[HN Gopher] A casino card shark's first time getting caught
___________________________________________________________________
A casino card shark's first time getting caught
Author : smoyer
Score : 191 points
Date : 2020-05-09 12:28 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (narratively.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (narratively.com)
| paulpauper wrote:
| I dunno why so many people keep trying to beat the casinos.
| Casinos hire professionals whose job it is to track card counters
| and collusion , as well as advanced security systems. All these
| signals an gestures are obvious to those whose job it is to
| detect them. Certain patterns of behavior become obvious to the
| trained eye.
| ausbah wrote:
| risk is very alluring! the higher the stakes the higher the
| draw for some!
| kd5bjo wrote:
| The explicit goal of every gambler is to walk out of the room
| with more money than they started with. The casinos make sure
| that actually happens sometimes, or else they would have no
| customers. Under those circumstances, it's basic human nature
| to look for ways to maximize your return. Many people do that
| by not gambling, but others try to find loopholes that the
| casinos haven't figured out yet.
| defertoreptar wrote:
| I go on business trips to Vegas along with a friend. My friend
| has been playing blackjack for decades. I'm not a gambler, but
| counting allows me to join in while mitigating risk (in the
| long run). We have a really good time.
|
| Initially, I spent about 40 hours training on blackjack
| counting software. Nowadays, I'll practice for one day before
| the trip, and I'm sharp again. My "lifetime earnings" are very
| good, but I'm not trying to make money so much as not lose
| money.
|
| Counting is only a small part of the game. You need to memorize
| basic strategy for the different types of tables, as there are
| subtle differences in rules. You have to know how many decks
| are left on the shoe. You have to divide the count by the decks
| remaining and calculate how much to bet based off of this
| information. Lastly, you have to execute all of this nearly
| perfectly all while in a loud environment while people are
| talking to you. Even a small percentage of mistakes can mean
| negative expected value.
| 1e-9 wrote:
| I went through a short beat-the-casino phase for kicks. You can
| increase your edge significantly beyond standard card counting by
| targeting flaws in casino randomization methods. Randomization is
| hard. For example, card shuffles aren't random, not even
| mechanical ones, and particularly not human ones.
|
| It is possible to carefully observe and model a variety of
| randomization processes at different casinos, find a weakness in
| a particular game at a particular casino, and construct a
| profitable strategy that is nearly impossible for the casino to
| anticipate. Even so, they will eventually notice someone who is a
| consistent winner, assume you are cheating, and force you to play
| a stressful game of cat-and-mouse that will lower your expected
| profit, increase your variance, and lead to a less-than-desirable
| lifestyle, in my opinion. A team can improve these things at the
| cost of adding management and human resource headaches.
|
| If you have the talent to succeed at this, my experience is that
| the same talent can be applied in much more productive endeavors
| that pay far better and yield a much higher quality of life.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > the same talent can be applied in much more productive
| endeavors that pay far better and yield a much higher quality
| of life.
|
| I'd guess that the edge you can get, along with max bets and
| not drawing attention to yourself means you're better off with
| a tech or hedge fund job? I've heard that pulling six figures
| playing poker takes a lot of skill and a lot of grinding. The
| story of the professional gambler is compelling, but in
| practice, it seems like most people just aren't smart enough or
| work hard enough to make it work, or they're smart and work
| hard enough to do better at something more productive.
| teej wrote:
| I challenged myself to learn to count cards last year and I found
| it really fun. Being able to count a deck in under 30 seconds is
| one thing, but putting the skill to work is another challenge
| completely. It is hard work.
|
| Ultimately, if you aren't playing with a team or $50+ minimums,
| you won't make a huge amount of money on a per-hour basis. I
| still count occasionally but now only for one or two shuffles
| before getting back to having fun with friends.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Isn't it a "card sharp?"
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| I've always thought of "card shark" as a common American
| mishearing of the correct phrase "card sharp." Like saying
| "mute point" instead of the correct "moot point" or "take a
| different tact" for the correct "take a different tack."
| tamaharbor wrote:
| True, for all intensive purposes...
| stOneskull wrote:
| I like that they all still make sense.
| smoyer wrote:
| They are synonyms - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_sharp.
| Curiously, I've never heard the term "card sharp" before (or I
| mis-heard it as "card shark").
| Zigurd wrote:
| I suspect card shark has bled over from loan shark or some
| other term like that
| hashbazz wrote:
| I think that term (shark vs. the original sharp) got
| popular due to a TV game show by the name "Card Sharks".
| rrauenza wrote:
| Pool shark perhaps?
