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A good blackjack player understands the probabilities of blackjack and adjusting your play so you have winning strategies. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. The basic blackjack chart created in 1956 and adjusted later for different table rules is available almost everywhere. It reduces the house advantage from 5% to 1%. That’s huge over the long haul.

There are mathematical reasons for each move in the chart. For instance, if you have a hard 16 and the dealer shows anything 7 or higher, you always presume that they have a 10 buried and take a hit. The probability of the game is that you’ll bust in 62% of the cases, but you go down with a fight. If the dealer has 2 through 6 showing and you have the same 16, you also presume that he has a 16 and you pass, hoping that he gets the probable 62% bust. When you have a 12 and the dealer shows a 2 or a 3 you need to hit. There’s only a 31% chance of either of you busting.

Card counting also takes advantage of the odds of the next card. You increase your betting when you card count and the count is a positive. Add one for every 2,3,4,5 or 6 and subtract one for 10, Jack, Queen, King or Ace. If you have a 6-deck shoe and the table used up about four decks, divide that number by 2, since there’s five decks left.

If the count is positive, that means that more little cards are out and big ones are coming. This changes the statistics. Since the odds of bigger cards is greater and more favorable to the player.

The probabilities of a better hand if the 5 cards are removed increases for the player by .67%. If you remove aces, it increases for the house by .59%. This fact led The Wizard, to create a system that counts 5’s and Aces. Assign a plus to 5’s and minus to aces. When you’re positive, you increase the bet, negative go back to a single unit.

Mathematicians create most of the blackjack probability charts and strategies because math rules the outcome of the cards over the long haul. In single deck blackjack, you only have so many combinations. In multi-deck games the odds or probabilities change. They use theoretical equations to arrive at their answers and then find ways to make them useful on the gaming floor. These probabilities are over the long haul, and in short-play, may not always work out the way you expect.
When you sit down to a blackjack table, the probability of winning is 42.43%. The probability of losing is 49.09% and that of a draw is 8.48% with no basic strategy. It would seem that if you lose 6 hands in a row, your next hand should be a winner.

It would seem that way, but isn’t. Blackjack probabilities are long-term numbers. That means that over thousands of hands these hold true. While the odds of losing 19 hands in a row are 1 in 1,459,921, it does happen. There are no “sure things” when it comes to a single session of cards. That’s why they call it gambling.

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Basic blackjack systems used today came from a paper published in 1956 in the Journal of the American Statistical Association.” The mathematicians and gamblers, Baldwin, Cantey, Maisel and McDermott created a solid foundation and still used today. The rules changed minorly to adapt to new table rules and variations. This strategy gave an edge to narrow the houses favor and aid the player. This, above all else is the first and most important strategy any casino player should learn.

Most of the Blackjack systems developed since then, that work, have to do with some type of tracking. Most everyone has heard of card counting. The book “Beat the Dealer” by Thorp, 1966, drew attention to a ten-count system and gave hope to the technical player. The method that Thorp presented changed the house advantage from 5% to a player advantage of 1%. This was huge and people it brought people back to the blackjack tables once more.

From the concept in Thorp’s book came a variety of simpler card counting techniques. Card counting is a method where you track the cards already dealt. Since Thorp’s day, the casinos added multi-deck shoes and use only about half the cards to deter card counters. This creates a few changes in the system. In basic card counting, 7,8,9 get no value. All tens, faces and aces get 1 and 2,3,4,5 and 6 get a +1. As the cards appear, you keep a running tally. If there are 6 decks, calculate how many decks already you played and subtract it from the total number. If you only played one hand, then you’d divide by 6. If you played about 2 decks, you subtract those two and divide by four. When the range is plus, it favors the player. When it’s minus, the odds of a dealer making a hand while the players sit on 12-21 are great since many of the bust cards are gone, so it benefits the house. Bet high when it’s in the players favor.

A second less complicated strategy is counting aces and fives, or the Wizard five/ace count. All fives are plus 1, all aces are negative one. If you bet $5 for your initial bet, that’s one unit. Increase your bet from one unit to two when you get a positive. Increase the bet by the formula, 2X unit X the positive number. Therefore, if you have a positive 1, your bet is two units. If you have a positive 5, your bet is 2Xunit ($5)X5 or $50.

