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MIT vs. Las Vegas
spellcheckur writes "Techno-mag-turned-fashion-rag Wired Magazine has an article about
MIT kids counting cards in Las Vegas. I wish I could have made seven figures while I was still in college. Maybe I should get a how-to book." Also, any chance is a good chance to mention The Eudaemonic Pie.
My sister went to MIT years ago, and a lot of her friends did this,
for (;;) {
printf("and their friends did it...\n");
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** Curb Your Enthusiam **
Techno-mag-turned-fashion-rag?
Whatever happened to newsources being unbiased?
The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches. -- ee cummings
There is a book that Mensa did on the odds of every game played out in vegas. Oddly enough blackjack turns out to be the largest of the odds maker.
So MIT has students that can count all the way to 52 now?
Man, that's progress!
Those MIT kids just a bunch of Rain Men...
Man... i swear we have nothing better to do... University people have been counting cards in casinos for years... I don't think this is anything totally profound... I know for a fact its been done for at least 40 years by geeks... Read Geeks 2.0: A History of the Internet for a good story about some people almost getting busted while trying to see if the doppler effect could be used to predict the landing of a roulette ball in play...
Insert Sig Here
We'll see...
This guy makes this card-counting ring sound like an action movie (something like Rounders, sorta). I think that Vegas in general is a place full of crooks, Casinos and players alike.
This was almost as bad as a Travel channel special on Vegas. It's an advertisement to the public trying to tempt them to go there.
If we tell them that THEY too can afford to lose money, they will come!
The article states the current key issues in a passing sentence- that the chances of being able to do this are basically nil now. Not that they are watching, but that casinos use a 6 deck shoe that is shuffled 2/3 of the way through (before the real advantage begins). Having frequented Atlantic City, the process of counting cards in the privacy of home is one thing, doing it with bells, flashing lights, scantily clad cocktail waitresses, and the most important distraction, the other players, is quite another. The article was a fun read. Made me envious.
Interesting to me that the kids who have the cash (or are given the cash) to go to MIT feel the need to try and rip off the casinos...
There have been plenty of documents written on how to beat the house, especially in blackjack. The only problem is that as long as you make small bets and win, you're fine, because people see chips gathering on your side of the table. The casino's like that. As soon as you try to wager a significant amount of money and win, you'll likely get banned.
Blackjack has long been known to have the closest to even odds. If you play smart, and can count into a 7 deck shoe, you can do really well, as long as you get lucky before the casino realizes what you're up to. It's a private business, and they won't hesitate to kick you out when you start to win consistently. Sadly, I am not one of those people.
I don't know about you Timothy, but I wouldn't mind making seven figures now.
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Maybe the reason they need to rip off the casinos is because they've spent all their money on tuition.
Sorry, but counting cards is not illegal, its not cheating. Its just a highly developed way to play blackjack. Now the casino's have the right not to let you play for what ever reason they decide, but they can't arrest you for counting cards, they can only kick you out and ask you not to come back. Considering its one of the only ways the house can be beaten legitimately, I say more power to anyone that does this.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
To quote an old freind of mine : "Whats the point in counting cards, you know there are always going to be 52."
The article was a great read. It reminds me of a story about some 'techies' that built the shoe computer that helped them predict where a Roulette marble would drop. Apparently they would use the computer to calibrate the wheel's spin and the marble against each other and then try to calculate the region of the wheel the ball would land. I figure that if you can at least know which half of the wheel you're going to land the marble in, you've already got a hedge on the house. If anyone has any links to that story please post.
:)
Someone should make a "Ocean's Eleven" style movie about this type of stuff.
Personally, I stick to Craps. The odds are nearly even if you stick to the Pass line. Most people I've seen playing the game love to play all the sucker bets instead. At least I usualy walk out with my original money in my pocket and a few free beers in my tummy.
Dealers have to follow the house rules no matter what they think the next card may be.
If they have a hand below 17, they have to hit, no matter what If the table's rule is hit on soft 17, they have to hit no matter what. Doesn't matter if they know you've got a blackjack, or they're positive the next card is going to bust them.
You're right, though, card counting is perfectly legal. Most casinos don't have a problem with it until you start to win a lot. At that point, they can't have to arrested, but they have no obligation to allow you to keep playing.
(Also, the house advantage isn't anywhere near 90%, its a couple percent at best, depending on the rules you end up playing with)
your boxers are on the highway
Blaze a trail to the New World
"Can you win?" by Mike Orkin (Freeman Press- Scientific American) 'splains the odds of casino and sports betting games. Great writer, it's a book on statistics that is often hilarious.
Teaches you how to have hours of fun on the craps and blackjack tables without losing more the $20.
This issue of Wired, by the way, is just great. Expounds on water politics in western Asia and other stuff not discussed anywhere else. Well worth the yearly subscription of $10 to $12.
It's funny how nobody noticed who wrote the story.
Ben Motherfucking Mezrich. One of the best young fiction writers out there. According to the footnote it says he turned to writing non-fiction and his new book on this^ particular subject.
If you're unfamiliar with his works, I encourage anybody to check out Fertile Ground, Treshold and Reaper which rips on Microsoft-like organization and their set-top devices in a really good techno-suspense novel.
Apparently he's back. And it's good news.
...but the real money is in the nickel slots. I just need to win 500,000 more nickels and I'll have my MIT tuition covered.
Let me design your website. www.navalswebdesigns.webhop.biz
"The guard doesn't seem to be bothered by the bulges under my clothes. He waves me through the metal detector, and I stumble toward my gate."
Thank god he didn't try to hide the money in his shoes!
Live web cams
Just be careful they don't catch you trying to count the cards.
You might find yourself without the use of your kneecaps...