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_shark
| GeorgeTirebiter wrote:
| I'm hopeful they will carry slightly different meanings in
| the future, where "card sharp" isn't pejorative but "card
| shark" is. Actually, today is the first time I've heard the
| term "card shark". Ahhh, English...
| specialp wrote:
| Yes smart bettors call themselves "sharps" and "AP"s (advantage
| players) I don't think I have ever heard an AP call themselves
| a card shark. This seems to be a piece of fiction as most of
| the terminology doesn't line up and the tactics are odd too.
| rcthompson wrote:
| I think I've only ever heard "card shark" used to refer to a
| person who is really into the game, plays it competitively,
| and generally knows the probabilities of various hands, but
| generally _isn 't_ counting cards or otherwise keeping track
| of any hidden game state. They're also generally into betting
| strategy, bluffing, reading people's faces, and other such
| things. I don't think I've ever heard it used to refer to
| someone playing to win by counting cards, except in case
| where card counter is mistaken for the above.
| pfarrell wrote:
| I think it's a British usage versus American usage thing. Also
| might be historical as you can see in the title of Caravaggio's
| famous work: https://www.kimbellart.org/collection/ap-198706
| specialp wrote:
| Card counting is romanticized but really it is almost impossible
| to get away with now (while making any meaningful money). The
| whole premise of card counting is to vary your bets where you are
| betting more when the count is in your favor, and less when it
| isn't. Also "penetration" into the deck is important because the
| less cards there are remaining in the deck the probability of you
| getting the cards you want (positive count big cards) is higher.
|
| So with that said:
|
| - Casinos employ methods such as continuous shuffling machines
| that make counting impossible. Tables that have hand shuffling of
| 6-8 decks cut the deck and reshuffle with 2 decks remaining or
| so. So it is harder to get penetration.
|
| - The way to be maximally profitable is to vary your bet very
| widely depending on how positive the deck is. This could be 30x
| your low bet. Behavior like this will get you detected.
|
| - Security personnel and even dealers keep counts. It is not some
| savant activity. It is not hard especially since all these people
| do all day is look at cards. So they know when the deck is
| positive and if you are always betting big when that happens you
| will be detected.
|
| So the people that are left counting have to avoid heat by
| "camouflaging" their actions. They don't vary their bet that
| widely and make purposeful bad decisions to make it appear they
| are not keeping a count. They want to appear like someone that
| does not know how to play basic strategy and raises and lowers
| their bets based on superstition (there's a lot of them). This
| all eats into their advantage substantially. Then in addition
| betting big at high limit tables is going to be more carefully
| scrutinized as well.
|
| With that all added together the life for a modern card counter
| is grinding out for comps and very low player advantage for very
| long times. Casinos aren't dumb anymore. So while we watch the
| chronicles of the MIT team, and others, those days are long, long
| gone. Makes for great stories as people love Robin Hood like
| tales, but it just isn't happening like this anymore.
|
| Edit: Also the tactic she mentions: Entering a game mid shoe
| after watching for a while, and waiting for a positive deck, is
| called "Wonging" After Stanford Wong a longtime gambling expert
| and advantage player. There is NO WAY you'd get away with "flashy
| big bettor Carlos" coming in after she counted detected a
| positive count. Tables with any meaningful limit usually do not
| allow mid shoe entry for this reason. It is one of the oldest
| tricks in the book and you wouldn't get away with that for long
| or at all.
| hodder wrote:
| Yup. As I was reading along, I thought a) this story is
| complete fiction, or b) of course they were caught.
|
| I'm no casino regular but every single one I've been into in my
| life use large 6-8 deck shoes and reshuffle as it hits about 2
| decks. Counting just isn't profitable anymore unless you are
| blatantly obvious about it.
| icelancer wrote:
| Large shoes are not unbeatable. In some conditions an 8 deck
| shoe is better than a 6 deck shoe. Penetration does matter
| though, a 25% cutoff would be pretty brutal.
|
| >> Counting just isn't profitable anymore unless you are
| blatantly obvious about it.
|
| Game selection is a big part of it. You might be looking at
| large corporations. Plenty of small shops to beat.
| LanceH wrote:
| Every time card counting comes up in discussion there seem to
| be people talking about how it works (not taking a shot at you,
| just attaching my comment here). But not once have I seen a
| link to the actual numbers.
|
| If I want to know something about chess, the source code is
| available, endgame tables are available, everything that we say
| we know about chess can be confirmed.
|
| Everyone seems to know how card counting works, with vague
| things like a count goes up with 5's or down with 10's, but
| there is no first post link to the "solution". The only thing I
| see referenced is some 1 deck study from the early computer
| days.
|
| I'm halfway convinced the money making avenue of card counting
| is telling stories about card counting.
|
| The conspiracy theory part of my brain says these stories are
| written by casinos to give players hope.
|
| So, where is that github link?
| icelancer wrote:
| I mean, hi/low is fairly well understood, as are hi-opt
| methods and such. Casino Verite is a long-standing simulation
| software used for over a decade (at least in my case) to test
| theories and strategies. Illustrious 18 is a sample
| modification table for basic strategy and so forth.
