How does security in a casino prove that a customer has been counting cards?

Factual Questions
1

Hi

How does security in a casino prove that a customer has been counting cards? How are they able to make a strong enough case to give someone the boot?
I look forward to your feedback
davidmich

2

They don’t have to prove it to anybody to give someone the boot. The casino doesn’t have to let you play if they don’t want to.

3

Why should they have to *prove *anything ? Make a case ? What on Earth for ? They’re not cops taking you to court, they’re private entities and you don’t have a constitutional right to gamble. They can kick you out for just about any reason (besides protected classes I suppose), at any time.

4

Betting patterns will finger a counter.

5

As others have noted, the casinos aren’t obligated to prove you’re counting cards. They can stop you playing on just suspicion.

The tip-off will be the size of your bets. In order for card counting to work, you have to increase and decrease the amount of your bets depending on whether the current count is high or low. Most betters just bet the same fixed amount. If a casino spots a gambler who is raising and lowering his bets on a regular basis, it will assume he’s counting cards and will ask him to leave. Or it will start switching decks faster which thwarts counting systems.

6

Not everywhere, by the way. In New Jersey you cannot kick someone out for counting cards or ban them for counting cards, as the New Jersey Supreme Court views it as a matter of skill and says the casinos cannot simply ban skilled players.

This stemmed from an incident in the 1970s when a very skilled card counter was banned from an Atlantic City casino and he actually sued, and won. Part of the decision also notes that the New Jersey Casino Control Commission in its regulatory role is the sole authority that can blanket ban people from gaming establishments, it made this specific because of how tightly interwoven the NJCCC is with a casino’s operations such that a casino isn’t just like any ordinary business where the owner can give the heave-ho for almost any reason.

7

Just so no one gets the idea you can easily make money counting cards in New Jersey:

  1. The rules about splitting and such are much more in favor of the house in NJ than NV. This means you have to have a higher edge from counting to make it profitable.
  2. Although they can’t “ban” you for counting cards - they can effectively make it impossible for you to make a profit. They can
  • change the limits at anytime (well not during a hand) - so they can make it say a $25 minimum and $25 maximum. Without the ability to vary your bets - it makes card counting all but impossible. With card counting - you bet more when the cards are in your favor - and less when they are not. You could I’m theory just watch and sit down when they count turned in your favor, but they have other things they can do such as…
  • force a shuffle after every hand dealt. They normally deal to the cut card, but they can change the rules and start shuffling and slowing the game down so you never know what the count is.

You can’t be “banned” in NJ - but they still know who you are and will stop you from making money (most card counters don’t bother with NJ anyway).

8

Moderator Action

This topic is already being discussed in this thread:

I would merge the two threads, but the posts are so similar and the times overlap in such a way that a merge would just result in a very confusing thread with it unclear who was replying to whom. I will instead just close this thread and direct anyone interested in the topic to the other thread instead.

Thread closed.