A Simple Winning Technique for Automatic Blackjack Machine Play
- davidcarew19
- Mar 27
- 13 min read
Updated: Jun 7
First, fair warning. I have developed this on an especially configured, PC-based Blackjack trainer/emulator put out by Qfit-dotcom. Below is URL of a book dedicated to the trainer software:
Here is an online location where the actual trainer/game software can be purchased. In fact, you must practice and prepare to win using the technique presented in this post. If you are
serious about applying this to win steady, moderate and not noticeable amounts of money in automated BJ machine play, you must buy this (or some other) casino Blackjack practice engine, and you must learn to play Blackjack Basic Strategy, with an ease like breathing.
Here is the crux -- I used the above tool configured to emulate a single user blackjack machine that sorts its digital (multi-)deck on every hand, but uses an "honest" deck emulation and pays out standard 3-to-2 for a blackjack, with even money payout for non-blackjack winning hands. Note that this should be a good reproduction of real automatic, small-dollar blackjack machine behavior in casinos, at least for casinos in Colorado's front range gambling locations (Cripple Creek, Blackhawk, Central City and so forth).
That is, I set up the trainer after a trip to Blackhawk CO over a year ago, and developed this technique as a cheaper (and easy) way to play realistic "advantage Blackjack" on video BJ machines. This technique is designed specifically for Blackjack video machine games with multiple deck play. It is as simple and as low risk (i.e. small dollar play) as possible, I believe. I have confirmed this only with one day trip to Cripple Creek CO. Results are discussed below.
DISCLAIMER:
This technique is presented in public domain blog text; there is no
representation of merchantability, nor usefulness, nor accuracy, nor
suitability for use of any kind. Specifically, any use of the described
technique for purposes of gaming or gambling with actual money creates no
liability on the part of anyone associated with authoring content
presenting the technique. Relying on the presented technique to risk real
money in a gaming situation is guaranteed to incur loss, and is done
entirely at your own risk.
ANYWAY Here is the technique in dot-point form:
Use Basic Strategy for hit/stand/double-down/split-a-pair playing decisions
Bring to the casino a gambling stake total of at least $800 dollars. You should be able to lose this entire stake without significant impact on your life or life style.
Use a "modified martingale" betting technique, as follows:
bet $3 minimum to start
if you lose double your bet to 6,
if you lose again then double to 12
lose yet again then double to 24,
lose four times in a row, double one last time to $48 bet.
if you lose at $48 bet level, quit and do something else for 15 minutes, at least.
Note that you are playing Basic Strategy, with slightly less than even odds across all bet situations which the Blackjack machine will present "randomly" in good emulation of honest, multi-deck play. Accordingly, it will be a bit rare to lose 5 times in a row, but it can and will happen.
Note also that your loss total for all five martingale-doubling bet levels (starting at $3 bet) is $93, out of your starting total stake of $800. It would be quite rare for you to immediately experience another five losses in a row; in which case you would still have more than half of your starting stake left on which to proceed, recover, and ultimately profit. Note: my perhaps erroneous guesstimate of the rarity of 10 losses in a row is approximately one in one thousand trials.
Basic Strategy has doubling down and pair splitting on favorable situations which will be leveraged by the martingale betting pattern. If you get a hand totaling 10, with the dealer showing 5 and your martingale bet level is 24, you win 8 times you normal minimum bet, when you double down (as Basic Strategy dictates). And so on.
Do NOT be tempted to double past the $48 martingale bet level. Simply take your current bad luck loss, and start the above process over again at $3.
When you win, you will have a small net gain across all your doubled (losing) bets since any previous win bet.
After any win, at any start the above process over at betting level $3.
If your total ties with the Dealer's total (called a "push" in Blackjack parlance), then the play is to simply let that current bet level ride; and play another hand at that same bet amount. If you lose, continue the modified martingale doubling pattern. If you win, start over again at $3 level.
Play this technique until you win at least $30, or use some other "small gain", that must be some pre-set goal amount (e.g. $25 or $30). It is important to have a pre-determined goal amount to win. Win that amount and then quit. Do not get greedy.
You must quit when you make your (moderate/small) win goal; cash out your win ticket; and do something else for at least 15 or 20 minutes.