|
| Card counting can be profitable. It's not invented by the
| casinos, I assure you of that. I've earned enough backoffs
| from them.
|
| Wizard of Odds is a good site to peruse if you want derived
| tables/odds/simulations. The author of the blog (Shackleford)
| is a fairly good statistician and computer modeler.
|
| The information is out there.
|
| In modern times, most of the value of card counting comes
| from game selection and beating bonuses/weak side bets/match
| plays. It's not likely a good full-time job. But good
| advantage players have a wide set of skills, of which beating
| blackjack is simply one.
| qiguai wrote:
| Is there a form of card counting for sports betting that
| produces results
| cleansingfire wrote:
| Sports betting is less deterministic than cards, since odds
| are set relative to popularity and past statistics. Sports
| bettors would make money by recognizing when the odds are
| unrealistic (e.g. popular team is favored too highly) but
| these markets are efficient. Think of the parimutuel pool
| as the original crowdsourcing of wisdom.
| matsemann wrote:
| You can find two bookies with different odds, such that the
| expected value would be in your favor. I however did work
| for a company combating this,by alerting the bookies about
| such opportunities so that they adjusted their odds.
| michaelscott wrote:
| Ok so the idea of a statistical edge in blackjack, as well as
| the strategies of card counting and what is called basic
| strategy, were developed by mathematician E.O. Thorp in the
| 70s. Thorp has a large body of research on the mathematics of
| many casino games that are worth taking the time to read,
| some of them with the father of information theory himself
| Claude Shannon (with whom he used to go gambling, along with
| both their wives).
|
| The empirical testing of his work was conducted over a number
| of years by MIT, Harvard Business School and others to show
| that indeed card counting and other strategies were effective
| at giving the bettor a statistical edge [1]. Casinos being
| casinos, they learned of this soon enough and effectively
| banned card counters in many outlets (as well as putting
| various measures in place to prevent or minimize those who
| are more subtle about it, as discussed in OP's comment). In
| modern times, even a small town casino will have measures in
| place to stop card counters, the simplest of which is just to
| have an automatic deck shuffler.
|
| As for his papers on the academic research that have led to
| strategies like card counting, you can find most or all of
| them on his site[2]. Of particular note is his paper
| "Blackjack Systems"[3] describing a proto card counting
| strategy, "The Mathematics of Gambling"[4], and of course the
| book that started it all: "Beat the Dealer"[5].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Blackjack_Team [2]
| http://www.edwardothorp.com/articles/ [3]
| http://www.edwardothorp.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2016/11/Black... [4]
| http://www.edwardothorp.com/books/the-mathematics-of-
| gamblin... [5] https://www.amazon.com/Beat-Dealer-Winning-
| Strategy-Twenty-O...
| ryguytilidie wrote:
| Why not make this calculation yourself versus demanding a
| stranger does it?
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| Card counting is something a child can understand.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_counting
|
| Asking to prove it is like asking to prove that tic-tac-toe
| is a solved game, since its trivial to understand how it
| works
| ColeyG wrote:
| This is a confusing misinterpretation of the parent
| comment. He isn't saying it isn't easy to count cards,
| rather that there isn't a widely seen public method to do
| it in 2020, and that there isn't math to prove it is
| profitable with casinos targeting advantaged players.
| [deleted]
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| Card counting is possible but extremely sensitive to the
| precise rules of the game being played.
|
| The principle is that you bet (more) when the cards remaining
| in the deck are favourable to you. Even if you can identify
| when that happens, precisely or heuristically, it's then also
| important to consider what percentage of your bank you can
| bet to best avoid bankruptcy.
|
| If you've considered all of this carefully enough, your
| method will likely no longer work when the casino modifies
| the rules in any way - most crudely by increasing their take
| to cover any variance in bet value.
|
| Edward O Thorp explains the mathematics of card counting
| extremely clearly and readably.
| vmception wrote:
| You can usually card count and run all of the old tricks when
| new jurisdictions just get into the casino business.
|
| Like a new tribe finally gains consensus to open a casino and
| have no idea what they're getting into or have the
| enforcement procedures. The same for states and
| municipalities, but they typically have more resources to
| course correct quickly.
|
| You can take them all to the cleaners though.
| swader999 wrote:
| Agree 100%. It's a grind at best even with a team. Casinos
| love card counters because by far a large number of them make
| errors and can't overcome the tactics to thwart card
| counting. They make a lot of money off of the card counting
| fantasies. These articles get popular every time there's a
| recession.
| dna113 wrote:
| > with vague things like a count goes up with 5's or down
| with 10's
|
| That is not vague at all and shows you how simple card
| counting is. Pair that with a blackjack strategy card which
| is based on the odds of winning certain hands and its easy to
| tell how a deck that has a higher proportion of 10's is
| better for the player.