Probably the easiest and most accurate for beginning players is the KO blackjack strategy. It’s an imbalanced betting system. You give the sevens a count of +1, along with the 2,3,4,5,6 cards. If you counted every card in all the decks in the shoe, you’d end up with a positive count of 4 for each deck. That’s because you add four sevens to the positive list rather than leave them neutral. Tens, faces and aces are all negative and 8 and 9 are still 0.

There are so many intricacies for the KO system and other card counting systems that the casual player may not want to take the time. If you want to become a professional player, consider learning a system you “college education” for the job. You need to be good at not just the count and figuring out where you are, but also at concealing the count. Casinos don’t like counters and may ask you to leave if they discover you. The Wizard’s five/ace count is one of the best for the casual player, and while the bets may get quite high, works. The KO system is great for those that want a more refined method. No matter what you read, any technique without basic strategy and some method of card tracking or card counting has limited value.

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One of the best games in the house for low house odds is craps. Certain bets in craps give the house no advantage at all and actually pay the true odds to the player. Craps is one of the easiest games in the casino and yet it intimidates many players since they don’ t understand the game. If you forget all the intricacies and special bets to just focus on the primary two bets, you’ll be comfortable with craps in no time.

When the player first gets the set of dice, he rolls out. You place your bet before he does. At this time, you bet pass or don’ t pass. These are the two fundamental bets for this stage. When you make a pass bet, you win immediately if the player shoots seven or eleven. Your money plays on if it hits 4,5,6,8,9 and10. You lose if the two die total 2,3 or 12. if the money plays on, it means that the player needs to hit that number again before he hits a 7.

When you play the don’t pass area you’re betting against the shooter. You win when the player loses. If he craps out, or shoots a 2 or 3 you are the big winner. Even though the shooter loses on 12, it’ s considered a standoff or push by the casino and you neither win nor lose, but have your money to play another day. If he gets a 7 or 11, you lose and if he gets any other points your money rides until he hits the point and you lose or he hits another 7 and you win. The player that bets the don’ t pass area is considered a “wrong” player since most people bet with the shooter. He’ s usually cheering very quietly by himself when the shooter rolls craps.

Come and don’ t come are like pass and don’t pass, except the bet isn’ t placed on the roll out. The shooter doesn’t always make his point immediately and there are a lot of numbers rolled between the roll out and hitting the number or 7. When you bet on the pass line, your point is the number the player rolls right after you place your bet. If you bet on the no pass line, you win if the shooter hits 2 or 3 right off , you lose if he hits 7 or 11 and your money rides on 4,5,6,8,9 and 10 until he hits a 7 and you win or the point and you lose.

You can bet on the number after the shooter establishes the point. These are odds bets. You actually get the actual odds of making the number. These are the best bets in the house since the house doesn’ t have an advantage. When you see casinos advertise 100 times odds, or see 100X odds on casinos, you know that for every dollar you bet on the pass or come line or don’ t pass or don’t come line, you can make 100 times larger bet on the odds.

You can buy a bet or lay a bet, which means there’s no need to make a regular bet for odds. The house makes a 5% commission on these bets.

There are other bets on the craps table that pay off in a big way, but they’ re “sucker bets”. You can bet hard ways (doubles for all the Monopoly fans), big 6 or big 8, the field or one time bets like the horn. Most good craps players the come or don’ t come and then maximize the odds. Occasionally, the player sees a pattern of rolling doubles and bets on hard ways or one of the other bets.

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The first time I had been to the Bingo was when I was a child and my grandmother was given the responsibility of taking care of me, whilst my parents were out for the evening. It did not at the time, dawn on me that this was her social evening out too and even though I was a well-behaved child I was always bribed to come along with plenty of yummy grub and lollipops. These days’ going to the Bingo is something I would not do freely, for fear of seeing my grandmother’s friends and facing up to the torment from my own friends.