You have a statistical expected value to win more often than not, BUT in the long run, you would experience long strings of losing bets (6 or more bet losses in a row across multiple playing sessions) will which makes your true expected value negative. The house still has its "house edge", and you lose in the long run.
However, you can assure that you win by using a simple "count-the-low-cards" advantage play technique. There are entire books (plus tutorials on YouTube, and other on-line courseware) about counting cards in Blackjack. The "count" that applies here is not a count per se but rather simply observing each hand that the machine has dealt you and itself. Here is a summary:
Notice 5 cards, and "Virtual 5 cards" (aka V-5 triplets or just V-5's) which is a trio of low cards (2, or 3, or 4, or 6) cards in any combination within a single round of play, in both your hand combined with the dealer's hand which may contain 5's and V-5's. Note well-- a 5-value card counts all by itself. V-5 triplets are trio's of "non-5-but-low-pip-value" cards, that is 2's, 3's, 4's or 6's. HOWEVER it takes 3 such low cards to be equal in count bonus (count advantage) with only one 5 card.
When you see three (or more) 5-cards and/or V-5 triplets as play finishes for a hand, then arbitrarily increase your bet on the next hand-- take a "count bonus", so to speak. Note that
You can simply add $5 or $10 dollars to your scheduled (martingale doubling) bet level, on the next hand played.
If you want to be conservative and win less, you can choose some smaller "count bonus" amount.
HOWEVER, you must choose one level for a given gambling day and stick with that amount all day. Do not vary the count bonus in a single gambling session!
Do NOT bump your bet level when you see only a single 5 or V-5 in a hand, nor when you see only two 5/V-5's in a single hand.
Note: If you lose, double the underlying martingale bet level and then add the $5 (or whatever was the 'count bonus' amount bet) into the next bet total. For example suppose you were betting $6 martingale doubling level, plus a $5 'count bonus' (i.e. $16 total) and you lose; then double up the martingale 6 to 12, and again add in the $5, to bet $17). HOWEVER, if you lose yet again, go back to scheduled martingale doubling without the 'count bonus' amount. Wait until your next opportunity of three "5's and/or V-5's" showing to increase your bet and recover the prior lost 'count bonus' bet.
It is okay (allowed by the casinos) to bring along and use a "cheat sheet" index card with Basic Strategy on the card. I have Basic Strategy memorized, but I still bring a cheat sheet card, because it is easy to become distracted by managing the betting levels while playing this BJ technique. If you can't immediately think of the correct Basic play, just glance at the card.
Such cards are readily available on-line (ask amazon-dotcom for example), or you can make one of your own by referring to another posting in this weblog: Look up the post entitled: "Casino Blackjack Basic Strategy Abbreviated". Take the content of that post and fit it onto a 3 by 5 inch index card. Make at least two copies of such a reference card and take them both along to the casinos.
In a whole day of gambling, using controlled martingale bet doubling and advantage play by "count the fives" (i.e. just noticing 5 cards and equivalent V-5 card triplets) to select favorable times to increase your bet level in addition to the scheduled martingale doubling bet levels, you could expect to come away winners by three to six times your "goal win amount"-- if your pre-set goal is $30, then you could come away with $200, over several hours of gambling work, or perhaps more quickly if you are lucky that day. If you are having a good time, and wish to work a "12-hour shift" so to speak, you might double that amount. No one will be getting rich with this "small win" technique, but it is pleasant to spend a day gambling while having a nice chance of a win in the high tens or low hundreds of dollars.
The choice involved in setting the pre-set goal amount higher is that it takes longer and longer to reach higher and higher pre-set goals, and setting too high ruins the limited martingale doubling bet power. You will hit the "rare" experience of 6 to 10 losses in a row before you will reach a "too high" pre-set goal. Having a pre-set goal that is within the normal win/lose variance of Basic Strategy play is what allows a play session to stop at the pre-set goal, preserving each "play-to-pre-set-goal" session to be an independent trial, when you "do something else" for a period of time between play sessions. Adopt a pre-set your goal at $25 or $30 or even lower. You will gain very slowly but it will build confidence in the technique. I say again: without 5/V-5 count bonus bets your long-term expected value is negative. And even with the bonus bets, you have to be disciplined-- pre-set some small tractable goal and learn the technique (and learn to trust the technique). Get a feel for it, and win slowly.