|
| https://wizardofodds.com/blackjack/images/bj_4d_s17.gif
| specialp wrote:
| I agree with you on that. The money is to be made telling
| stories about it vs doing it. Which is why I think the
| article is complete fiction. But the math behind counting is
| sound and it is indeed profitable if done right.
|
| https://github.com/seblau/BlackJack-Simulator is an example
| of this. The house advantage of blackjack is under 1% for
| good games (for example 0.33% at Mohegan Sun). So to beat it
| you just need overcome that which IS possible by counting.
| But you can see if you play with that sim, decreasing
| penetration, bet spread and amount really starts to eat into
| your numbers.
|
| But with the mitigation strategies listed like low
| penetration, heat gained by betting big, or wild swings in
| bet amount, and finally no mid-shoe entry it is not possible
| now to do it and make good money.
|
| https://wizardofodds.com/games/blackjack/card-
| counting/high-... Michael Shackleford is an expert on
| gambling analysis and is employed by gaming companies to
| check out their games. He has loads of detailed information
| and statistics on his site about every casino game.
|
| But yes. Mathematically possible, and possible in the distant
| past when casinos didn't know. Pretty much impossible now due
| to casinos detecting it easily. Not because it isn't
| mathematically possible.
| shultays wrote:
| How does it work with multiple decks? Can you get same cards on
| same rounds?
|
| That would kinda break yhe illusion for me but maybe other
| people/casino doesnt care
| __s wrote:
| Yep, not really sure what the illusion is, so long as you
| know how many copies of each card there are, you could even
| go so far as to consider 52 card deck to be 4 sets already
| alasdair_ wrote:
| I know some magic: the gathering players who did very well
| counting cards as part of a team. The "big bettor" sometimes
| worked in the way you mentioned but sometimes it was something
| completely different, like a crazy religious person who would
| bet small for a while while clutching a rosary, then When the
| deck was hot they would go douse themselves in a nearby
| fountain while praying loudly, then come back to the table,
| wet, and loudly claiming the Lord told them they were going to
| win big today and start placing max bets.
|
| Can you do this every night at the same casino? Absolutely not.
| Can you do it once, then switch to a completely different
| persona at a different place? Apparently you can, at least ten
| years ago.
|
| Edit: also, while the big vegas casinos do all this stuff
| properly, a lot of the small casinos on Indian reservations are
| more lax with their safeguards. The issue is that table
| maximums tend to be in the $500 range which makes the dollars
| per hour somewhat minimal.
| fortran77 wrote:
| I'm suspicious of these stories, too. With continuous
| shuffling, I can't see how you can beat it. The "team" counting
| techniques perfected by the MIT groups only work if you never
| make a mistake and are prepared to play for a while.
|
| I think Casinos like to propagate these stories about counting
| to encourage people who know a little about it to come down and
| bet big. Odds are, they'll lose.
| gjvc wrote:
| "When I sat down to write, _I was no longer paralyzed with self-
| doubt. I wasn't thinking of failure, I just wanted to keep
| trying._ "
|
| This is a brilliant place to be in.
| kingkawn wrote:
| Forgive my ignorance but why is tracking the play of the deck not
| a legitimate strategy?
| zzo38computer wrote:
| It is a legitimate strategy, and I think the casino is not
| actually allowed to arrest you, accuse you of cheating, take
| back your winnings, etc for it. They can ban you though;
| casinos can ban you whenever they want to. I think they can
| also refuse to give you any comp bonuses. I am not really so
| sure how it works; I don't gamble in a casino and do not intend
| to.
| SaltyBackendGuy wrote:
| > I don't gamble in a casino and do not intend to.
|
| This is the only long term winning strategy I've seen work in
| practice.
|
| (Former Poker Dealer)
| Stratoscope wrote:
| Greetings Professor Falken
|
| _Hello_
|
| A strange game.
|
| The only winning move is not to play.
|
| How about a nice game of chess?
| ec109685 wrote:
| It is a legitimate strategy, but if you do this well enough,
| the casino will not allow you to play, since you can turn the
| game's odds into your favor.
| swader999 wrote:
| With face/gant recognition and other means of tracking, once
| you are barred from play at one casino you are at almost all.
| swang wrote:
| they already had this long before facial recognition came
| into play. they were called griffin books/black books. when
| you were "caught" they took a photo and a company called
| griffin investigations would pass this info around to all
| the other casinos.
| rebuilder wrote:
| The article describes the card sharks using disguises, apparently
| to get around being banned from a casino. Wouldn't that be
| trespassing, if they've been told not to enter the casino again?
