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[Blue_Angel]

The house offers favorable rules in order to lure players.  It doesn't matter what the rules are, as long as the house has the edge and the players keep coming.

Player favorable situations don't occur often enough to hurt the house.

Players hope for a blackjack, or a split or double where they are expected to win 65% of the time, but blackjacks only occur once in every twenty-one hands, double situations once in 10.3 hands, and splits only once in forty hands.

http://krigman.casinocitytimes.com/article/how-often-can-you-expect-to-split-or-double-in-blackjack-5449

And how often is the average for the dealer to get busted?

[Blue_Angel]

33.61% is the average probability for the dealer to get busted, or once per 3 hands approximately.

Total BJ Actions:                       594768
Hits to 1st 2-Cards:                  297153
Total Non-Bust Hands:              97735
Total Dealer Bust Hands (*):     199880

Percentage Dealer Bust:          199880 / 594768 = 33.61%

Natural Blackjacks (10+A):       64 / 1326 = 4.83%

Total Complete BJ Hands:         297615


source: http://saliu.com/blackjackodds.html

[Blue_Angel]

An accumulated bust probability for player and dealer when player is using basic strategy is as follows:

1) Player_No-bust AND Dealer_No-bust: 0.665 * 0.665 = 44% of hands (half favorable to Dealer, half favorable to Player)

2) Player_No-bust AND Dealer_Bust: 0.665 * 0.335 = 22% (all favorable to Player)

3) Player_Bust AND Dealer_No-bust: <0.335 * 0.665 => 18% (all favorable to Dealer)

4) Player_Bust AND Dealer_Bust: <0.335 * 0.335 => 8% (all favorable to Dealer).

In situation 1), Dealer and Player have an equal opportunity to win, lose, or tie.
Let's divide the 44 out of 100 hands equally:
22 favorable to Dealer, 22 in favor of Player, thus Player wins 22 + 22 = 44 hands
Dealer wins 22 + 18 + 8 = 48 hands
We notice now only 92 hands out of 100, mystery? NO!
The 8 missing hands are those 8 cases when the Dealer does NOT even play his/her hands out — the simultaneous bust cases.

source: http://saliu.com/blackjackodds.html

[8OR9]

For those of you who are interested, here is an interview with the man who started it all..............................."Al Francesa"

http://www.blackjackforumonline.com/content/francescoint.html

1. Yes, you can get at most a 1.5 %  advantage counting cards when the deck is positive.......but usually only about 30% of the time is the deck positive.

2. There is tremendous variance in your bankroll when you count....you can "count" on losing 50% of your bankroll at any particular time

3. The best way to play is with a team of counters who play different shoes and signal in a big player to only play positive shoes

4. The casinos are wise to all this stuff so playing 21 is basically a waste of time, especially if you play by yourself and vary your bets in a 6:1 ratio......you will get barred or told you can play any game in the casino except 21

5. Ken Uston who is described in the article unfortunately passed away in 1987 due to a cocaine overdose.

[alrelax]

IMO, I think a lot of potential people fall prey to this kind of publicity viewed as 'easy money'.  Also, those blackjack players that are dedicated to full time play, once they start to vary there money widely AND prevail, no matter if they are winning by counting or not--put undo pressure on themselves.

After talking with many that know how to count like 'second nature' the highest majority of them tell me the advantage is no difference then when they get on a heater at a one-on-one table and they just pump it up and ride it.  Some of them have told me, they have lost more by counting and wagering heavy on the count then if they just would have played without relying on the count.

I used to play blackjack regularly and when I used to constantly win (without any form of counting) I would just pump it up and ride it, then go back to my regular bet.  But no, the regular bet was not table minimum.   I never ever had anything said to me, not once and I have won some pretty large sums without losing sums equal to what I won at the same casinos.   

[Blue_Angel]

My conclusion is that it has been a very well elaborated deception.
By whom?
The casinos of course and don't forget that Thorpe earned from stocks and selling books, not by playing BJ...

The clever learn from their mistakes and the wise from others mistakes.

[8OR9]

The problem with blackjack is that the 1.5 % advantage ( yes it is a mathematically proven  advantage for the customer)  holds true for a very large sample size of many shoes.....and you have to deal with tremendous variance in your bankroll curve...............so if you start to play when  you get some bad shoes and lose 50 % of your bankroll, well then you can say that counting sucks and is a waste of time.

Also the count is positive only about 30 % of the time which means that you have to bet into a negative count at the table minimum for sometimes hours and hours ( paying rent ).

Counting at 21 for a single player is a waste of time.........you will eventually get barred and the bankroll drawdowns,  coupled with the  heat from the pit boss cockroaches, will eventually destroy your brain cells.

The only way to play is with a team such as the MIT  team or Ken Uston's team in the early 1970's.......but even then the bankroll variance is brutal, even with only betting into a positive count.

Like any other business, whether playing blackjack as a team, betting sports, playing poker, baccarat, roulette,  trading stocks/futures or opening a doughnut shop, you must be sufficiently bankrolled to handle the sometimes vicious negative variances and risk a conservative % of bankroll on each bet or trade in order to survive the inevitable bankroll downturns, so that you can enter the promised land of the long run.