
The dealer busted. It didn't matter what cards he got.
I got confused during this part also...he surely hit & doubled on 10 & 11
I hope he shared his winning with all the people who helped him.
If they can figure out the pattern of your betting, and it does not correspond with what they'd expect a card counter to do, they won't 86 you. A "paroli" system, if you're patient, may have you ahead at a particular point, so as long as you're not greedy, and you don't go to the same casino every day and quit while you're, say, $100 ahead on $10 bets, the house is willing to let you play, because there are days you will never get ahead, and they figure it all equals out.
Yep, sure. Heard Vegas was closing soon.
Don Johnson. Heard about him in another video.
Video kept on showing Tropicana Las Vegas when it was Tropicana AC. Trop AC is part of Caesars but Tropicana wasn't.
You did not explain how he managed to beat the casinos
You said the free bets and rebates along with the rule changes shave the houses edge to .25% and then called it "basically 50:50" which goes to show how little you understand the subject matter your making videos about
if after all rebates free bets and rule changes, the edge comes out to .25% for the house, then they are still long time winners, and technically this man ONLY got lucky. if anything it was more risk than they were willing to take on, but it is not as though he had an actual advantage over the casino in any way. he managed to reduce the houses edge but only got lucky that he won anything. all of these bets should still be -EV, unless you are not explaining the full story.
It doesn’t make sense. On that first big split 8’s hand he had 11’s and 10’s, the dealer had 15 and hit for another 10. He lost when he had 11 right? Or am I confused?
he just didnt show how these hands progressed, but it doesn't matter since the dealer always has to take a card with 15
Do you narrate any other channels? I swear ive heard your voice elsewhere haha
But alot of casinos already offer free play bets, stay on soft 17 and 4 splits without any special perks.
You put too many zeros on the captions.
12:55 - But you do not know your cards before you have to bet your initial wager? I do not get your point here.
The house has two edges, the first and biggest being that the player can bust out before the dealer makes a move. The second edge is....well, you wouldn't understand.
The second edge is thye try to mess you up.
@@parkerbohnn The second edge is human behavior. When people are losing, they tend to lose all sense and bet massive amounts to try to win it all back in one fell swoop. When people win, they do the opposite and get conservative. One big loser will pay the casino for five winners. And you are right, they have ways to mess you up.
THEY GO AFTER THIS GUY FOR INSIDER TRADING AND WE LET ALL OUR POLITICIANS MAKE HUNDREDS OF MILLION DOLLARS INSIDER TRADING.. DOESNT SEEM FAIR
He has people like engineers in mathematicians helping him with his strategies p have seen his whole story before
…yeah, a lot of this is wrong. splitting is something you can do anywhere. you don’t have to have 2 of a kind to double. the dealer going last doesn’t mean they have more information with which to win, seeing as they always draw to 17 - it just means that the dealer still wins if both bust, since the player busted first. do more research please
Also, you got a lot of the numbers wrong, and he couldn’t “just not play when the cards were bad.” While that is possible, it requires card counting, which don wasn’t doing
12:50 bro how much is a million
i dont get it, today you have soft 17 games, if your winning you dont get the rebate back, and the free perks dont make sense the only thing i can think of here is the free play excess of 50k ? im still lost
Wait. Why wasn't it shown what Don drew to when he split all the eights? That would be finished before the dealer drew his hand.
Technically it doesn't matter because they were each under 11 so he couldn't bust, and it shows the dealer busted so he won no matter what he drew to
He split 8’s against the dealers 5 card? That’s just basic strategy. And what casino is going to allow you to bet AFTER seeing the dealer’s up card?
Honestly the only way I can see this working is if he was counting and playing deviations at minimum. With perfect play the house edge is maybe 0.25 After massive rebate and free bet he could be profitable. But winning 15M not going to happen without being massively lucky.
You can double down on any hand
Making them stay on a soft 17 is wild
That's usually the rule in High Limit rooms anyways.
With the 0.25% house edge all the dealer needs to do is fuck up once every 399 for Don to have an edge since the next hand will be free. Probably pretty easily achievable.
where did he get the over 1 million to bet with in the first place?
What have you used for the videos going under ur speech? is it ai?
I am willing to bet (haha) it's not AI. AI isn't that expressive yet.
So there was no loophole. He was just lucky. He made the casinos think he's a bad player when playing low limit tables and then plays perfect basic strategy on the private table. Still he did not have any edge. That's not a loophole.
Supervisor and pit bosses are watching him so
I always think these concessions sound crazy but to the casino, even if their margin is much worse, it's still a bigger piece of pie to take 80% of a whale's losses than 100% of a thousand Joe Smoe's.
Very true that.
You need to go back to school and learn how many zeroes there are in a million.
14:46 why is Putin dealing cards?😂
Just to remind you guys. He has a plan, a plan to exploit a loophole the casinos never saw coming.
😂😂
A mediocre player comes in and asks for a list of subtle tweaks to the rules, and no one suspects anything? Fascinating.
You could split any 2 cards not just 9’s & 10’s. You always supposed to split 8’s.
12:48 6 million, right? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Where did he get the bankroll to bet $100k per hand?
Thats a good question; his earlier venture that was mentioned? or perhaps you think elsewhere?
It was an organized team play, Don was the face of
@@TILT223 Possibly, but it's hard to imagine (even with a strong advantage) making enough money playing $100/hand to jump to $100k per hand.