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Depends. There is an interim step between formally, legally
| trespassing you, it seems where you are told you are no longer
| welcome, they may use your camera footage and "ban" you.
| dkersten wrote:
| > Counting cards isn't illegal, but a casino, like any business,
| has the right to refuse service to anyone. I know players who
| have been handcuffed, searched and dragged into windowless back
| rooms
|
| But surely handcuffing someone for doing something that isn't
| illegal is itself illegal search and detention?
| paulpauper wrote:
| probably more than just counting . collusion , use of computers
| and other aids, etc.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Seems dangerous if you detain the wrong card counter.
| specialp wrote:
| That treatment, along with the tactics used in this story like
| Wonging at the table, last occurred/were effective long before
| the author was born. Typically casinos if they are nice put you
| on a "flat bet" which makes counting completely useless since
| profiting on it is predicated on varying your bet. Another
| thing would be not allowing the player to play blackjack
| anymore. Usually the harshest punishment is banning the player
| from the casino, having them cash their chips, and leave.
| Subsequently coming back would be trespassing then you'd be put
| in cuffs and brought in the back.
| chongli wrote:
| You can profit from counting cards with a flat bet. The MIT
| team did exactly this. The trick is to have counters at
| multiple tables, all betting a small but flat amount, and
| floaters that move from table to table while betting large,
| but also flat, amounts.
|
| The counters lose a small but steady amount of money over
| time while the floaters make large amounts of money by only
| playing at the tables with favourable counts.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Are there any decisions at all for the player in a "flat
| bet" game? Or is it simply a game of 100% chance then, with
| all skill/reading your opponent removed?
| chongli wrote:
| This is blackjack we're talking about, not poker. There's
| no "reading the opponent". The opponent is the dealer who
| hits on a sixteen or less and stays otherwise.
|
| For the people with a flat bet (on a card counting team)
| there's no decision making at all. They simply follow
| basic strategy which prescribes exactly what move to make
| in each situation.
| slm_HN wrote:
| In fact there is opponent reading (literally) in
| Blackjack. The opponent (dealer) must check his hand for
| blackjack, if the dealer's upcard is a 10 or an Ace,
| after having dealt the initial two cards to every player.
| "Hole peeking" is a technique where a teammate stands
| behind the dealer so they can see the hole card when the
| dealer checks for blackjack. They then signal this
| information to the player so he knows the value of the
| dealer's hand. Hole peeking used to be so common that
| casinos now have card readers built into the blackjack
| tables so that the dealers don't have to expose their
| hole card to check for blackjack.
|
| It is/was also possible for a player at the first seat of
| the table to see a sloppy dealer's hole card when
| checking for blackjack. This is called "first basing"
| while using a teammate is generally called spooking.
| chongli wrote:
| Yeah, I read the wikipedia article on first basing and
| spooking as well. That's not the same as reading people
| in poker.
| lonelappde wrote:
| That's card reading not opponent reading.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| There is no reading of opponents in black jack. The
| player making the flat bets is keeping a count in their
| head based on all the cards revealed during play. They
| signal the "big money" teammate when the count is high,
| to come place some big bets.
|
| So they are working hard keeping that count, but they are
| not directly playing as if they know anything. The
| roaming fake rich guy is.
| furyofantares wrote:
| Blackjack is played against the casino, not other
| players, and the casino plays robotically, under a simple
| fixed strategy that is known to the players. There isn't
| any reading of the opponent to begin with. The only
| reason the casino has an advantage, despite having a
| fixed, non-optimal strategy known to the players, is
| because it acts last, and the players may lose the hand
| before the casino takes its turn.
|
| There is a basic strategy to learn that is "optimal"
| about when to take each action, but it is easily
| memorized, and I wouldn't call it much of a skill
| element. Now, if you track cards, you _can_ claw back a
| little bit of the advantage by varying the strategy
| dependent on what cards remain, but going very deep on
| this is a lot of work for not a lot of payoff.
|
| You get a much bigger payoff by simply betting big when
| the deck is in a favorable shape, and continuing to
| follow roughly basic strategy.
|
| Fixed betting as described is exactly the same as varying
| your bets, in both cases you're playing roughly basic
| strategy with varied bets, it's just that in fixed
| betting your vary your bets by having the big better
| change tables rather than by having an individual change
| bet sizes, because this is harder to detect.
| T-hawk wrote:
| Casinos defeat this tactic now, after the MIT team became
| known. A player wanting to enter a table must wait until
| the next reshuffle, which of course foils any count in
| progress. (In practice, this isn't usually enforced unless
| the casino has some reason to suspect it's a counting
| attempt.)
| jwilber wrote:
| Yep. The only time you can join a table mid-game at most
| casinos is at tables you wouldn't want to join anyways:
| $5-15 minimum bets (important because the lower the
| minimum bet, the lower the spread you can bet before
| check play gets called), unfavorable rules (no surrender,
| no double after split, etc) and a large number of decks.
| ethbro wrote:
| That's essentially just a team way of varying your
| effective total bets at any given table.