These days one can play online Bingo rather than venturing out to socialise in a hall. Going online appears to be a common thing for many people, allowing people to play in real time and chat with others hooked up to the net. However I have often wondered why this has now become an exclusive activity for people aged 45 and above, more specifically the stereotypical grandparent-type.

The answer may lie in the history of how it first came about, when it was once known as the beano in the U.S. An unusual name, but a popular activity nonetheless. Though its history does not reach far back in the U.S, in fact it can be traced way back in the 1530’s in Italy! Lo Giuoco del Lotto d’Italia was created just as Italy at united and was a renowned national lottery organisation that is still running to this day.

Despite the fact the church disapproved of the newly instigated lottery, it was overpowered by the large number of people who had decided to participate on a regular basis. The combination of the church disapproval further attracted local communities to take part in the game, hence eventually making it available and widespread across Europe. The classic game of bingo consisted of using playing cards that were separated into 27 squares. Each of the rows contained 4 blank cards and 5 filled cards with random numbers - this is not so dissimilar to the current 90 ball game.

The random numbers ranged from the numbers 1 - 10 on the first column, 11 - 20 in the second lot of column and continued this way until the last column read from 81 - 90. To complete the set, numbered chips were created for the caller to call out the number from cloth bag. Each player were given a single lottery card, so when their number was called out they would simply cover the number on their card. Like the modern day bingo game, the first person with an entire column covered was the winner.

Over the years this game became very popular and during the 1800s many intellectuals saw this as a great way to turn the fun game into an educational teaching tool for teaching multiplications. The German lotto saw to the first teachings of multiplications using a lotto card format. The same technique was used for spelling and history.

When the game hit the U.S in 1929, a little known gentleman by the name of Edwin S. Lowe, then a New York toy salesman, decided to take a little trip to Jacksonville Georgia for an appointment. Upon driving he took a different turn and came across a carnival, seeing as time was not a problem, he decided to observe what the carnival was about. Upon his visit he noticed that the carnival crew were playing a game of lotto, with a pitchman calling out the numbers by drawing out wooden numbered chips from an old cigar box. The players would play using numbered cards and cover the numbers on their card using beans. Upon winning a column the word ‘beano’ would be shouted, and thus Lowe was inspired.

He decided to introduce this game to his home city of New York, whereby he would play with many of his friends. Upon playing one night, one particular friend showed the same excitement and enthusiasm for the game, that instead of shouting out ‘beano’ she had in fact stuttered the word ‘Bingo’, in which Lowe decided he would replace the game name. And so the game as we know it transferred into a worldwide gaming entertainment with thousands of venues dedicated to it.

Lowe decided it was a great money making entertainment, and began distributing his own cards. He had then later transformed it into a more complicated game, with more lotto numbers introduced and devising 6,000 cards with the help of a brilliant mathematician Carl Leffler.

How it became a game for people much older than I? That is a question that many would demand to be down to advertising and marketing. Also the game has been in play for many centuries, that game was a popular demand and source for older generations in their time. If there is a market for a specific group of people then the gaming industry will tailor it to that group. These days it has become something tailored to a wider audience using online services and TV celebrities promoting the game.

Anna Stenning used to go to bingo with her grandmother, and sometimes accompanies her mother to a game every now and again.

Like most card games, Blackjack has a long and varied history. Unfortunately, the full history has not been discovered, even to this day. It is commonly believed that the early beginnings of blackjack originated in France during the 17th century. It was then known as Vingt en Un, which means “21.” The goal of the Vingt en Un player was to get a “natural,” or a hand of 21. While the goal of a hand of “21″ was the same as the goal in blackjack, other parts of the game were quite different.

Blackjack was brought to the United States in the early 1800s. Initially, the game was not very popular. To get more players, gambling houses tried bonus payouts that were given to the player if he got the Jack of Spades and the Ace of Spades as his first two cards. This resulted in the game being called “blackjack.” There were no laws at the time prohibiting card games, so blackjack soon became very popular.

Professional gamblers noticed right away the great potential of the game, and soon they developed a basic strategy for improving their odds of winning.

