How Live Dealer Casinos Prevent Advantage Play

Casinos are well known for their efforts to stop advantage gamblers. They instruct pit bosses and surveillance to watch for players who can hurt their bottom line.

Traditional online casinos don’t need to worry about the same problem. They can program games to stamp out any type of advantage play, such as card counting.

Of course, gaming sites offer software generated games and can more easily thwart professional gamblers. Live dealer casinos, on the other hand, have a tougher fight on their hands.

After all, live casinos are a blend of traditional online gaming and land-based casinos. They stream real gambling action directly from a studio.

These outfits may not have it as easy as regular online casinos when it comes to stopping the professionals. But as you’ll see below, they have several methods for ensuring that advantage players don’t burn them.

Shuffle the Deck Early in Blackjack

Card counting is the most-famous advantage gambling method known to man. It involves assigning and counting values for each card that comes out of the shoe. If you’re unfamiliar with the basics of cards counting, you can learn more here.

Simply put, a counter tries to figure out when the deck features a larger percentage of aces and 10-value cards versus cards valued 2 through 6. By properly determining this point, they’ll have a higher chance of getting natural blackjacks and beating the dealer (busts more often with more high cards).

Deck penetration is one of the most-overlooked factors in this process. It refers to how much of the shoe a dealer goes through before shuffling.

Card counters benefit from more deck penetration. After all, they can have more confidence in their count at 75% of the way through the shoe versus just 25%.

A counter needs at least 70% deck penetration to have any hope of winning consistent profits. The only reason why some land-based casinos allow more than 70% penetration is because they don’t want to slow down games by shuffling too frequently. Slow games equal fewer profits.

Live dealer casinos have to worry about the same matter. Nevertheless, they typically shuffle blackjack games at between 25% and 50% penetration.

A live casino can’t physically watch their customers like brick-and-mortar venues. Therefore, they can’t take a chance on players getting enough deck penetrations to beat them—even if it means slowing down the game.

Tilt the Camera Angle Down on the Table

Hole carding is a tougher advantage play technique to pull off than card counting. However, it’s perhaps even easier to understand than counting.

This technique involves trying to see the dealer’s hole card(s) in any given table game. It’s most frequently used in blackjack, but it can also be employed in Caribbean stud and other hole-card-based games.

When done properly, hole carding gives you a much bigger advantage when compared to counting cards. Again, though, it’s more difficult to pull off as well.

The first matter involves finding a dealer who’s either inexperienced or poorly trained. These types of croupiers are more likely to flash their hole card values (a.k.a. flasher), which are supposed to be kept secret from the table.

A flasher unknowingly gives advantage gamblers more information than they should. The latter can use this extra info to make better decisions and gain an edge on the house.

However, the odds of finding such a bad dealer are low. Hole carders spend the vast majority of their time just looking for a flasher.

A hole carder usually sits in either the first seat to the dealer’s immediate left or immediate right. These seats give players the best chance of seeing a flasher’s hole card.

One should sit in a position that seems natural, yet still allows them to be low to the table. A lower vantage point provides a better chance to see hole cards.

Live dealer casinos solve this problem through the camera angle. When you play live blackjack or any other table game, you’re looking straight at the dealer from a slightly elevated view.

This angle is perfect for seeing the croupier and all of the action. However, it makes hole carding completely impossible.

No Full Tables

Caribbean stud is another game that sees the dealer have hole cards. The croupier deals themselves four face-down cards and one upcard.

Players, meanwhile, receive five face-down cards. They’re not supposed to show these cards to anybody else at the table.

However, a table full of gamblers can win profits off the casino. Seven players working together could gain a 2.38% advantage over the house.

The key, though, is that the gamblers must fill a 7-seat table. Six or fewer players colluding together will still face a house edge (albeit a small one).

The gamblers need also be adept at knowing what information to share. Specifically, teammates must let each other know how many aces, kings, and/or “matches” (cards matching the dealer’s upcard) they hold.

Finally, a collusion ring needs a way to communicate this information without the casino noticing them. These teams are good at working out complicated methods of sharing their card values.

In a live casino’s eyes, the main element here involves seven players working together. They overcome this problem by ensuring that they only offer six for fewer seats at each table.

Otherwise, live dealer sites would be prime targets for Caribbean stud collusion. Gamblers could communicate their card values much more easily without getting caught.

What Can You Do to Win More at Live Casinos?

You can see the popular ways of beating casinos are useless at live dealer gaming sites. However, you can at least improve your chances of winning by using the following advice.

Play Games With the Lowest House Edges

As with any other type of casino, you stand a better chance of winning with live gaming when choosing games with lower house edges. Baccarat, blackjack, and French roulette are your best bets in this regard.

Baccarat features a 1.06% house edge when you bet on the banker hand winning. You can also enjoy a 1.24% house advantage when wagering on the player hand.

The blackjack house edge varies depending upon the rules and your skill level. But you can often work the live blackjack house edge down to 0.5% by using perfect basic strategy.

French roulette offers a 1.35% house advantage. It combines the European wheel (37 numbers) with the la partage rule.

Assuming you can’t find French roulette, then European roulette (2.70%) is your next best option. It works the same as the French version, only without la partage involved.

Learn Strategy

Some table games are easy to play and don’t involve much strategy at all. Baccarat, French roulette, and European roulette all fall into this category.

However, other games require you to use more in-depth strategy to lower the house edge. Blackjack, Caribbean stud, and Pai Gow poker are among the more-complex games.

Regardless of what you’re playing, though, you should always take at least a few minutes to learn the associated strategy. Doing so can help you shave quite a bit off the house edge.

Even a simple game like baccarat rewards you for knowing the strategy. You want to stick with the banker and player bets while avoiding the atrocious tie wager (14.36%).

Luckily, you won’t have much trouble finding strategy for any game you’re playing. The internet is full of guides for every live casino game.

Take Advantage of Bonuses

Online casinos are well known for offering generous deposit bonuses. Live casinos are no different in this regard, because they feature plenty of bonuses as well.

The exact offers depend upon where you’re playing. You may get a lucrative deposit bonus at one site or nothing more than a free blackjack bet at another.

In either case, you definitely want to take advantage of these offers when possible. After all, you’ll essentially be earning free money on top of your play.

Properly Manage Your Bankroll

Bankroll management pays in live gaming or any other type of gambling. It involves setting up a bankroll plan and being disciplined enough to stick with it.

First off, you need to decide how much you can afford to risk. I suggest going through your bills and finances to determine how much you can comfortably afford to play with.

You might also consider setting stop-loss limits. A stop-loss limit refers to a predefined point at which you’ll stop gambling for the day based on your losses.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, live dealer casinos have done an excellent job at covering their bases regarding advantage play. If there’s a way to beat live gaming, I don’t know of it.

These sites have taken precautions to thwart card counters, hole carders, and colluders. Their setups and policies ensure that these effective methods are essentially useless at a live casino.

But while you may not be able to win money through advantage play, you can at least boost your odds through other means. Playing the right games, learning strategy, bonuses, and bankroll management can all help you win more.