| rco8786 wrote:
| Correct. But each individual is betting flat. Thus
| defeating that restriction.
| jwilber wrote:
| This is correct. I've been removed from three casinos for
| counting. First time: two men in suits came over, made me
| leave the table, walked me over to cash out and said I
| couldn't come back again. The other two times I was only
| banned from table games. These three were in San Diego. I do
| know people who have been roughed up at Indian casinos in
| rural states, though.
| andrewtbham wrote:
| I got thrown out for counting once, I was in Biloxi MS. The
| manager struck up a conversation with another player while
| he was watching me. The count was really high, I made a
| huge bet and he went ballistic. He was cursing and telling
| me to never come back and that he was sending my picture to
| all the other casinos. The other players were shocked,
| especially the guy he was talking to. I said this is how
| they treat people that know how to play. 2 securities
| guards followed me to cash out and to my car. one of them
| looked like jeff Foxworthy. I was planning to go back in a
| disguise but the next week Katrina came and completely
| destroyed the place.
| jwilber wrote:
| That interesting. I guess it's something you wouldn't
| know if you didn't spend much time playing blackjack, but
| for others reading: casinos are usually open about
| identifying people counting. For example, Barona casino,
| which had some of the most favorable tables for counting
| in the country for years, will call checkplay if you
| spread more than 8 times the minimum bet. A pit boss will
| walk over and literally obtain the count from the cards
| in the discard tray. This is more of an intimidation
| tactic, as you likely won't get banned right there if the
| count is high, but you will have your account marked
| (when that occurs, your watched every time you sit down
| at a table). Sometimes the dealer will even call check
| play based on your play, though this is rare and against
| the interest of the dealer (as they want tips).
|
| Having a marked account definitely makes for some
| interesting plays, as you'll have to work to deceive the
| pit boss that you're not counting (Eg randomly betting
| large spreads when you know the count is low).
| xnyan wrote:
| If you have the need (and I would say cynically if you also
| have the money and political connections) you can commission a
| private police force that has (in a limited way) the legal
| authority to arrest.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_police
| jandrese wrote:
| Even the police can't arrest you without probable cause.
| Until it is illegal to count cards any such arrests would be
| on shaky legal grounds.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| I am not from the US, so bear with me if I am
| misunderstanding the nuance of the situation. But reading
| US news, it seems that it is common for police to arrest
| people for (and only for) resisting arrest. Resisting
| arrest by definition must occur when attempting for arrest
| someone. But since the person was arrested for nothing but
| resisting arrest, the original arrest attempt which was
| resisted must have been for nothing. It appears that
| whatever the intent of the law might have been, in practice
| the police can arrest anyone without need for cause.
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2015/01/29/382497080...
| thechao wrote:
| Not really. If you're being arrested (the requirement in
| order to be resisting), you're already in deep trouble.
| OTOH, the flip side (resisting an unlawful arrest) is
| serious stuff for the arresting officer. In Texas,
| resisting arrest is no more than 1 year of jail & a fine.
| Unlawful arrest is going to start at 10 years of prison,
| and climb rapidly from there. There's currently a case of
| the latter working it's way through the courts in Dallas.
| The officer is looking at _decades_ right now.
| pfortuny wrote:
| IANAL and just asking. Assuming the Casino sits on private
| land, I guess they can handcuff you if they "think" you are
| a danger to their property and that measure is "adequate".
| kelnos wrote:
| They can kick you out and tell you if you return you'll
| be trespassing, but cuffing someone and detaining them in
| a back room without any legal authority to do so is
| kidnapping. And depending on how they physically treat
| you during that, it might be battery or even assault.
|
| I suspect, though, that many/most people in these
| situations either don't want a run-in with the law, or
| want to keep a low profile and not make a scene for other
| reasons, so they'll just go along with it and quietly get
| out of there.
| jandrese wrote:
| They can ask you to leave and then hit you with
| trespassing if you refuse to go, but they can't just slap
| you in cuffs and throw you in a concrete room in the back
| of the casino because you're counting cards. Any money
| they saved on your gambling would be lost in the
| kidnapping lawsuit afterward. And if they refuse to cash
| the chips you can add fraud and theft to the charges.
| dapids wrote:
| "Counting cards isn't illegal"
|
| it all depends how you are counting them, if you use a secondary
| device or person assisting, that is cheating, which is illegal,
| even though you are using it to count.
| burnte wrote:
| Counting cards is legal, because counting cards is a solo,
| mental thing. Yes, once you bring in devices or other people,
| it's not cheating.
| unnouinceput wrote:
| to article's author: -it was too short, I want more. Some
| epilogue or something. This only made me thirsty for more.
| pepy wrote:
| Looks like the article is an advertisement for a book, it seems
| it served its purpose
| umvi wrote:
| > But part of me worried that I wasn't seen as enough of a threat
| to warrant intervention from casino management. Maybe it meant
| that I wasn't as good at this as I thought. Maybe I didn't belong
| with the team after all.
