Status Anxiety

23 May 2009

I flatter myself that I’m a Vegas insider, but in fact I’m just a regular sucker

By learning these rules, you can minimise the house’s edge, but not eliminate it altogether. That is to say, you will still lose money, you just won’t lose it as quickly as someone who isn’t sticking to basic strategy. After acquiring the basics, I flattered myself that I was now a true blackjack aficionado — I had become a Vegas ‘insider’ in contrast to the out-of-town rubes who make ‘sucker bets’. In fact, I am just another pigeon as far as the casinos are concerned. Indeed, the dealers are so unintimidated by the prospect of playing against someone who has mastered basic strategy that they will happily tell you what the optimal move is in every circumstance. In the long run, they’ll still take all your money. Of course, knowing this doesn’t stop me playing blackjack every night.

The second person I blame for my addiction is a fellow guest at the M Resort, the luxurious hotel-casino where I’m staying. On the night I met him he was celebrating having won $68,000 at blackjack the previous evening. Naturally, as soon as he won, the M Resort upgraded him to the best room in the house — standard practice in Las Vegas, since the casinos want the big winners to stick around so they can get their money back. I persuaded him to let me tag along when he played again that night, hoping to pick up a few tips. In fact, the only difference between his style of play and mine is that he bets much more — as much as $1,000 a hand. The downside of this, obviously, is that you can lose a lot of money very quickly. By the end of the evening, he was $10,000 poorer — though still up $58,000 over the two nights. That was enough to persuade me that it’s possible to beat the house.

It is, too — in the short term. There have been numerous occasions when I’ve had a run of good luck and been up $500 or so. The trouble is, I’ve never been able to summon the willpower to walk away at that point. The prospect of winning more is always too tantalising. Once you’ve embarked on the hamster wheel, there is no escape. No matter how far my winnings have climbed, I have always continued to play until I’ve lost everything — or rather my original stake, which at the moment I am limiting to $100 a night.

The golden rule in Vegas is to play ‘within your limits’ and I’ve just about been able to manage that. But I’m beginning to wobble and by the end of the month I could easily not have a house in London to return to. Wish me luck.