Even more importantly, avoid the temptation to "double just once more" and recover your losing position all at once. Doubling is geometric progression, and you can lose lots (that is, enough to become unrecoverable) with just one or two doubling actions "too many".
Sometimes in the past, I have used similar advantage Blackjack techniques to get a few dollars ahead, and then I take that money to the roulette table or to my current favorite slot machine-- then "rinse and repeat" when I run through that bit of won Blackjack money. You won't (probably) come away winners for the day, but it is pleasant to be "gambling on their dime" so to speak. You will not lose the rent money (nor actually any significant amount of your own money), gambling in that way. And you might hit a big win on your favorite one-armed bandit slot machine, or in a good turn at the craps or roulette tables, or whatever is your favorite "poison" in the way of "real" gambling.
And there you have it, a winning technique that plays considerably easier than it is to describe and explain it as I have done here. Your "count" is just the noticing of 5's and V-5's as they occur together in a single Blackjack hand (or not, in which case you just continue playing Basic Strategy with limited-range, martingale doubling of bets). There is no arduous tracking/calculation of a "running count" and constantly converting that to a "true count" by doing ratios and/or long division in your head. No one will come and stand behind you, to assess whether you are playing advantage blackjack, as happens if you seem to be winning steadily in regular, "live dealer" Blackjack table play. There is no study, practice, or knowledge involved, except Blackjack Basic Strategy, and the casinos themselves allow cheat sheets for that, and will (often) even have a book or two for sale in their gift shops about learning and using Blackjack Basic Strategy.
The technique might work with a larger minimum. Simply adjust the starting stake and "doubling levels" proportionately with the new minimum. Be careful however. Modified Martingale doubling can easily overwhelm the slim advantage that Basic Strategy plus counting 5/V-5's can provide. However, this technique (correctly applied) provides a small-scale way to play advantage blackjack and win against the casino. You can count on that "small scale way" continuing to be less than "live dealer" Blackjack table play, whose standard minimum bet seems to be $25 nowadays, (with perhaps $15 minimum sometimes seen on special deals and promotions).
$25-minimum live dealer Blackjack has simply priced itself out of my market, so to speak, even when weighed against a potential expected value win rate of several times what one would get by applying the technique above as shown in "small bet/small win" Blackjack machine play. Note that in live-dealer table play, the house maximum bet limit prevents the martingale doubling action from working in your favor. In fact, that is specifically why such maximum limits are in place.
REPORT FROM EMULATOR USE: (25-Apr-25) $800 starting stake was seemingly enough to support $6 minimum starting bet, seemingly without high risk of "gambler's ruin". Same doubling technique and stop doubling (start over at min $6) after loss of $96 seemed to be "okay" in play. Proviso 1: Actual mathematical calculation, says that $6 starting level is "too high" (too high a chance that a short run of starting bad luck will wipe you out). Proviso 2: It seemed to me to be okay to double once more and bet at at the $96 level if previously you have won enough to be playing with "house money" on the specific day you are currently playing. Because $6 is tractable for me, and the win rate is twice that of the $3 minimum bet technique, there seems to be no reason not to adopt that for "live play" in Cripple Creek, or Blackhawk, or Central City Colorado; and of course in other places that have identical blackjack machines available. HOWEVER, with further study, I believe that I have shown that $800 stake is only good enough for $3 minimum bet level-- and that I was simply lucky, in this gambling run. ANYWAY, the result is that I came back winners to the tune of around $200...
ALSO WARNING: doubling past $48/$96 levels can and does lead to large losses. Streaks of bad luck past 4 or 5 losses in a row do happen "commonly" seemingly more often than "expected value" risk numbers seem to say they will. You MUST BE disciplined or you will end up in "deep holes" wherein it takes lots of $40-60 win sessions to climb out. There is statistically per expected values also a danger of repeated small losses, but so far that has not happened, whereas large doubling losses (past $96 doubling level) have happened, more than once, as I was testing this technique on the honest Qfit-dotcom PC trainer/emulator.
