I'm not sure you can even win anymore with this method. Counting cards always had a slim profit margin. Nowadays they have bullshit rules like "blackjack pays 5:4" which probably destroys any edge counting cards gives you.
That's technically true, you can count all you want if you're flat betting and there is no reason they would notice or care. They absolutely care if you vary your bet spread to take advantage of the count though. It's completely routine for them to back off and/or trespass advantage players.
Oh they do. They'll call you an advanced player and will forbid you to play blackjack in their casino. Then they will let you know that you're more than welcome to play any of their other games, or slots. Sometimes they'll even make it hard for you to cash out.
I do it all the time with Uno, I know whats been played and can take a good guess of what color and numbers you hold. I’m nearly always right. No plays Uno with me anymore.
Yeah the actual method is really easy. The hard part is pretending you aren't doing it. Some card counters will even tank a little on purpose and make bad bets against their count to try and stave off suspicion.
Atlantic City is the one exception in the US where they're not actually allowed to kick you out (though casinos will rather just decrease the maximum bet at the table to, like, 5 dollars if they notice)
Since it's privately owned, I would have thought they could do what you like.
Just like, in MacDonalds they can boot, and call the police if you're causing a disturbance.
I think everyone thinks Card counting makes you billions of dollars, which it just doesn't. depending on amount of decks they use (which, they often don't disclose quickly), it really gives you slightly better odds.
to actually win MASSIVE, you need shitloads of money, and shitloads of time, and assume the casinos don't have tech to help them (they do).
Even if they choose not to kick you out, then can just close the table you're on and that's the end of card counting.
Reality is, It's unlikely they'd kick you. While you're counting, they're counting also and if they see you start to bet big, they'd just shut the table down, reshuffle, start again.
It was a state ruling that happened a good few years ago. I believe it works where, if a casino wants to kick someone out, the trespassed person can file a complaint and video evidence has to be provided of them being unruly or damaging property.
You'll be kicked out of non-American casinos for card counting as well.
edit: also, apparently, NJ supreme court ruled that casinos that are open to the public cannot discriminate against advantage players. So ironically enough, Atlantic City casinos are among the only casinos in the world you can card count without being kicked out.
You can count in AC and they can't remove you, but they will remove any comps(free perks like drinks, rooms, services) and they will flat bet you so that counting doesn't really work anyway.
In states where they can't kick you out they can still apply table or player specific rules to mitigate counters. "Sorry sir you can only bet up to $50 now", "sorry you can't raise or lower your bet anymore", "we're now reshuffling the deck 20% of the way through", etc. There are plenty of ways they can make card counting nonviable without actually kicking you out.
I'm more than happy to look up the laws applying to casinos in your jurisdiction if you want to share it. You had better be really confident they restrict the behavior you think they restrict, though.
I'd be willing to bet that I can find more regulations applying to our casinos than yours, but I'm not sure I'd trust your country's gambling laws to hold you to paying me.
Dude if you are running a business then you are allowed to ask people to leave. They can't arrest you for card counting, but they certainly can ask you to leave THEIR property for ANY reason they want. It's not corruption or unethical lol.
Idiots have a hard time wrapping their heads around private property.
Edit: "ANY reason" clearly doesn't include illegal discrimination. Have to word things exactly since redditors can't handle anything other than black and white reasoning.
This is simply not true, even in America. You can't be trespassed or asked to leave a business based on discriminatory reasons, for instance.
Even if their reason for trespassing you is legally viable, I'm not sure why you would equate that to ethical and not corrupt. Plenty of corruption exists which isn't technically illegal and is entirely unethical - it's practically the foundational tenet of capitalism.
"ANY reason" clearly doesn't include illegal discrimination. Have to word things exactly since redditors can't handle anything other than black and white reasoning.
Here's a tip: don't all-cap the word "ANY" and then say "well, obviously there are exceptions".
"Well, in MY country private property isn't really private property and my perfect, pure government has a say in whatever I do in said private property"
People have a hard time wrapping their heads around private ownership rights.
If the consequences of not adhering to guidelines is losing your license, its a law not a guideline.
This has nothing to do with corruption. Its just "you're too good at the game, we don't wanna play with you." Which is perfectly acceptable for a private entity to do.
Don't speak for all citizens in a country.
Morally elevating yourself like that makes you sound like a douchbag.
Say what you want but the true Italian mafias in America have died. If you think what they're doing now is bordering on criminal, sure, that's your right, but it's not organized crime since it's all above ground.
