Omega II Blackjack Betting System Explained

The Omega II blackjack system was first brought into the public realm when the renowned Blackjack player (who also happened to, on occasion, moonlight as an author) Bryce Carlson published a book entitled “Blackjack for Blood.” The book and by extension then, the system he espoused, achieved critical success among the general public and many commentators noted that it was a robust, highly developed and streamlined system of playing.

As Carlson himself was quick to admit, his grand creation was somewhat aided by a masterful and highly adept teacher who happened to be Lawrence Revere, himself who is a well known and respected blackjack player. One of the most commendable and indeed noteworthy features of the book was that Carlson actually took the time to explain in an enormous amount of detail, the methodology he used to reach the values he attributed to the cards.

He also identified that the player should be aware that if you are trying to achieve the best possible count for wagers in blackjack, it is important to note that you are never going to achieve perfect results, consistently and constantly. Therefore, a blanket, “one size fits all” approach is neither helpful or useful.

Under the terms of the Omega II system, the cards 2, 3 and 7 are all given a value of +1, and the 9’s are given a value of -1. 4,5,6 are all given a value of +2 whilst the royal cards plus the 10s are all given a value of -2.

Eagle eyed readers will have noted thus far that the aces and the eights have not actually been included in this list and the reason for that is simple: under this system, they are classified as being neutral and therefore have no value.

It is also important to appreciate that the Omega II blackjack system functions as a two level system and the reason for this is that the values are either +/- 1 and +/- 2.

In order to achieve true count conversion whilst relying on this system it is recommended that you make use of half-deck multipliers. With the notable exclusion of the aces in the equation, this means that when used, the system has an overall efficiency rating for betting of .92. If you were to rely on this system for actual playing, this figure drops to .67

The creator of this system was quick to provide the disclaimer that if the user wishes to ensure that they are able to achieve the maximum level of efficiency associated with this system then card counters will have to maintain a series of side counts. Unfortunately, this is not really a viable option for most people, primarily because it is a lot of abstract information to be processed at any given time.

The author was well aware of how unrealistic this objective was and so in an attempt deal with this issue more fairly, the author identified that at the bare minimum, the player should maintain a side count of the Aces being used.

Thankfully, this so called ace adjustment is not vastly different from many of the various other multi decking wagering systems that exist in the world out there and so this makes the process just a little bit easier for the average consumer to comfortably get to grips with. However, one crucial issue to be aware is that the player will be doing on the a quarter deck  rota rather than half or full deck. What this means then is that the player must make the adjustments as necessary.
The book also devotes sometime to the issue as to what the player could hope to gain if they were to make use of and rely upon a 3 or even 4 level system. Carlson is cautious in his response here, identifying that whilst the player will get more power, they need to balance this against the ease of use for the system.

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