Take a look at this...

[DaBurglar]

Note to Billyjoe RE:  Blacjack You may have heard a couple years back about the lucky stiff who won about 13.5 million bucks in BJ from several AC casinos.....since that happened, playing BJ in AC has become an exercise in futility for anyone even thinking about card counting or any other type of esoteric strategy.....all AC casinos now have standing orders to shuffle at ANY point in the game if it appears someone is on a major run.....they change dealers, change decks, shut tables down and move everyone across the floor to another table, whatever it takes to stop any serious bleeding.   That Blackjack debacle from two years ago cost the Tropicana's CEO his job ...... AC is the last place you want to play Blackjack nowadays. Besides, the only place I play BJ is downtown vegas at the Horseshoe with their single deck tables with 25 dollar minimums......there you can make a quick profit with a little counting, but even there, if you get on a run and it looks even a LITTLE like you are counting, they cut you off very quickly....

[DaBurglar]

(just had my morning coffee, I'm on a role) I have got to say one more thing:   Vman ran his computer simulation, and his results look spot on and exactly what you'd expect.    I myself have practiced and played on my computer at home for the past decade, and i also have run simulation after simulation.....and I have to say, RARELY have I seen actual real play inside a casino mimic exactly what happens when you launch a mass imulation on your home computer.....there is just something different.   I'm not saying the END results always wind up vastly divergent, more often than not they are close......but NEVER exact or extremely similar.  In a casino, with these various VP machines, there is just something different, and I am not even saying it is the supposed "rigged-ness" everyone thinks I am chasing or seeking.   It's just different......

[Vman96]

 If you cant keep 40 to 50 hand resuls in your head then I do not know what to tell you.....even if you do not remember every single hand, surely you can remember your starting dollar value, then look at the finish value, and go from there....this is not hard. 
 If you are tracking every hand win type possible, it definitely wouldn't be too easy.  There is just too high of a chance of errors.  To me, I would find it difficult to exactly remember a sequence like this: 0500100501500200551000005501530501015 And since you have had this all tracked DaBurglar, what is your return percentage for these past 6 months? Unfortunately, I picked a bad time to add more fuel to this fire.  I am driving to Tunica this afternoon where hopefully the 99.96% machines I plan to play behave like Mississippi law expects them to...lol  I'll check back midweek. 

[DaBurglar]

6 months, going back to October of last year, which will include this last, 22 days worth of crapola to drag it wayyyyyyy down, is around 70%....I would have been better off playing the penny slots I make fun of so often...... And c'mon Vman, remembering the results of 50 hands of VP, where probably only a few of the hands are really important and worth remembering, is NOT the same as trying to memorize all at once the string of numbers you just typed.....jeez    even though memorizing those numbers I do NOT find all that difficult either. Nonetheless, I am human so it is POSSIBLE i might make an error once in a while, BUT Not to skew my results to the degree you are insinuatiing.   I'll meet you gladly some day in AC or elsewhere and you will see I am not the dolt you are implying.

[BillyJoe]

Good post, Vman.  Way to insert a little sanity into the discussion.

[QUOTE=Burglar]998 full houses (close to what you'd expect, within acceptable range)
 This is a bit more than 14 standard deviations from the mean.  To put this is in perspective, being more than 6 standard deviations from the mean only happens about once in a half billion observations (Some of you may have heard of the Six Sigma approach coined by Motorola).  As Vman implied, even with a trillion simulations, he would not have been able to get this extreme of a result.  But I think we can excuse The Burglar from calling such an unreasonable amount within an acceptable range if his math skills were relatively limited.

By contrast, Vman's extreme values were 3.51 standard deviations above and 3.87 standard deviations below the expected value.  With 5000 simulations, on average, we would expect the minimum and maximum to be 3.54 standard deviations above and below the mean, so Woman's work looks reasonable.

I am not a programmer, but I am extremely computer literate and savvy....I have participated in many software installations and testing, and data analysis and extraction is one of my fortes.  I know how simple and easy it is to manipulate and influence a typical RNG results, and if any of you have played any computer simulation or strategy games, you know what I mean.
Uh-oh.  Well, we seem to have a contradiction here.  Would a data-savvy expert claim that a result that is more than 14 standard deviations from the mean to be within an acceptable range?  Unless...maybe introductory statistics falls outside the range of data analysis?  On the other hand, it is probably even simpler and easier to manipulate figures in a post to a forum than it is to manipulate a RNG in a regulated industry and get away with it, especially if even amateur analyses were able to find discrepancies such as are claimed here.  I am not saying that is what happened, but it will be interesting to see the explanation.
[/QUOTE]
I am not jumping on anybody's bandwagon here, but doesn't this somewhat underscore Burglar's premise with regard to AC? Even if he nodded off a few times during Six Sigma training in the 90's (I know that I did ), and even if his counting in his head is off somewhat, being 14 SDs from the mean, way out of bounds, is virtually impossible for a random action.  

[BillyJoe]

Note to Billyjoe RE:  Blacjack
 
You may have heard a couple years back about the lucky stiff who won about 13.5 million bucks in BJ from several AC casinos.....since that happened, playing BJ in AC has become an exercise in futility for anyone even thinking about card counting or any other type of esoteric strategy.....all AC casinos now have standing orders to shuffle at ANY point in the game if it appears someone is on a major run.....they change dealers, change decks, shut tables down and move everyone across the floor to another table, whatever it takes to stop any serious bleeding.   That Blackjack debacle from two years ago cost the Tropicana's CEO his job ...... AC is the last place you want to play Blackjack nowadays.
 