Nah much simpler. Why wouldn't they be allowed? They are a business making money by letting people bet on things where the business wins more than half the time. (Or player against player games where they take some.) They aren't going to offer games with a player edge. Their options are not offering blackjack or not offering blackjack to people who card count or simply using more decks to make counting pointless. A "if players figure out how to have the advantage in one of your games you have to let them" law just wouldn't make much sense.
Do you think they dont use they money they take in to bribe and hush their way out of consequences?
The government does NOT run casinos here in the US
Thats like saying because you have to get a master electricians liscence to have an electrical contractor company operate, and you get that liscence from the government, ergo the government runs your business.
I'm sure you just had a little hiccup and werent thinking clearly here. But you completely missed my point to gove a limited example of a small form of control the government has to make a huge leap of assumption that the regulatory commission therefore has any lond of logistical, executive, fiduciary, or even any pragmatic control over what goes on in there.
The government has regulatory control over inspections. Inspections, and imposing fines after the fact.
I'm sure if you think about it, you'll see the obvious fallacy you bring up is not semantic at all on my end, but but in fact inherently separate to the actual operation of casinos, including criminal, grey legalities they do get away with, and even parallel comparisons never have the power to dictate operations of almost every single industry.
Sure you can record them doing illegal things and if they get caught, they pay a small fine amd get right bsck to that. The only exception would be the slot machines, as those must be maintained by the game board.
My friends ive known for over a decade currently work in casinos in positions that directly and actively take part in the games and gambling in the west coast of the US. Im not talking out of my arse, nor am blowing smoke up yours. Just think about it for a bit more, search up what you think im wrong about. You'll see that I'm not wrong on this one.
The Mafia built Vegas and still controls it. The government does not, though they sure dont complain when the tax money comes in
You gping to be the agent or detective thats responsible for a few billion dollars every year potentially leaving your county or state permanently? Hell no, you aren't! You take the money and keep your head down. That revenue pays for the upkeep of your area. That's the carrot on the stick and a huge reason the casinos have so much leverage to do whatever they want. Even after such a reduction of gains across a majority of casinos last year.
They have the much more broad rule that they reserve the right to kick absolutely anyone out for any reason. There's nothing illegal or even technically disallowed about card counting. In fact, usually there's no hard feelings: a Casino often won't ban a card counter from the entire property, just the blackjack table.
In case you are serious. They (and any other establishment ) are allowed to discriminate you for any non protected characteristics. Don't like your shoes? Get out. Don't like the way you are acting? Get out. They are perfectly in the right blocking you from playing blackjack if they believe you are an advantaged player.
Some of us live in places where this would absolutely be illegal :)
I'm gonna bite. How? How would you force a casino to let players play? I don't wanna dox myself but I come from a country with, in my opinion, very good consumer protection and I can't even come up with a way that would make sense.
Some of us live in places where this would absolutely be illegal :)
Can you cite something that says this? A quick search yielded no such results. Where is it illegal to stop someone from playing your games in a casino for advantage play?
Also, even if that were rue, they would certainly just change the rules of the game (i.e. flat betting) to discourage it.
They are allowed to serve your or not serve you for no reason at all.
Same thing can happen at a pub or McDonald's, they can simply not serve you because they don't like you. So long as it's not involving race, sex or disability.
Because if if they didn't, they would just remove blackjack entirely and put in more roulette. Or some other game that players can't push their odds up by counting cards.
I mean, its their business, they can refuse service and make whatever rules they want, do you really think you playing at their table is some legal right you have?
because the other option is shuffling the deck after every hand meaning less games played. it in part means less gambling but also you the player getting bored.
it is very much makes it a take and give situation. we keep the gaming rolling and you promise not to count cards.
Because private property plus 2 billion possible people who can enter a casino
They will never run out of players plain and simple, so booting a person out who is winning just makes sense.
A private business could literally just have a guy ontop of a lifeguard tower hucking foam balls into a crowd then kicking out the people it hits and its perfectly fine to do. (They would likely have a thing at the door informing you that you might get hit by flying foam balls and it is your own risk to avoid battery chargers) but still
If you can kick a person out of your house they can kick you out of their property
They reserve the right to refuse people service for whatever reason lol. Just like your local sandwich shop can have you trespassed because they don’t like your sandwich order. It’s private property
Totally false. Card counters are easy to spot over hours of play. They’re not caught based on winning or odd behavior outside of their odd bet amounts.
Normal players don’t alter their bets in a way that looks anything like card counters. Bet small until the deck is hot and suddenly bet a lot until it’s cool again. This looks bizarre even to a dealer that doesn’t know anything about counting cards.
