Betting the Count
Later in this website, over forty card counting systems will be presented. Each author has his own way to bet the count for each system. What I am going to do is present some generic information about betting. There are differences in betting coefficients. Assuming you have picked a high one, the generic table will be adequate. You are going to be able to have a greater spread of bets in shoe games. They aren’t watched as closely for card counters and this will give you freedom to spread the bets from one to eight or ten units. But in a single deck game, there is more scrutiny and a smaller spread is required. A rule of thumb range for single deck play is one to four units spread. Much more and you might be accused of being a card counter which, of course, you’re not.
Count Bet Single Deck Bet Six Deck
0 or negative 1 unit 1 unit
+1 to +2 2 units 2 units
+3 or +4 3 units 3 units
+5 4 units 4 units
+6 4 units 5 units
+7 4 units 6 units
+8 4 units 7 units
+9 or more 4 units 8 units
If you are going to bet this way, you should have a minimum of two hundred units as your bankroll. Let’s assume a unit is $10. Your bankroll should be about $2000. Some professionals suggest you should never bet more than 2% of your bankroll. This is good advice. If you have a $2000 bankroll, then your maximum bet should be 4 units or $40.
If you have $2000 in your pocket and a ten dollar unit sounds too small, you may bet higher, but at the risk of losing it all. Is your $2000 renewable should you lose it? If this is all you have to risk, and if you lost it, it would take a long time to get another $2000, then use the $10 unit and four unit maximum, and you will have a very low risk of ever losing it all. If you have a good income and in a month or two you could have the $2000 back, then you can afford a higher unit. Still, my advice would be to stay at the $10 unit for a couple of months, then go up to a $20 or $25 unit. This keeps your risk of ruin down, and you have a plan to safely work up to a higher level bet.
Most professionals prefer to bet their advantage. This follows what is known as the Kelly Criterion. To keep it simple, you bet your advantage. How you calculate the advantage is based on your disadvantage at the start of the game. It is generally accepted that a +2 count reflects a 1% advantage. If you were playing in a single deck game with great rules, you would be starting about even with the house. So a +2 count would equal a 1% advantage, and you would bet 1% of your bankroll. If the count went up to +4, you now have a 2% advantage, and your bet would be 2% of your bankroll.
If you are playing a six deck game, you’re starting with a house advantage of 0.5%. You will have to take this into consideration before betting. If the count is +2, your calculated advantage is 1% minus 0.5%, or only 0.5% advantage for you. This would be the percentage of your bankroll you would bet. The count would have to be +3 for a 1% player advantage, and +5 for a 2% player advantage.
What this means in terms of a bankroll and unit is, a unit would be 1% of your bankroll. If you have $5,000 as your bankroll, your unit would be $50. This doesn’t mean this is the table minimum. The minimum should be about half of your unit. You see, the Kelly Criterion only addresses betting when you have an advantage. You will be neutral or be at a disadvantage the greater part of the time, so you have to bet something then. This is when you have to bet the table minimum, or one half unit. If one half unit is more than the table minimum, you might reserve the minimum for a very negative count. You could also reserve a bathroom or stretch break for those times.
Kelly betting is the basis for proportional betting. When proportional betting, if your session bankroll increases by 20%, so does your bet. With Kelly, as your bankroll increases, your bet also increases. For instance, if your $2000 bankroll grew to $2500, your $20 bet would also grow to $25. Your 2% bet would be $50 then. Conversely, suppose you lost down to $1500. The 1% bet would also decrease to $15, and the 2% bet decreases to $30. This way, whether winning or losing, you are making optimal bets based on your advantage and your bets vary proportionally to your bankroll. Your risk of ruin is minimal. So, if you’ve heard of the term, proportional betting, it is based on Kelly.
Years ago Stanford Wong came up with the concept of betting the same unit all of the time, only never playing when there was a disadvantage. He would simply stand in the background and count the cards without playing. When the count was sufficiently high, he would join the table and bet a flat bet until the advantage was gone, then leave for greener pastures. This way he never bet when he didn’t have the advantage. He also didn’t look like a card counter because he never varied his bet.
This technique became know as “Wonging”. Casinos eventually caught on and some made the rule of “no mid-shoe entry”, in honor of Mr. Wong. If mid-shoe entry is allowed, it can’t hurt to try this technique. You can count while asking how the dealer has been treating the players. You need this information anyway, and you can pretend to just be watching to make sure it is a good table. If the count goes negative, you can walk, pretending the dealer is too “hot” right now. Look around for another table to start counting, and try it again.
