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Technically, card counting is not illegal. But casinos can refuse service to anyone for almost any reason, including that they are too good at the games.
Really, there’s almost no advantage even if you’re counting cards, because you’re playing through a whole shoe just to maybe get a slight advantage deeper into the 6-8 decks the casino is using.
Successful counters work in teams, where the counter plays the table minimum and gives a signal when the count is favorable. The big money players don’t even sit down unless and until the count is advantageous. They make a few big bets and then get out, making more in two or three hands than the counter has bet all evening.
If you just keep count by yourself and increase your bet from 15 to 100 when the count is good, the casino doesn’t give a shit about you.
I think I saw this happen one time. Watched a guy in sunglasses sit down at the blackjack table play 4 or 5 hands with the largest allowed bet and he won all of them. Then he got up, cashed out, and walked away.
That is just luck, no amount of card counting does that.
What does that mean when the count is favorable? Most of the 10 point cards are played so better chance at getting the low point cards?
Other way around. 10 point cards favor the player. From Wikipedia:
- They increase the player’s probability of hitting a Blackjack, which often pays out at 3 to 2 odds (although some Casinos pay at 6 to 5).
- Doubling down increases expected value. The elevated ratio of tens and aces improves the probability that doubling down will succeed. The most common hand values that the player doubles down on are 11, 10, and 9; and drawing a high card to these will make a strong hand.[1]
- They provide additional splitting opportunities for the player.
- They can make the insurance bet profitable by increasing the probability of dealer blackjack.
- They also increase the probability the dealer will bust, in the event that the dealer shows a low up-card (i.e. 2-6). This also increases the odds of the player busting, but the player can choose to stand on lower totals based on the count.
You can just keep a tally in your head adding or subtracting a number when certain cards are played. Doesn’t require that much skill. The skill is in pretending everything is normal that and half of the people who just joined the table just met you for the first time.
21 was a great movie about this
It…really wasn’t a great movie in general nor about card counting. Reasons:
- Actual people it was based on were all Asian, but they had to put white people in it because Hollywood.
- The actual people played in Atlantic City which makes sense considering Las Vegas is like 2000 miles away from MIT.
- When they arrive at the casino, the rag tag cast shows up in style and makes it incredibly obvious that they are all a part of the same group which is like card counting kryptonite.
- Morpheus delivers the least convincing punch since the 3 Stooges.
- It takes place well after casinos started shuffling after every hand. The strategy would not have worked in 2008.
- Dumbass kid stores thousands of dollars in the ceiling of a building where he doesn’t even have the only key. Safe deposit boxes are not expensive.
- MIT uses a 5 point GPA system, so a 4.0 GPA is not terribly impressive.
- I got a 3.8 from MIT, don’t tell anyone that last point.
The book was called Bringing Down the House, and it was fantastic and written by one (or more) of the MIT students, IIRC.
Legally it’s private property so they can stop you whenever they want. They just can’t take away what you’ve already won and you can’t be arrested for simply thinking.
It also depends on location. In Atlantic City for example card counting is considered playing the game well and you have a right to do that. Vegas on the other hand does not
In those places they just make the minimum and maximum bet whatever you bet on your first hand. Counting cards doesn’t work if you cannot change your bet.
Why would counting cards be forbidden? I feel like it’s the same as using a phone calculator in the grocery store to calculate the best unit price. Is it because it’s a casino and there are vastly different quantities of money at stake? As you can probably tell, I don’t know much about casinos.
The point of a casino is for the house to get more from player losses, on average, than players get from the casino via wins. Card counting cuts into profits. At small scale it doesn’t really matter too much, and that’s why they discourage it, to make sure it stays small scale.
I see, it’s that there’s a direct conflict of interest, whereas a grocery store doesn’t exactly profit from you making a non-optimal choice of yogurt brand.
Companies can set their own policies as long as they’re not actually illegal/unconstitutional.
If a supermarket wanted to forbid using a phone/calculator or camera, they can almost certainly do so.
Other side of the world, but I’m pretty sure I heard of someone getting kicked out of a supermarket here in NZ because they worked for the competition and were copying down all the prices. I don’t remember if the competition regulator ended up making a statement on it
Oh dear. That goes against the point of capitalism which is that competition makes for allocative efficiency.
Removed by mod
If you use a calculator at a store, the store still makes money. No store is gonna sell at a loss regardless of the calculator. A casino deals in odds, and shifting the odds in your favor is not in the best interest of the casino for obvious reasons. They can’t stop you from thinking, but they can decide to stop playing with you at any point.
So it’s that the grocery store never risks losing money to a singular customer. That makes sense.
Its allowed. Using a tool to help you IS NOT.
Betting table max, 3 hands, out of nowhere is a big indication you’re counting. It is, after all, a betting strategy.
And casinos stop it because if they allow it it could shut the whole place down. A business that loses money doesn’t stay open for long.
I’ve been a shift manager at casinos for years. I can tell the counters a mile away. I can deal a shoe and tell you the count at any point. I don’t kick em out, but I’ll flat bet them. Say the betting spread is $5-$500, right? They’ve played 10 hands at $5, now they bet $500. I’ll walk over and place a new placard on the table, $25-$25. They can only bet $25 a hand, no variation.
Anyone who’s there to press an advantage will walk immediately. And then we’ll make a dossier on them and it’ll get shared, nationally.
Yep. It is like that. Would you expect less, c’mon.
That’s sad man
Because casinos are private businesses that rely on the illusion the average person can make more money, all because the average person isn’t very good at math.
In a just world the concept would be illegal, but in ours, the government runs the lotto.
I don’t understand gambling. I walk in with a few hundred dollars and then lose lose lose then “win” a little bit then I’m broke. There are way better ways to spend money.
The whole premise of a casino is that they are going to gamble against you and guarantee their own win, which they can do because they make all the rules and you play their games. It doesn’t have to be fair. The way to win at gambling is to do the same thing; only gamble where you have the advantage, against weaker players (which a casino probably isn’t).
You cant really count cards anymore, so this larp needs to end. Casinos always use a variety of techniques to stop people from trying this(3+ decks/mechanical shuffle/card cutting/etc), so you cant tell which you got. If you can still count cards after that, then the casinos should just give you their money
I think counting cards is done over many, many hands. So not what you can see on the table right then.