Besides, the only place I play BJ is downtown vegas at the Horseshoe with their single deck tables with 25 dollar minimums......there you can make a quick profit with a little counting, but even there, if you get on a run and it looks even a LITTLE like you are counting, they cut you off very quickly....
There is no doubt that the casino's have made it tough to succeed at any of their games where a previous result affects the next play, like Blackjack. The Beau Rivage in Biloxi has $25 single deck BJ, and I have not observed any of the 'militant' behavior that you describe playing there.

[New2vp]

I am not jumping on anybody's bandwagon here, but doesn't this somewhat underscore Burglar's premise with regard to AC? Even if he nodded off a few times during Six Sigma training in the 90's (I know that I did ), and even if his counting in his head is off somewhat, being 14 SDs from the mean, way out of bounds, is virtually impossible for a random action.  billyjoe, I guess you didn't get the point of putting the two quotes together.  Certainly, the full house numbers in and of themselves are enough to discredit randomness.  I was drawing attention to the fact that he called this ridiculous result within an acceptable range and did not recognize it as wildly out of bounds.  Not everyone has the ability to determine what's random and what isn't.  DaBurglar claims expertise in this area.  He has since confirmed that his counting was correct; his analysis therefore...well, not so much.  Certainly, you are welcome to draw your own conclusions towards his, my, and other posters' credibility.  I'm making no statements about Atlantic City's randomness, just that I wouldn't give much weight to these particular claims in making that assessment.

[Tedlark]

[QUOTE=DaBurglar] Note to Billyjoe RE:  Blacjack
 
You may have heard a couple years back about the lucky stiff who won about 13.5 million bucks in BJ from several AC casinos.....since that happened, playing BJ in AC has become an exercise in futility for anyone even thinking about card counting or any other type of esoteric strategy.....all AC casinos now have standing orders to shuffle at ANY point in the game if it appears someone is on a major run.....they change dealers, change decks, shut tables down and move everyone across the floor to another table, whatever it takes to stop any serious bleeding.   That Blackjack debacle from two years ago cost the Tropicana's CEO his job ...... AC is the last place you want to play Blackjack nowadays.
 
Besides, the only place I play BJ is downtown vegas at the Horseshoe with their single deck tables with 25 dollar minimums......there you can make a quick profit with a little counting, but even there, if you get on a run and it looks even a LITTLE like you are counting, they cut you off very quickly....
There is no doubt that the casino's have made it tough to succeed at any of their games where a previous result affects the next play, like Blackjack. The Beau Rivage in Biloxi has $25 single deck BJ, and I have not observed any of the 'militant' behavior that you describe playing there. [/QUOTE]   Maybe because you were nodding off when security was dragging the advantage player off their chair and down the isleway? And you were in R.E.M. sleep when the sound of the advantage player's head slamming against the exit door was resonating through the casino?

[BillyJoe]

[QUOTE=billyjoe][QUOTE=DaBurglar] Note to Billyjoe RE:  Blacjack
 
You may have heard a couple years back about the lucky stiff who won about 13.5 million bucks in BJ from several AC casinos.....since that happened, playing BJ in AC has become an exercise in futility for anyone even thinking about card counting or any other type of esoteric strategy.....all AC casinos now have standing orders to shuffle at ANY point in the game if it appears someone is on a major run.....they change dealers, change decks, shut tables down and move everyone across the floor to another table, whatever it takes to stop any serious bleeding.   That Blackjack debacle from two years ago cost the Tropicana's CEO his job ...... AC is the last place you want to play Blackjack nowadays.
 
Besides, the only place I play BJ is downtown vegas at the Horseshoe with their single deck tables with 25 dollar minimums......there you can make a quick profit with a little counting, but even there, if you get on a run and it looks even a LITTLE like you are counting, they cut you off very quickly....
There is no doubt that the casino's have made it tough to succeed at any of their games where a previous result affects the next play, like Blackjack. The Beau Rivage in Biloxi has $25 single deck BJ, and I have not observed any of the 'militant' behavior that you describe playing there. [/QUOTE]   Maybe because you were nodding off when security was dragging the advantage player off their chair and down the isleway? And you were in R.E.M. sleep when the sound of the advantage player's head slamming against the exit door was resonating through the casino? [/QUOTE]
Perhaps, Ted. More likely, though, that I was flirting with the cocktail waitress at the time, and really didn't care..

[BillyJoe]

[QUOTE=billyjoe]I am not jumping on anybody's bandwagon here, but doesn't this somewhat underscore Burglar's premise with regard to AC? Even if he nodded off a few times during Six Sigma training in the 90's (I know that I did ), and even if his counting in his head is off somewhat, being 14 SDs from the mean, way out of bounds, is virtually impossible for a random action.  billyjoe, I guess you didn't get the point of putting the two quotes together.  Certainly, the full house numbers in and of themselves are enough to discredit randomness.  I was drawing attention to the fact that he called this ridiculous result within an acceptable range and did not recognize it as wildly out of bounds.  Not everyone has the ability to determine what's random and what isn't.  DaBurglar claims expertise in this area.  He has since confirmed that his counting was correct; his analysis therefore...well, not so much.  Certainly, you are welcome to draw your own conclusions towards his, my, and other posters' credibility.  I'm making no statements about Atlantic City's randomness, just that I wouldn't give much weight to these particular claims in making that assessment.
[/QUOTE]
Point taken. I do not frequent AC anyway.