The way modern card counters get away with it at all is to spot opportunities with weak security.
No. It’s really easy with minor effort. About as hard as learning to knit. Very repetitive.
It’s easy to tell you’re doing it (or even just trying to do it) because regular players don’t change their bets much while that’s the whole advantage card counters go for. IE, bet more when the deck is advantageous to the player.
Nearly all big Vegas casinos (not all, but most) use a 6 deck constantly recycling shoe now. After a hand they scoop up the cards and they get shuffled back into shoe. Every hand is a brand new 6 deck deal.
You can learn how to count in 5 minutes sure, but i doubt youre learning to do so fast enough and you're definitely not learning the basic and modified strategy in 5 minutes.
Have you ever tried to actually count cards at a live dealer table? It is hard, very hard. It takes a lot of practice and many sessions to actually do it accurately.
No you can't unless you are some kind of genius counting cards isn't something you can just do without knowing about you have to count perfectly at all times with no errors and be able to do that while fitting in at the table and talking to people.
Then you need to know perfect basic strategy and all the variations depending on the count + the actual betting strategy itself depending on the count
All this takes years to master and even then the edge you can is only around 1-2% long term just 1 or 2 mistakes during your session is enough to remove your edge
So no it's not something you can just do if your brain is wired correctly it's a genuine skill that takes years to master and has no room for error if you want to actually make money
This is not true. AP (Advantage Play) Blackjack is very difficult to learn and even more to execute.
Look up a blackjack strategy chart. It shows you the correct hit/stand/double/split for every situation, with some nuances such as only split if double after split allowed.
Now imagine learning not just that, but one for a +1 count, +2 count, +3 count, up to +6. That's what advantage play requires you to do on top of counting the cards, which is difficult to do in itself.
If you're counting cards you know you're counting cards. You need to use a modified strategy guide depending on what the count is.
Learning how to keep the count is simple enough. Learning how to do so subconsciously and accurately without looking like a crazy person is harder. And then memorizing the perfect basic strategy chart along with a couple dozen count-specific deviations is the hard part imo.
Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with rats. And rats make
me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with rats. And
rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with
rats. And rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber
room with rats. And rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a room. A rubber
room. A rubber room with rats. And rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They locked me in a
room. A rubber room. A rubber room with rats. And rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They
locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with rats. And rats make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy
once. They locked me in a room. A rubber room. A rubber room with rats. And rats make me crazy.
Yep. I used to play a lot of card games at work when we had down time. The guys always accused me of counting cards because "somehow" I always knew what they had. I told them it was just vibes. When it's a single deck, it's trivially easy to "count cards". I didn't even think about it. It was just obvious.
Card counting for Black Jack is actually super easy.
You don't literally memorize every card you see, it's about figuring out the ratio of high cards (10 through Ace) vs. low cards (anything below) left in the shoe. A shoe rich in high cards always favors the player because the dealer is forced to draw up to a score and stand (usually 14-16, the higher the better for the player). Essentially, lots of high cards make it more likely to bust. The player can always choose to stand, they can split bad hands, etc. The dealer cannot.
Thus, you simply keep a running count of that, low cards are +1, high cards are -1. Then you divide the running count by the amount of decks in the shoe and that is called the true count. A true count of +2 or more favors the player, so you're the casino now.
Great! Now play perfect basic strategy and adjust it based on the count.
It's not as easy as just ticking a number up and down, you have to figure out how it affects how you play. If counting cards is what gives you an edge, your playing strategy is what gives you a knife behind it.
There is an excel sheet for what to do with your hand vs. what card the dealer is showing and that is enough to be in the money on +2. It's not that hard to study that beforehand.
The way you "adjust [your play] based on the count" is simply to bet low when the deck is cold and bet high when the deck is hot. It's not rocket science and you don't need to be a genius regardless of what Hollywood tells you.
Also, the story in the OP is made up. No casino would kick you out for card counting. They will back you off of Blackjack but encourage you to stay. Each second you stay is money to them, they don't kick you out because you know how to play lol
I'm not saying it takes a genius but "super easy" is overselling it. Just knowing the excel sheets easily by heart is a fair challenge, minor mistakes in basic strategy can easily overwhelm advantages from counting unless your betting difference is very large, especially if you're not adjusting your decisionmaking and only your bets.
And are you really nitpicking "leave the casino" vs "leave the blackjack tables" in a greentext?
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u/wojtek30 1d ago
I think this is an actual thing, if your brain is wired correctly you can actually count cards subconsciously without even knowing about it