Any shoe is supposed to deal a fair number of first winning situations at different ranges (gaps): 

1- Immediate or back to back clusters of first W patterns (from W-W to multiple long W-W-W-W-....patterns)

2- A W after a first L attempt (1-gap)

3- A W after two first L attempts (2-gap)

4- A W after three first L attempts (3-gap)

5- And so on...

Obviously every bac player's aim will be to get an immediate win or back-to-back W events, but constantly chasing such opportunities will expose the bettor to a lot of natural variance.

Furthermore, if each class of first W patterns will be proportionally distributed by a kind of random coin flip succession (W/L instead of H/T), we aren't going to nowhere as what we earned previously will be erased later and what we've lost previously cannot get a sensible chance to be balanced soon by future counter patterns.

Actually at baccarat things are quite different, meaning that each step will be efficiently balanced by a kind of propensity not happening at real random coin flip tosses, meaning that what's more likely to happen remains more likely to happen; we just let the number of shoes to increase after having classified some negative deviations considered at every category.

For example, if we are looking for a FIRST W after having considered each range category failure, the probability of success belonging to the same category will be more and more oriented toward our favor as symmetry is not the norm but a kind of "exception".
Providing to set up a limit of negative deviations as at baccarat many hands can get a weird direction just for one card impact.

I've written several times here that just one hand could transform a more probable expected heterogeneous pattern into a long unexpected homogeneous one (so breaking a sure more natural flow): Pros rely upon betting toward more probable situations, recreational players and tourists like to wager toward "endless positive patterns".

The vast majority of shoes will produce patterns belonging to the 1, 2 and 3 categories, those we're really interested to classify.


Anyway categories #1 and #2 are so strong that after a couple of negative deviations, a simple multilayered progressive plan will make the job, even knowing that some productions need the #4 category to happen before betting.

Once a category reaches the #4 or #5 category we're not interested to bet at that shoe as what was more natural to happen was transformed into "strong S deviations" just by coincidental factors (more often than not, of course).

Next time some examples extracted by real shoes.

as.

Best bac players are capable to estimate how many first or second (or whatever) winning/losing ranges are more likely to show up in relationship of the actual shoe texture.

Regular bac players however only rely about long or steady univocal situations that anyway must happen sooner or later.

But the most important difference between the two populations is that the former category will bet a way inferior number of hands than the latter category, in some way teaching us that W/L ranges are more limited than we might think of.

Taking the issue from another perspective and over simplyfing it, on average winning situations are shorter and far between than what regular players hope for, whereas losing situations happening at some shoes cannot be limited by any method/attack/procedure/philosophy for intrinsic statistical features.

"Sh.i.t" often happens in clusters and thinking to try to bet toward such "stuff" (so inverting a normal method) is one of the major mistake why many bankrolls go directly in the casinos' trays.

That's why we must set up empirically some limiting values of relative frequency in order to bet what should be more probable to happen at the same situation running infinite times.

More later

as.

Seems these Chinese players got caught as most all eventually do because of their own greed and believing they can outsmart the system. 

Anyone remember the Tran Organization??


https://www.casino.org/news/multi-state-baccarat-scam-nets-1-5m-cops-hunt-cheating-ring/

https://cdcgaming.com/brief/six-charged-in-1-5m-baccarat-cheating-scheme-at-casinos-across-the-usa/

IMO they brought it all on themselves.  They took their bread and butter and made it so others can profit on it from their own customers and future customers in other jurisdictions. 

https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local-news/las-vegas-casino-dealers-face-layoffs-amid-tourism-slump/

Read into anyway you want but I know they caused it all themselves.  It all began around 2013-2015 with the revamping of the two largest brands, points and promotional programs.  Then the rising on all prices by the branded chains as well as the local establishments, etc., and so on. 

The payment could be split among more than a million people in the class-action suit, and after lawyer fees are taken into consideration, it could result in as little as $2 per person.

Despite the low relative payment to get out of the situation, O'Neal is still going to lose out. He was paid roughly $750,000 to promote FTX, and will now pay out more than $1 million in damages after the company's collapse.

https://www.mensjournal.com/sports/shaquille-oneal-agrees-to-pay-1-8-million-settlement

I posted earlier that the Chicago gaming destination market was getting extremely aggressive.  I will tell you they have some of the highest table maximums by far, for 'Off The Street' walk in, no front money players. 

Lots to do in and around Chicago with great food as well!  Prices all around are cheaper as a plus for your out of pocket expenses.

From Timeout:

News

A new study says Las Vegas isn't the best casino city in America—here's what beat it

How could this happen?!

For gamblers—both high-stakes players and people who can barely push a dollar into a slot machine—there's one destination that comes to mind when you think of casinos. It's a city famous for its neon, its enormous themed hotels, its successful ad campaign that promises secrecy and blanket forgiveness for whatever happens there, and a reputation for constantly coming up with new things to entertain visitors. That city is Las Vegas. But shockingly, a new study says that, despite all of that, Vegas isn't the number-one casino city in America—so what the heck is?

RECOMMENDED: The most fun city in America? Las Vegas, of course

In fact, in the list of best casino cities in the U.S. by gaming aggregator SlotMatrix, Las Vegas isn't even in the second or third spot. Somehow, Sin City came in fourth, while a city that few people associate with casinos—Chicago, Illinois—managed to wind up in first place.

Let's look at how that's even possible: The study looked at a variety of data, including how many casinos there are per 100,000 residents of the city; how many casinos have connected hotels or restaurants; the number of slot machines, table games and poker tables in each casino; the number of late-night bars open in the city; average hotel price; and  the percentage increase of online searches since 2022 for casino-related travel to that city.