|
| She felt like because she never got caught, she "wasn't good
| enough"? How does that make any sense? I get self confidence
| issues are often irrational but, c'mon...
|
| That's like a criminal lamenting that they weren't a very good
| criminal because the police could never catch them; everyone
| knows _real_ criminals get caught and arrested.
| learnstats2 wrote:
| There's a layer that you're missing, I think.
|
| If you cheat, and cheat badly, it's often the case that the
| casino has noticed and is choosing to let you continue.
|
| Almost everyone who sits at a high stakes blackjack table
| thinks they have a system for beating the casino (perhaps by
| breaking the rules), but in most cases their system doesn't
| work or they don't execute it well enough to make a consistent
| profit.
|
| If it's profitable for the casino to allow this type of
| cheating, they will absolutely let it continue.
|
| I once sat at a table with someone blatantly marking every card
| that passed through his hand, but not in a way that gave him a
| hope of profit. The dealer was clearly aware of him doing it,
| and play continued. (I was quick to leave that table)
| lisper wrote:
| > I once sat at a table with someone blatantly marking every
| card that passed through his hand,
|
| I find this hard to believe. I've been to a lot of casinos
| and I've never seen a blackjack table where the players were
| allowed to touch the cards.
| bdavis__ wrote:
| single deck allows it.
| lisper wrote:
| Heh, whaddya know. I didn't realize single-deck was so
| radically different. No shoe, cards dealt face-down. Is
| there a point to the face-down deal? Is there a change in
| the game rules that makes the secrecy of your hand
| relevant?
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| But this doesn't explain much, because in the case of
| counting cards for blackjack at a casino, there's a very
| simple and straightforward metric for whether you're doing it
| well. Are you making money or losing money?
| nathanlied wrote:
| Adding to this as someone who has mingled with people that
| worked at some casinos: if you're losing very badly and seem
| like a 'problem gambler', sometimes they'll send someone to
| try and dissuade you. It's bad PR if the casinos ruin people.
| On the other hand, if you're winning a lot, you will get A
| LOT of scrutiny and extra measures, and if you're cheating,
| you'll probably get caught.
|
| This is likely why she had that level of nagging doubt. "Am I
| not winning enough to warrant extra scrutiny? Certainly if I
| was that good they'd have figured out what I'm doing and
| busted me?"
| kelnos wrote:
| > _" Am I not winning enough to warrant extra scrutiny?"_
|
| I didn't really understand this bit from her, though. Her
| position in the team was not to win a lot, but to bet
| consistently, probably overall slowly bleed money, and
| signal the Big Player to come over when the count was
| favorable. "Not winning enough to warrant extra scrutiny"
| is literally her role in the team.
| bluntfang wrote:
| >if you're losing very badly and seem like a 'problem
| gambler', sometimes they'll send someone to try and
| dissuade you. It's bad PR if the casinos ruin people.
|
| That's a really good point. Casinos aren't a windfall
| business. They're there to rake the 1% advantage on
| blackjack. It's important to have people at the tables
| moving money, not to have 1 person lose their $100k nest
| egg in 12 hours.
| rlucas wrote:
| I disagree. Although I'm not in the business, my
| understanding from wide reading in the topic is quite the
| opposite.
|
| Casinos make money from "whales," who may or may not end
| up ruined to a man, but who are certainly losing enough
| money to ruin an average bettor.
|
| The guy losing $500 at BJ once in a while (and once in a
| blue moon winning some back) is the "economy coach class
| super saver" flyer. Yes, enough of those small fry help
| defray the fixed costs of the flight. But it's the last
| minute business class flyer that brings the margin.
|
| Similarly, the real money for the casino is in some mix
| of 1. problem gamblers, almost by definition, and 2.
| money laundering.
| CalChris wrote:
| _Nobody goes to jail unless they want to, unless they make
| themselves get caught._ Henry Hill, Goodfellas
| cubano wrote:
| Card counting was literally my gateway into professional
| programming.
|
| The first "real" program I ever wrote was a blackjack simulator,
| in MS-BASIC, around 30 years ago. My brother and I were getting
| ready to go with my Dad to Vegas for the first time, and we were
| keen on not being typical dumb ass gamblers...we wanted an edge.
|
| We quickly learned that the only beatable game in town was card-
| counting at Blackjack, so I got busy first verifying that card
| counting wasn't some casino ploy (it wasn't), and then modifying
| the same simulator code to actually "teach" the systems it was
| simulating.
|
| I wish I still had this code... I absolutely loved developing it,
| and eventually it was a very powerful blackjack system. It had
| configurable _everything_..system counts, decks, rules, players
| at the table, etc. I literally spent 7 years plus working on it.
