Cover Betting

To avoid looking like a card counter and being barred from Blackjack play, many players add cover to their betting. That is they bet more like average players than counters. Obviously not betting optimally will reduce your expected results. In these charts, I am assuming a six-deck game with four players and a simple betting scheme of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 units at true counts of <=0, 1, 2, 3, >=4. I start with no cover and then add one typical cover betting rule at a time. The charts show only the number of max bets (16 units) made at each true count. Larger versions of these charts can be found at www.blackjackincolor.com/cardcountingcover1.htm.

No Cover

We start with a chart that shows no cover in red. The red bars show that there are zero max bets below TC +4. At TCs +5 and higher there are fewer and fewer max bets because there are fewer hands at higher TCs. All hands of counts +4 and above are played with max bets. This provides our benchmark.

Cover 1 – No increase after a loss

Four types of cover will be added cumulatively. The first cover rule used is “no increase after a loss.” With this cover method, units bet cannot be increased after losing a hand no matter what the count. The majority of average players bet in this manner. If you raise after a loss inconsistently, you might indicate to the casino that you are counting.

 © 2009 Norman Wattenberger