After crunching all those variables, Chicago shows up as the clear winner. Okayyy.

To be fair, Chicago does have the highest number of table games and poker tables per casino—159 per casino—and the third highest number of slot machines, at 2,100. Interest in traveling to Chicago for its casinos has increased by 258-percent since 2022, according to an analysis of Google searches. Yet both Detroit and Philadelphia have higher percentage of online interest, with 340 percent and 336 percent, respectively.

In second place is Detroit, Michigan, another destination we don't necessarily associate with gambling, yet it came out with the most slot machines per casino and the largest increase in travel-related searches. Atlantic City—finally, a city that does have a casino-based reputation—came in third place overall, with the highest number of casinos per 100,000 people.

As for Vegas, well, darn it. The Nevada town does have one of the highest densities of casinos per 100,000 people, but its hotels are expensive (that's because you can literally pretend you're in Venice, Paris, Egypt or medieval England while you're there, fantasy elements that cost a pretty penny). However, the priciest hotel night actually is found in Detroit, where an average night costs $304. In comparison, the average hotel cost in Vegas is $210, the fourth highest behind Pittsburgh ($285) and Chicago ($232).

We're all little unsure of how all the metrics are weighted because scrutinizing the data actually makes it look like Detroit should win out over Chicago—and Atlantic City and Las Vegas should be worlds above those cities. Ah well, whatever happens in Chicago will be immediately shared with your significant other.

Here's the list of the top 10 casino destinations in the U.S.:

1. Chicago, Illinois

2. Detroit, Michigan

3. Atlantic City, New Jersey

4. Las Vegas, Nevada

5. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

6. Everett, Washington

7. Prior Lake, Minnesota

8. St. Louis, Minnesota

9. Biloxi, Mississippi

10. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Thank you for taking the time to put your game perspective into concise words for the betting community!

This should be a sticky topic. Very appreciated

Vic

Among others things, the other night I cooked a dish of manicotti with homemade sauce for fellow baccarat players getting together for one of our regular discussions.

I snapped a picture when I took it out of the oven.

A possible strategy applied to shuffle machines allegedly using a RNG software:

1) Bet A after A one time and bet A after S-S one time.

2) Be careful when two or more derived roads will get plenty of S situations.
In fact and more often than not a real random model will deny simultaneous S clusters happening at more than one random walk.

3) Tie rich shoes should be treated with a lot of caution. The same about shoes resolving hands by utilizing 6 cards.

4) More S patterns had come out in the initial/intermediate portions of the shoe and lesser will be the probability to encounter LONG A events.

5) Register how many consecutive times you have lost (for real or fictionally) by chasing an A pattern.

6) Nothing wrong by gambling for long A clustered patterns (lower than standard unit), yet at RNG productions they are relatively rarer than at other form of shufflings.

7) A progressive multilayered plan betting toward A-A (one time) and toward A after crossing S-S cannot lose by any means.
I mean there's no natural negative variance capable to overcome such propensities, especially if we'll wait for a kind of negative deviation to happen.

It's possible that knowing this, the RNG is instructed to deal a lesser number of A clusters and a superior number of S isolated events. So mimicking a real random model.
In this instance, privilege the A event to be bet after one or two isolated A patterns happened.

9) To get a strong advantage we need to win more hands at the first betting attempt than at the second one. So meaning that what we're really looking for is a "first bet" winning cluster.
Therefore consecutive wins at the second betting attempts should be considered as a kind of "backup" plan

as.

The last passage of my previous post is:

...we can safely conclude that we're dealing with pseudorandomness rather than with supposedly "normal fluctuations" dictated by a pure randomness.

OoOoO

Knowing that long term data extracted by the same production will approach more and more to the B=50.68% and P=49.32% winning percentages doesn't necessarily mean that we're dealing with a perfect random world.
It's the common mistake almost every expert will conclude after being asked whether baccarat could be a beatable game.

Those conclusions are biased as:

A- They assume for certain that ALL bac productions are perfectly random;
B- They take for granted that every single spot coming out along the course of each shoe will present the same independent features.

Actually once we have approximated at best the real random or not random nature of the shoe we're playing at, bac productions will form huge or moderate "jumps" in winning probability even though  the majority of hands dealt are EV-.


#A point cannot be resolved by taking care of the final results, it needs more complicated issues to be evaluated as there are various "imperfect" form of shufflings employed to deal bac shoes.

#B point had found solid evidences (according to RVM and M.v.Smoluchoswki works) that various situations aren't so randomly placed, so making more probable the apparition of some patterns than others.

Both points rely upon the average probability of the S or A patterns distribution at the infinite random walks we can build from the original BP sequence.
Such probability could be estimated by "levels of apparition" (1, 2) in relationship of the actual production we're dealing with.
Since the shoe is a finite S/A proposition, we have plenty of opportunities to detect how much and foremost when things are more likely to change (OR NOT).


Professor Spiegelhalter wrote that "Most random number generators are entirely deterministic and contain no randomness at all".

So it could happen that at the casino you're playing at, a RNG software connected in the shuffling machine will distribute cards by NON RANDOM parameters.

Therefore treat every shoe dealt with a lot of caution, it's like betting a negative count shoe at black jack.

Good news is that at "no random" RNG productions, things tend to be more clustered than isolated, meaning that the "bad" tends to come out more clustered than average but giving more room to "good" clustered events.

When in doubt and whenever "unnatural" symmetrical patterns come out consecutively in quantity and especially in quantity, consider that shoe as unplayable.
Unfortunately at most RNG productions S>A, as cards are not clumped but distributed by a "number scheme" not fitting the random requisites.

Never ever change your betting scheme, play for A and never for S.
Itlr you'll make a lot of money.

as.