so, this is my first time here, and I did a search and it was suggested to post here, rather than directly emailing “the master”, so here goes:
why is it illegal (or, at least, strongly frowned upon by the casino) to count cards playing blackjack? I’m not talking about using a machine or outside help which I could understand, but just carefully keeping track of what cards have been played, and playing accordingly. (and, yes, I have seen “21” and the documentary about the real MIT people on whom it was based)
Because the casino is a business and they have the right to refuse service (or entry) to anyone as long as they are not discriminating against a protected class. If they believe a customer is costing them money by counting cards or any other legal means, why let it continue? Throw him out and continue taking everybody else’s money. While they may occassionally erroneously eject someone who was just having a lucky streak, it’s too few to matter. Also, card counting is not illegal anywhere in the US.
Yup. It seems a little baffling to me that you could ban people from intelligently playing the game, any more than you could ban making good decisions in a game of Monopoly or being “too good” at Chess. I figure, it’s your game, you made the rules, why are you getting mad at me for winning?
The big problem is that in Blackjack you play against the house, not the other players. In other card games (like Poker) you are taking other player’s money. Nobody cares who wins because the house doesn’t lose anything.
It is not illegal to count cards (using only your brain.) Casinos frown on it for the simple reason that they don’t like to lose money. Being a for-profit business, they will happily kick you out if they suspect you of counting cards. In some jurisdictions they are not allowed to kick you out for advantage play, but they will flat-bet you or shuffle after every two hands or so until you get fed up and leave.
Every game in a casino has a long-term expected value which favors the house. That’s how they get all that money to build casinos. Counting cards (if you do it right, and if you play perfectly correct basic strategy for the specific permutation of rules in force, and if you adopt the correct variations on high counts) can shift the long-term EV in the player’s favor, by a small amount. With big enough bets and enough play, that small shift in EV can mean serious winnings for the player.
IMHO, casinos do spend too much effort trying to identify card counters. The vast majority of people who think they’re doing it are doing it wrong (such as by not knowing their basic strategy, or not knowing how to calculate a truecount.) And most of them don’t have a large enough bankroll to absorb short-term losses. (The short-term variation in blackjack is huge. That’s one reason why the casino wins: you’re playing for a couple hours; they’re playing with an EV in their favor continuously.)
What I find disturbing about this is that the casinos treat intelligent players (or players who were just plain lucky) who haven’t done anything unethical, let alone violated a law, like criminals, trespassers or bums. The casinos shouldn’t get away with this. If they feel they’re losing money, they can always change the rules of the game.
It’s unlikely for players who get lucky to get kicked out. Card counters play according to very specific strategies which are identifiable. If an average player gets lucky, the casino would much rather keep him there to keep playing, so he can give the money back.
Factually speaking, it was well established by Bringing Down the House that card counting as one component of a well-organized plot to win at blackjack can result in very large losses for the casino. I suppose the dividing line between what constitutes good, honest card-counting by an individual from an unethical scheme to win at blackjack by an organized group is hard to assess. But I would imagine that casinos tend to view cardcounters as possibly being part of a major effort to extract hundreds of thousands of dollars from the casino, rather than loners trying to grind out $500 a day. From that view, I can understand why casinos don’t countenance smart people playing 21: they probably tolerate it at the $5 table, but have very little patience if real money is involved.
I’ve never seen how casinos turf a suspected mental card-counter. Is it polite, or do they treat such a person the same way they treat an actual cheater or a bum who wanders in and starts begging for change?
It doesn’t take a back room treatment like in the movie Casino. It is humiliating to be approached by security personnel and led away. The other patrons of the casino who are watching the scene don’t know what is going on. They’ll think you’re some shady ne’er-do-well who was caught doing something a law-abiding citizen shouldn’t do.
The pit boss will quietly tell you you’re not welcome at the blackjack tables any more, and you can be sure your face and description are added to the shitlist, which is often shared between casinos.
You can usually go play another game, but sometimes they will escort you to the doors, as politely as you’ll let them.
As said, an experienced eye can tag a counter pretty quickly. Typically, it’s the betting variations; a counter will go from minimum bets to table limit and back again as the odds in the undealt deck change.