THEREFORE: observing 5 and V-5's in play (and adding bonus bet amounts when 5/V-5 situations say to do so) is critical to actually winning, long-term. Without "count-the-low-cards" bonus wins, streaks of repeated losses can wipe you out. And will do so, sooner or later--mostly sooner rather than later, for me. Without 5/V-5 bonus dollars betting and winning, the long-term expected value is (by my experience and calculations) still negative-- that is, limited martingale bet doubling and strict use of basic strategy alone, is not quite enough. My experience on the emulator- trainer PC game says that count-the-low-cards "bonus" wins must be combined with Basic Strategy and modified martingale betting (as above).
Doing so can result in steady small wins playing video Blackjack machines with a video lady dealer in a low-cut dress. And for honest Blackjack slot machines without a video lady dealer, for that matter, though I never actually found one of those in this run to CC.
Report from Cripple Creek (CC) live trial: 01-May-2025: I took the bus to CC ($35 OH charge, plus one meal in CC for $20 including tip). I had a large amount of real-world trouble, BUT (bottom line) in the end came back approx. $160 ahead, not including the bus ticket and meal. Here is a dot-point report:
It is harder than it might seem to find; and especially to recognize "honest" blackjack machines. The first ones I tried had some sort of "house edge" built in, but you cannot distinguish that from a run of bad luck, until the the luck is stunningly bad (like odds against comparable to the lottery) multiple times, and by the time you see that, you have lost a significant amount of your initial gambling stake (or at least, this is what happened to me.
Accordingly I was deep in a hole (~$270 of $600 stake gone) by the time I found an honest machine and began using above technique to win money steadily.
ALSO I ended up having to stick with that first honest machine for the rest of the day, rather than conceal my gain by spreading it across multiple casinos. I was so deep in loss that if I wanted to get even and then come out ahead I needed to stick with that first honest machine that I found.
AND, it was harder than I anticipated to recognize and use 5/V-5's recognition to increase my winnings, while actually tracking/managing martingale bet levels.
The physical play was different and more difficult than the practice play I on my PC "trainer" software. For example, I managed to bet and lose $25 while just leaning over the machine to insert more cash. And I did things like double down unintentionally (and lost of course) because the game controls were different (touch screen and very sensitive). I could not keep precise track of my loss due to such physical factors, but it was easily north of $100.
SO, do I count all the won-it-back money as part of winnings?
Can I count learning how not to inadvertently lose money as complete, and thus say that I will effectively have more available stake, next time?
If so, my actual winnings were larger than the $160 reported above...
In retrospect, I realize that I set up the PC trainer to learn and to make PC physical play easy, and NOT to emulate casino play. That was okay to learn and validate my own technique, but after learning, I should have began more close emulation of casino play, and practiced that more before I got on that bus.
The machine-issued winning credit slips could NOT be cashed in at automated kiosks, any more!? One had to go to a human cashier, who validated the slip manually each time. My guess is that the cash kiosks were or became subject to various gaffing /counterfeiting techniques and thus were phased out. As far as I could tell, this change was general across all Cripple Creek (CC) casinos.
I note this because it makes my winnings noticeable, visible, and thus more subject to countermeasures, especially if I have to stick to one machine in one casino all day (as I did on this trip).
I learned a bunch from this run, and any subsequent CC (Cripple Creek) run would indeed be better. HOWEVER some important learnings were specific to CC and will help little or not at all for our next "real" trip to Blackhawk in the near future...
I had hoped that taking a small stake ($600 rather than $800) could be finessed for $6 min bet play, by doing $3 min bet play until I got $200 ahead, and then switching to larger bet/larger win rate. Unfortunately it took me all day to climb out of the hole due to initial losses, spent in recognizing machines that were not playing honestly-- I did not get $200 ahead until it was time to leave (and even then it was not quite $200).
Lessons for Blackhawk:
Learn a some quick (and cheap) technique to recognize honest machines. I am not sure how I would do this; long strings of win-win-win... and/or lose-lose-lose... can and do happen by pure chance.
One fact that I might could exploit-- some machines had $2 min lowest bet. Maybe I can devise a way to make 10 lowest ($2) bets playing Basic Strategy and recognize gaffed machine behavior (or something to that effect).
And so on... fill out more in here as it occurs.
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