Betting progressions are nothing new at blackjack. Ever since the game was devised, players have been trying to hit on a magic formula for when to increase their bets.
Truth be told, there is no magic formula. Without a card counter’s knowledge of deck composition, raising and lowering your bets can’t dent the house edge.
Nevertheless, players try, and a virtual friend of mine recently came across a betting scheme he’d never seen. I say “virtual friend” because we’ve never met, but for 15 years or so we’ve both posted to a message board centered around our college alma mater.
He found himself at a $10 blackjack table, sitting next to a player with a four-step progression/regression. His neighbor started with a base bet, and after one win he tripled it. If he won again, he dropped to a bet double his base. And if he won the third in a row, he upped his next bet to six times the base. After four wins in a row, he’d drop back to his base and start again. He’d also start fresh at his base after any loss.
Let’s look at that using a table-minimum $10 bet as a starting point. After a winning $10 bet, the next wager would be $30, then $20, then $60.
My friend decided to give it a go, and won $650.
“I tried it, and it coincided with a ridiculous hot streak on the table,” he wrote. “I got a little uptight on a 6x bet when I got a pair of 8s against the dealer's 6, then got a 2 on one and a 3 on the other (creating two double-down situations after splitting the pair). I had a lot more money out than I would normally be comfortable with, but it was all house money at that point, so it wasn't going to end me. I got two faces, thank goodness. Dealer cooperated – he had 16 and dropped a King on it, but for a minute there I was a little verklempt. I'm normally a tight, tight player, so 6x betting once was a jump for me. Doing it four times on one hand might have been the biggest blackjack bet I'd ever made.”
I told a progression like that can lead to some spectacular wins, but it also leads to a larger percentage of losing sessions, and some sessions that are bigger losses than normal.
Let’s look at the pattern in pieces. If you win $10 and lose $30 on the second hand, that’s a $20 loss, whereas flat-betting $10 break even after a win and a loss. With two wins and a loss, the progression has a $20 overall win. That beats the $10 win you’d have after flat-betting two wins and a loss.
With three wins and a loss, you win $10, $30 and $20, but then lose $60 and just break even. The big jump to a 6x bet means you’re better off with two wins in a row before a loss than with three. Flat betting three $10 wins followed by a loss brings a $20 profit, also better than this progression.
It’s not till you win four in a row that the progression pays big. Wins of $10, $30, $20 and $60 total $120, three times the $40 you’d win with flat $10 bets. If you’re having one of those all too uncommon nights when the wins are fast and frequent, this 1-3-2-6 progression will fill your wallet. On an ordinary night, well, let the buyer beware.
Look for John Grochowski at www.casinoanswerman.com, on Facebook (http://tinyurl.com/7lzdt44) and Twitter (@GrochowskiJ).
