Here’s how it worked

In the toe of each shoe there were two “switches”, or buttons - one above each big toe and one beneath - for a total of four switches. Each switch conveyed a different code to the computer, which was a small epoxy-encased device that was strapped to the calf beneath the trousers. The computer itself was about the size of a pack of cigarettes, but thinner. By using a series of toe taps, kind of like Morse code, the player could relay to the computer everything it needed to know in order to make a decision in a blackjack game: which cards had already been dealt, what cards the player held, and the dealer’s upcard.

This computer were connected with player with buzzes and taps on the sole of the player’s foot. It was not easy to use one of these devices. It essentially entailed learning to “type” with your big toes. Even once you had memorized the codes, inputting them via the toe switches was a chore. It took weeks or even months of practice to get to the point where you could use the device at casino-dealing speed without foot cramps stopping you.

The headline news is that these machines don’t have a fixed hold percentage. All the machines are linked to a central piece of software that plays bingo games among all you players. Whether you win or lose is decided by the virtual ball the software “picks”. Each game ends when a “winning” pattern in the game is achieved. To run the third class, the tribe has to negotiate a compact with the local State Government and, to be fair, many have done this. But some decided that regulation was not for them. To get around the legislation, they devised electronic bingo games that look and feel like slots and video poker machines. If nobody told you, you wouldn’t know you were not playing a Vegas style of machine. Just one ending thought: if the class two and three games are identical in the way they play, how come this is not illegal?

Try to stay calm now. These players are the exception that makes the rule that everyone who plays the slots ends up a loser. Ren and Klaus have joined a fairly exclusive band of players that have “hit the big time”. For the record, Klaus was the thirteenth player to become an instant millionaire on this particular online progressive (let no-one say that thirteen is always an unlucky number). But, by any standards, a win of more than $5m is fairly impressive. It brings the total winnings since the system came online to $27m.

That last sentence puts the win in its proper context. There were twelve previous winners of more than $1m plus the latest win. That makes $17.7 as a minimum or less than $10m paid out to all the other jackpot winners over the last few years. The win of $5.5m is one of the largest the online industry has seen. It took months for the progressive to build up to that level. It took millions of “pulls”. There were an uncountable number of players who did not win.

And yet. . .

One of the major companies in the casino industry is Playtech. In WinAJackpot.com, they have produced the first progressive network to link online, mobile and real-world jackpots. The network has just made a jackpot payout of slightly less than US$2.5m. Over the last three months, this is the second payout exceeding $2m.

Well, meet Klaus E. from Finland. This April, he also became an instant millionaire. He risked an entire US$0.50 bet on the Mega-Moolah Progressive Slot Machine and managed to scoop $5.5m. That he was slightly surprised by his good fortune probably does not quite capture the moment. It is possible that he has resigned his job and is currently sitting on an island somewhere with a glass in one hand. What he has in his other hand is anyone’s guess.

So, our congratulations go to Rens.S. who, on the 1st February, was just $23,750 shy of $2.5m for a single spin of the wheels. Now, you might think this is a single system all on its own. It may be making big payouts, but not every progressive is making big payouts.

I am skeptical of much of what Scarne has written about blackjack, so I’ll quote from Mickey MacDougall’s MacDougall on Dice and Cards (Coward-McCann, 1944, NY), which was published prior to any of Scarne’s books: “Many professionals dress up the game by giving prizes for certain hands. A favorite stunt is to offer ten times the size of the wager to anyone holding a natural twenty-one with a black jack. This adds interest to the game, but it also tempts a player to increase his stakes.”

In an honestly dealt single-deck game, this gimmick bonus would give the player a substantial edge over the house, assuming the player knew basic strategy (an unlikely assumption). I would also assume that a gambling house that offered this bonus would be using any number of illegitimate methods to assure the house a healthy edge.

That’s when another historian suggested another version of this word’s ethymology. And the most important addition was Harvey Dubner’s Hi-Lo counting system, which Thorp called the Complete Point Count, with a computer-optimized strategy devised by Julian Braun. To the casinos’ frustration, this was a system that could more easily be applied to multiple-deck games.

Thorp was keeping the casinos on the run.

Thorp also included a Simple Point Count in this new edition of his book, but at the time that strategy seemed way too simple to most players to gain much of an edge, or to be taken seriously by players who wanted to beat the game. Later, the power of Thorp’s simpler method of adjusting the running count, without keeping a separate count of the exact number of cards played, would be shown.
Still, the casino’s fears were mostly unfounded. The Complete Point Count was easier to use than the ten-count, but it was not a lot easier. It required players to keep two separate counts. In addition to the running count of the cards’ point total, the player had to keep a count of the exact number of cards remaining to be played. And in order to play his hand, he had to memorize a chart of 158 different strategy changes to be made according to the count.

The counting system Wong published was the Hi-Lo Count, and like Revere’s count, used the easy divide-by-remaining-deck(s) approach to running count adjustments. So, at last, some twelve years after Harvey Dubner had proposed the Hi-Lo count values, his system was available in a format both fully optimized with strategy indices, and presented with a simple methodology of play. Wong’s table-hopping approach to shoe games was in many ways similar to Al Francesco’s Big Player (BP) team approach, but allowed a solo card counter to attack shoe games invisibly, and without a team of spotters. This playing style has since become widely known as wonging.

Like most real-world tournaments, the casino has corralled a number of machines and members of the local slots club are rotated in every fifteen minutes to play for three minutes. The player who racks up the biggest score in those three minutes will be the winner. The total prize money fund is $200,000 with everyone in the top fifty winning at least $1,000.