As to why casinos hate it, John Scarne claims that he taught three skilled players his system (one of the grandfathers of all counting systems, but with JS’s precision) and they each took away $250k before being banned. This was ca. 1949. A skilled counter and lax dealing protocol can add up to many thousands taken away. (When they suspect a counter, the first step is to start shuffling after every hand, ruining the count attempt.)
There is almost nothing factual in Bringing Down the House. It is a work of fiction very loosely based on some real events.
My information may be out of date. I was last in Nevada in the 1990’s, Atlantic City in the 1980’s and have never been to the “Indian” casinos which I guess have sprung up everywhere. :o
If I were a private poker player, I’d have no duty to play against a player who I thought would be favored to win. Why shouldn’t a casino have the same freedom? (On a loosely-related topic, are All-you-can-eat diners permitted to refuse service to gluttons?)
Most “card counters” lose money! I’d guess the boom in Blackjack books, etc. served to increase rather than decrease casino profits. Harrah’s casinos, for example, will spend time studying your play before barring you, even when they already know you’re counting.
I’ve never been treated like a criminal or trespasser in a casino. I was invited to play Craps and even offered free meals in the restaurant as long as I didn’t play 21.
Related from a friend: Casinos don’t like card counters, successful or not. They consider them cheaters and think they’ll use any method of cheating that they can.
Thanks for the correction. I didn’t know that.
It’s a hell of a fun read, though. 
No wonder they made it into a crappy movie.
I’ve always been interested in this from an economic perspective.
First of all, why the hell would a casino care if you’re an unsuccessful card counter? Hey, if you think you can count cards and it turns out you suck at it, welcome to my casino! Bring your friends, who probably suck at it as much as you do, but think they’re gaming the system. Come one, come all!
Second–and this is my economic question–how much do casinos really lose from this? I know some card-counting groups (the MIT blackjack team being perhaps the most famous) have made out really well. As a casino I understand not encouraging this behavior. But do they really cost the casinos more than they bring in? That is to say, do they cost the casino more than the casino makes from the advertising they bring in? Everybody wants to think there’s a game at the casino that you can beat with a “system.” And, as it turns out, there really is a way to win at blackjack, slowly, and with great discipline. How many players are able to achieve that level of discipline and patience? Is the amount the true skillful players taking out of the system greater than the amount that the weekend gambler is bringing in by knowing this is a beatable game?
I don’t know if that’s phrased as well as it could be, but I hope you get the gist.
Blackjack is the only game in the house where skill is on a par with chance. Excess skill in the form of exceptional memory and calculation ability tilts the balance to the player’s favor, so the casinos ban such players as unnecessary loss. If they didn’t, a considerable part of their profits would start leaving across those tables. Casinos like to have the edge in every single instance, whether it makes sense in the larger scheme or not.
It’s not the same as “systems” for roulette and craps, where it’s all chance and the house will win out in any long run.
You are exactly right. Consider this: casinos can easily eliminate the threat of advantage players by simply changing the rules to make the game uncountable. 6:5 tables and continuous-shuffling machines are examples. Yet every time they do this, they find that huge numbers of people won’t play those games. 99% of those aren’t card counters: it’s just the principle of playing a game that can be beaten which is enticing. Casinos have found that CSMs are only profitable on the cheapest tables, and 6:5 only works on n00bz.
That said, there is some ignorance and superstition among floor staff about the risk that card counters present, and how they behave. I’ve met floor guys who insist that counters never order alcohol (not true) or that they’re all young MIT math geniuses (doubly not true; any mook can learn how to count, there is really no math involved. It just takes a lot of practice.)
It’s one thing if the guy is in the high-limit room varying his bets 10:1 on a $500 minimum. But I’ve seen floor staff put a lot of effort into backing off a guy playing reds for no good reason.
One of the most successful advantage players I’ve ever met was an overweight black lady. She’d dress trashy and act like a TV stereotype and nobody ever suspected her, even though her play was flawless. Her entire strategy consisted of taking advantage of the floor staff’s prejudice, and it worked.