Underneath all those neons and complimentary boozy drinks, casinos are structured to slowly drain your money away. But with a little strategic knowledge of your rival, mathematically talented physicists might be able to tip the scales in their favour by finding ways around weaknesses in casino play.
And casinos are increasingly vulnerable to social engineering (also called human psychology hacking) — using human psychology to defeat security systems. In this post we will cover some of the scammers’ methods and highlights of cases.
Weak players
It takes more than luck to play the casino, you also need to know your opponent inside out. Professional players know to look for flaws in their opponents like ignorance or system usage that they may not want; professional players might employ the Martingale system (doubles the bet at each loss) or the Paroli system (bigger bets with each win) to extend winning streaks.
Pay attention to how your opponent bets is one of the best ways to see your weaknesses and beat them. If they are regularly making small bets it is a sign that they’re being safe and when they’re making big bets it’s a sign that they’re overly confident – data like this will help you analyse their style and play plan and house edge potential, which in turn will give you a head start on them. It is also important that you do your homework on RTP at different casinos in order to find the one that fits best with your budget and win method.
Inexperienced players
Slot machines are meant to pulverise the customers of cash with math. For some time, mathematically adept individuals have sought to flip the coin by drawing on probability and game theory: for a casino game like blackjack or poker, you don’t need to be an expert; but in strategy, finding weaknesses in your opponents can double your chance of success.
The fact that there are players who may be at risk of taking irrational actions when playing in a casino called “on tilt” is known to many people. You can detect these “tilt” players by keeping a close eye on their emotions throughout a game — fidgeting is a sign of nerves about a potential hand or overconfidence a tactic to call a bluff; tells require keen attention and body language; and there are those who will even commit fraud, sending hints of secret card value to their fellow players or using sleight of hand to flip cards while playing – keep your eyes open!
Betting patterns
Be able to see how betting goes and spot weakness of your opponents. Large bets could be the sign of a weak player, and large ones of an overestimator. Now that you have all this knowledge you can modify your strategy in line with theirs and offset theirs – takes attention and thought, but pays big dividends!
Transaction monitoring software can also be integrated in casino security systems to look for anomalous transactions like deposits and withdrawals that do not correspond to the normal patterns of play, which is used by casinos to prevent money laundering or other gambling fraud.
It’s the dealer conspiracies behind a lot of casino game fraud. Fraudulent dealers might alert accomplices to card values hidden on the cards, shuffle cards through magic or pay overpays to players at payouts. Casinos prevent this con by installing surveillance systems with high resolution cameras and randomly assigned seats to avoid collusion; secure payment systems also eliminate cash withdrawals and bonus claims from being faked.
House edge
Casinos might be flashy, fancy and swanky, but they’re also enterprises that will slowly rake in money from the gaming public by using something called House Edge – a statistical advantage built into every casino game – that creates long-term profits, by helping to equalise player wins with long-term operators’ profits.
With knowledge of House edge and RTP players will be able to make more educated decisions about how they gamble, and also what games do not suit their risk profile and style. In the long run, this could mean having a better and more satisfying iGaming experience.
Detecting weak spots in casino games is by snooping on bet trends the easiest and most effective. Frequently small bets might be a sign of wariness, regularly big ones over-confidence; watching for such trends can help you to guess your opponents’ tactics and tweak your own; although it does require close attention and psychology, it can pay dividends down the road.
