The Indiana court of appeals just decided Donovan v. Grand Victoria. Donovan, a card counter, was ejected from the casino after playing blackjack and winning. He suded, claiming that the casino had no right to eject him; he wasn’t cheating. Grand Victoria relied on the common law right of exclusion, where an owner may eject anyone for any reason or no reason at all, as long as it’s not for an impermissible motive such as race or sex.
The Indiana courts took a page from a similar issue in New Jersey. The New Jersey courts have long held that because gambling is such a specifically and heavily regulated activity in their state, the legislature has abrogated the common-law right of exclusion, and a player who is counting cards may not be excluded merely fdor exercise of that mental skill.
Well, it’s up to the casinos to fix the rules (one way or another) to deal with the issue. If card counting is allowed, they could increase the number of decks in play, and not use them for so long that card counting becomes likely to be useful.
From the thread title, I thought this was going to be about something else. I was going to say I didn’t know they had cards for that.
Intersting decision, and it always did seem unfair to me that card counters wre ejected for simply exercising a mathematical strategy. Couldn’t they be countered by some kind of syetme that automatically shuffles or randomizes the shue after every hand, though?
Card counting is a lot harder than it looks. I made a casino run last week, and tried counting for the first time. Even at a table that was only half full, the cards fly so fast that I lost the running count about halfway through the shoe most of the time.
That said, the cited case is interesting. Wonder if that logic would be adopted in Mississippi? There’s an awful lot of casinos in the state, and they likely exercise considerable political clout…
I’ve never played blackjack in a casino, and have no real interest in starting now, but i’ve always thought it ridiculous that casinos were allowed entice someone into a game where the central skill is determining your odds off winning a hand, and then eject a person who actually has the skill to make the most of those odds.
Man, I hate continuous shuffle machines, but they getting to be ubiquitous around Vegas. They really take the rhythm out of the game. It’s not like the casinos were losing to the counters. So many people do it so badly, or don’t know how to do it at all, that they still make a handy profit on the game.
They may use continuous shuffle, but like silenus pointed out, a lot more people think they can count cards than can do it. The casinos want people to think it’s possible - they just don’t want it to happen. This ruling might finally do it for Indiana, though.
I think this is a bit ridiculous - the casino should be able to kick anyone out for any reason they want (other then race/sex/etc of course).
Not that I think they should actually do it - how many people can actually count cards (it’s hard! I tried in a friendly game with just one deck and could barely keep track!) and how much money do they lose vs how much extra they get from other people seeing someone win and betting more because they think they will too? Not to mention the bad publicity they would get for kicking out winners.
But of course the government can’t resist the temptation to stick it’s finger in everything.