| Eventually it was ported to Turbo Pascal for speed.
|
| I became a whiz at counting... I eventually settled on "Wong
| Halves", the most complex but supposedly the most accurate count
| system there was. Remember, this was in the late 80s early 90s,
| and back then casinos were wide open to be taken.
|
| I was only a $5 to $25 player though, so I never got any real
| heat. I used a 1 to 5 bet ratios (1 unit at low counts and 5 as
| "big bets"), which was very conservative, and looking back, I had
| a good deal of small-time success. Unlike my brother, I was never
| banned... I was far better than he at "blending in" and being
| personable.
|
| Nowadays, I live in Vegas, and they have _completely_ destroyed
| the chances of winning any real money at the casinos. Hell, I
| remember my simulations showing me that the primary money
| advantage was made when you had a large bet out at a high count
| (favorable to the player), that the fact that blackjacks came at
| a higher rate WAS THE ONLY REAL MONEY MAKING ADVANTAGE THERE WAS.
|
| This is why, I feel, that the high end strip casinos NO LONGER
| PAY 3-2 for natural blackjacks...an outrage if ever there is one!
| Strip casinos now pay 6-5 for a blackjack. I have had heated
| arguments with pit personnel that the game should no longer be
| called Blackjack, so "Blackjack" pay 3-2 for naturals.
|
| Unsurprisingly, they never saw it my way. No matter how well you
| count, you will NEVER win long term with natural blackjacks
| paying only 6-5, so save your money and your time and just goto
| Vegas for a good time.
| nemo44x wrote:
| I haven't been to Vegas in a few years but I could still find a
| few 3-2 tables, generally in the back at some places. Also
| higher minimum tables tended to have better rules.
|
| The tables that were sure to fill up with low stakes,
| uninformed players, tended to have really bad rules. I've seen
| 6-5 blackjacks, no splitting aces, and even no doubling after
| splitting.
|
| Like why not just give the casino the money?
|
| I like playing blackjack because you can sit there for quite
| awhile and generally not lose too much (that's a relative term
| of course) while socializing and getting free drinks. I'll run
| a count after a few shoes here and there but not every shoe as
| I'm not trying to do this for profit so much as entertainment.
| supernova87a wrote:
| It's always fun to read these kinds of stories.
|
| But still in the end, if you distill it all down, doesn't it
| always come out to the conclusion:
|
| If your potential winnings are capped (fair or not, by the
| casino), and your losses are unlimited, what is gambling but a
| slower way to lose a bunch of money while getting a little
| entertainment out of it? At least for those of us who are not
| going to become professional card counters...
| kelnos wrote:
| > _what is gambling but a slower way to lose a bunch of money
| while getting a little entertainment out of it?_
|
| That's generally how I look at it when I'm in Vegas. I'll take
| $100 from the ATM and sit down at a poker table. Occasionally I
| get unlucky and play really poorly and I'm out in an hour, but
| usually I get at least a few hours, and on the flip side, I've
| spent an entire night at a table on that $100, and it's a
| blast. Of course this also depends on the other people at the
| table, and the dealers that come through. Some tables just
| aren't that fun to be at (you're of course playing _against_
| the other people at the table, and some people take it very
| seriously), while others are great.
|
| Craps can be a huge amount of fun, especially when people are
| lucky, because you develop a kind of silly temporary
| camaraderie with random strangers at the table. Blackjack can
| be the same way, too (though I never learned how to properly
| play, so I usually don't last long).
|
| Consider that if you go to see a movie (often $15-25 just for
| the ticket these days), and you're the kind of person to get
| concessions and whatnot, you can easily spend $50 or more for
| 1.5-2 hours of entertainment. I'm cool paying $100 for
| sometimes 6-8 hours of fun, plus free drinks. Now, for people
| who don't find that kind of thing fun, then sure, that's not
| for them. And for people who have a gambling addiction, that's
| great way to spend money they don't have. But if you enjoy it,
| and are good about setting yourself monetary limits, and
| consider your buy-in to be a cost of entertainment, it's fine.
| mtm7 wrote:
| I like her writing style. Each sentence flows into the next.
|
| Although I'm not quite sure what the last sentence means. She
| gets caught... and then what?
| jSully24 wrote:
| I believe she's found her missing self confidence to go on in
| life.
|
| (edit - typo)
| tonyarkles wrote:
| Lol definitely left it hanging at the end there!
| mbrubeck wrote:
| This looks like an excerpt from the in-progress book
| mentioned on the author's web site: http://rozannatravis.com/
| [deleted]
| woobar wrote:
| Amazon Prime has the "Inside the Edge" documentary about
| Blackjack Advantage Player. A lot of insights about how hard it
| is and how much money they can make now. Basically it looks like
| this only makes sense against smaller casinos who are behind on
| countermeasures.
|
| [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3575954/
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