Ben Affleck was caught counting cards at a Las Vegas casino Tuesday and banned for life.
http://nypost.com/2014/05/02/ben-affleck-banned-for-life-from-vegas-casino/
How does a casino catch someone counting cards?
Counting cards requires following a strategy that makes it obvious that you’re counting cards. Specifically, you pass up what might be good hands in the short term to keep your long-term strategy on track.
Because you beat the odds consistently, and they watch your nonverbal cues.
Casinos hate it when you use math to win.
Seems like excellent PR work to me; I think he has this sort of clean and wholesome/boring image that he’s trying to get away from a little.
I think they usually “catch” people because they vary their bets in odd ways.
One article my wife read said something about him moving around chips or tokens or something to track his numbers. The table staff and security accused him of tracking numbers with some sort of markers. The good counters memorize, the not as good ones using tokens of some sort, I guess.
Of course, it’s not illegal - all they can do is ban him. (The movie “21”, the group was colluding and passing signals. AFAIK collusion between players is illegal).
I don’t get it. He was winning? Wah wah wah. A good gambler always keeps track of the cards that have been played. Even the owner of the casino knows that.
There is nothing illegal about counting cards. But they can refuse service to anyone they want. That includes card counters.
And every casino bans players who win more than they lose.
I’ve never had trouble with it. I usually tell them before I sit down. One time, the pit boss told me a story: if you’ve got a system, we want you to play. My gut says he was bragging about it, winning a lot (which would get you kicked out no matter what), or lied about it. There’s nothing magical about counting cards either.
The movie “21” was inspired by a group of successful card counters from MIT. There is nothing illegal about what they were doing. They used multiple players to obscure the huge swings in bets necessary to take advantage of card counting. The “counters” would make small bets and get up from the table when the deck was hot, at which point one of the “high rollers” would start making big bets. They were ultimately foiled in part by the fact that the big casinos used face recognition software and sharing data with other casinos that had hired the same consultants. When the casinos began to figure out what was going on, they scanned the MIT yearbook pictures into the face database and the jig was up.
The casinos don’t like people who consistently win. Single players who win consistently are easy to spot and are summarily given the boot.
In general, the casinos love system players, because most of them lose lots of money. It takes lots of memorization, concentration, and wild swings in betting to make significant money playing a system.
That’s true. I’ve been out of the scene for quite a while, but a few decades ago, most “systems” were betting systems, and it’s a mathematical fact that in the long run, you will lose money in a game where the odds are against you, no matter how you bet.
The only casino game where the odds aren’t against you (other than games where you play against other people, rather than the house) is blackjack, IF you count the cards, and bet and play properly. But even people who have learned to count cards, and know the proper strategy, are very likely to be flustered with the speed and distractions of a real game, betting real money, which is quite a bit different than practicing at home. So in general, they’re welcome, too.
Unless they win consistently. Then they’re banned.
How is this not collusion?
I was wondering if the act of card counting was “illegal”. Thank you for answering this. Question. Don’t casinos use a number of decks in the shuffle where card counting would be extremely difficult? (I know nothing about Vegas/casino/black jack.)
The number of decks does not change the difficulty of card counting. What it does is slightly increase the house edge over equivalent single and double-deck games, and it decreases the amount of time spent shuffling between shoes.
Contrary to common myth, blackjack card counters do not memorize every card that comes out of the deck. They keep a running total of “good cards” (subtract one) and “bad cards” (add one) and bet big when there is a high ratio of remaining “good cards” to total cards left in the shoe.
friedo, Does the casino state how many cards are in the shoe to begin with? Also, what starting value do you begin subtracting from/adding to? Zero?
You can probably just google it, it’s not a big secret. You basically count like he said, doesn’t matter if you add or subtract. When more low cards are out that is supposedly better for the player.
Thanks Superhal. Will go forth and google. Was just trying to up my Google-fu beforehand.
When the casino in Sydney opened in the 1990s I was talking to some guys at work about card counting and how it works and how I assumed card counters would be banned. They were incredulous, how could you be banned for winning. If it’s not illegal what is the justification? I didn’t know.
So I rang the casino and asked to speak to the head of security. I said that I intended to play there and would be using card counting techniques. He said I would be barred. I feigned indignation and asked how could they justify that. He explained, “We are offering you the opportunity to play a game of chance but you want to use a method that makes it possible for you to simply milk money from the table. That is no longer a game of chance.”
I thought his response was pretty smooth.