Bet sizing

Counting earns nothing until your bets follow it. Perfect basic strategy plus a perfect count with flat bets is break-even at best. The money comes from betting small when the house has the edge and big when you do. Your win rate is set by the spread, the ratio between your minimum and maximum bet.

The ramp this Course teaches is a 1-to-8 unit spread. True +1 or less, 1 unit. True +2, 2 units. True +3, 4 units. True +4, 6 units. True +5 and above, 8 units. A unit is your base bet, $10, $25, or whatever your bankroll supports, and the next Lesson does that math. The shape matters more than the exact numbers. Stay near the minimum in neutral and negative shoes, and ramp hard through the counts where you have an edge.

Narrower spreads such as 1-to-4 give up most of the profit. Wider spreads such as 1-to-12 or 1-to-20 make more but tell anyone watching that you are counting. 1-to-8 is the usual balance for a solo counter in a six-deck game. The cover Lesson comes back to that trade-off.

The ramp works in both directions. Dropping to 1 unit in a negative shoe matters as much as pushing 8 units at +5, and it is much harder after a winning streak. Never bet ahead of the count because the shoe feels hot. The feeling that you are due is variance. The count is the only signal that pays.