Early in the 19th century, blackjack went underground as the U.S. government decided that gambling corrupted society and led to organized crime, so it banned and outlawed gambling activities. However, instead of interest in the game decreasing, it increased and the game became even more popular. In 1931, Nevada decided to legalize gambling, and Las Vegas was born.

As blackjack interest increased, the fields of science and math began to investigate. While Roger Baldwin was the first person to study blackjack and come up with strategies to win the game, the person who is considered to have written the first card-counting system is Edward O. Thorp. He used new machines and calculating systems and in 1962 published a book entitled “Beat the Dealer” in which the first actual blackjack card counting system was written. It became a huge success and took first place on the New York Times bestseller list.

Casinos were terrified. They quickly devised plans to minimize the damage and soon after modified the blackjack rules. Because Thorpe’s book was too hard to understand, all it really did was increase the popularity of the game. After realizing that Thorpe’s book was not a threat to them, casinos went back to the use of traditional blackjack.

Unfortunately, the threat returned in the mid 1970s in a man named Ken Uston. He and his colleagues inserted computers in their shoes and used them to count cards, winning thousands of dollars every month playing blackjack in Nevada. The threat returned again in the 1990s, when a group known as The MIT Blackjack Team made millions of dollars using card-counting techniques.

While no one really knows the complete history of the game of blackjack, it has become one of the most popular casino card games in American history. While it has had a past full of ups and downs, it still remains one of the most played casino card games. Its newest evolution has moved it into the online genre, where today it is played by millions of people all over the world.

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The national lottery is a non-governmental money pot to help fund worthwhile causes such as sports, arts and heritage. It is also many a person’s way of escaping a hum drum life with the hope that those magic numbers will appear out of Lancelot along with giant fingers in the claim that’it could be you!’ The Camelot group, who won the tender back in 1994 have since expanded the cumulative funds of the re-branded Lotto game with a variety of scratch cards, and crazy money add-ons to the usual Saturday night telly treat.

What does being involved in the lottery really mean and how can it be different from the supposed sin of gambling? Basically, running a lottery is a way to raise money for good causes, so psychologically a person can focus on the benefits of taking part in a lottery. It is there to provide funds for a good cause that will benefit a community or country, whilst allowing a minority of people to win money, and also making it clear that the majority will lose. The idea is that people take part to help, not to become millionaires. However, the majority of publicity is on winning, gambling; and advertisements to encourage participation focus on the prize money element rather encouraging a good natured approach to donating to a public pot.

So, once we’ve handed over our precious pound, what actually happens? Well, fifty pence is for the prize fund, twenty-eight pence is given to parliament approved good causes, twelve pence for the government as duty, five pence to the retailer as commission and the remaining five pence goes back to Camelot to cover costs, of which half a pence is taken as profit. The prize fund is divided up in such a way that a person has a 1 in 56 chance of winning 10 GBP through to a 1 in 13,000,000 chance of winning the jackpot. After the 10 GBP payouts for three numbers, 22 per cent of the remaining fund is allotted to those with four numbers, 10 per cent of that remainder is then shared between those with 5 numbers, 16 per cent of that remainder is for 5 balls plus the bonus ball and 52 per cent of whatever is left is for jackpot winners. If no one has a ticket that matches the winning numbers, that percentage of the money rolls over to the following week’s prize money.

Any prize monies that remain unclaimed after 180 days are distributed to fund good causes. This fund has remained a controversial element of the lottery process. A large proportion of the money goes into this sector, 18 per cent of which is given to the state, making it regarded by some as a stealth tax because the government department for Culture, Media and Sport is responsible for distributing the money. This gives the impression to some that the government are avoiding certain responsibilities and using public money for areas which the government should be responsible for providing for. The Heritage Lottery Fund on the other hand is a public entity set up by parliament to restore and protect the country’s heritage through culture, museums, landscape management and archaeology. So far this fund has provided 4 billion GBP worth of funding and the Lotto fund in total has raised 20 billion GBP for good causes. To apply for lottery funding of this type, the cause has to be for a socially beneficial purpose or serve a charitable purpose; and in the main is divided into sports, arts and heritage.

Shaun Parker is a leading lottery expert. Find out more about the national lottery and other lottery games at national-lottery.com