"It takes a small amount of skill to know the right plays and count the cards..."
I live in Vegas, and I actually know a guy that can do this, and can really clean up at a Blackjack table. It's not about actually remembering every card's place in the deck and trying to predict when the card will come up, it's about trying to predict when face cards will come up. Their's actually a rhythm/pattern to it while you're watching the cards come out, so a REAL easy way to spot someone doing this is to look for someone that's trying to use a make-shift metrinome, like someone rolling a chip in their hands or tapping the table in a specific, contantly-repeating pattern. Pit Bosses can spot this shit through a hurricane, so unless you can count in your head, you're fucked(it seems simple, but it's hot, noisy, and if you're cheating, you're probably pretty nervous).
It's important to note that it's not like Rainman where you're going to be able to say a 10 of hearts is coming up next, or anything specific like that. You just want to be able to predict with good odds that a face card is going to be up soon. A lot of tables, however, use multiple decks, so it gets pretty hard. Extremely high-roller tables have even been known to use a new deck for every hand. Most tables, though, just have a big plastic holder with 6 shuffled decks inside.
It's really not that hard, and my friend can make about $5,000 a weekend on average, but remember, you may have to sit at a table for 8 hours a day for 2 days to make this kind of money, but hell, that's a work schedule, and a $1,000 a day isn't bad. Just remember, the trick to not getting caught is don't be a stupid fuck. Don't come in a 10am, play the $5 dollar tables, and 2 hours later be raking in at the $1,000 tables, or they'll nail your ass. If they even SUSPECT your cheating, they'll take the money, kick you out, and you can't do shit about it(what are you gonna do, sue them for the money you came there with?). And this is a at nice casino. God help you if you cheat at a shady casino.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
I've met several people who have a very strong technology background and are card counters too (one of them happened to hail from MIT) - this was a few years ago, and some of them went on to create their own .com's, which ended up booming, then folding but ultimately paying out a princely sum to these individuals.
:)
What are they doing now? Hopping around the continent to the few casinos that haven't banned them yet and making the big bucks, though as they tell me the pickings are getting slimmer as it's just a matter of time until they get the boot and they're running out of casinos to pillage. Either way, they've got plenty of money, so it's not a major concern, but it seems as if the appeal of a casino-hopping lifestyle ended up catering to their likes more than technology. Sure, they have all the latest do-dads and high tech gadgets to play with as a result of their financial adventures, but their pursuit of technology seemed to ultimately take a back seat to lounge singers and blinking lights
At least in my experience none of these people made a direct correlation between their technology and card counting pursuits. Most were interested in card counting before ever hitting an "enter" key, but they are brilliant coders nonetheless.. Perhaps card counting begets good programmers, not the other way around?
The house does NOT have a 90% advantage. If they did, no one would play. The house has a very small advantage, but it's more than enough. A 1% advantage at a table where a million dollars moves through the betting circles is a $10k profit, every night! And this small percentage is the STATISTICAL advantage the house has if the players all play perfectly, and they DON'T, they take chances, especially when they are loosing, so it definatly adds up to a big profit for the casino.
Smart people should realize this and will understand that gambling against a casino is a form of entertainment, not something you should ever expect to profit at.
Now, playing cards with your buddies, then your putting your wits up against someone you know... that's REAL entertainment!
M@
Krispy Cream is people
Dealers don't count cards. Why would they? The odds on in the casinos favor already. I know someone who is a blackjack dealer and he couldn't care less if you win or lose, he just deals the damn cards.
But you are correct casinos are just being dicks. Why would it be illegal to count cards? It's your to win and it's their job to make you lose.
LoRider
You could probably do this, but of course, the trick to get rich quick schemes is to not get too greedy.
you could either get banned really quickly, get some seed money for what ever project, or cycle your 'leet card skilz so that you only skim your profits every once in a while. so that you come in under the radar.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Haven't these geeks seen Casino? Personally I would prefer to have my limbs intact. As for this article, all it will do is get people who have know idea what they are doing into counting cards, they will lose money etc etc etc. Gambling is fun, Vegas is fun, but you aren't going to make money off it, no matter how many cards you count, and if for whatever reason you make a lot of money, the casino or whatever power that rules will make sure you don't keep it long.
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
I noticed that nothing that they are doing on the blackjack side is new. It has been possible to make money counting cards at blackjack forever, except that the casinos will blacklist you and then you're screwed. OTOH what they are doing is social engineering - they make it look like they aren't counting cards so they can continue. And they are slightly better at counting cards than the average guy. When they are doing this with millions of dollars, of course their return is good and consistant. BUT - if their scheme was so great then why don't they have more money??? The main subject of the article only had 1 to 5 million bucks, which isn't that much considering. If it was a truly groundbreaking idea, he would have a lot more than that. I know i sound like the regular slashdot "nothing to see here" post and i'm sorry but i think the article sensationalizes something that isn't very special, even if it is an interesting read.
Free as in *BUUURP!*
my grandfather, a well-known math textbook author counted cards. He tried it quite a bit as an experiment, and used some stuff in his books. Shame he never told me wether he won anything
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Learn to spell "definitely" properly - your arguments will sound much more convincing when you don't write like a half-wit.
I think it's a fun game, playing these kinda tricks against casinos, actually out-smarting them. That it's totally legal is even better. That the casinos don't like it is another bonus.
Reminds me of hearing people talk about slot machines, and how they see people watching them to see which ones are paying off, and all the LOL's (little old ladies) sitting in front of them pumping their social security in. The thought that one machine would start "paying off," is kinda funny. Do you think the casinos don't know about this? They WANT you to think you are seeing a pattern and they WANT you to try to use it, becuase in the end you are going to loose some money, and they will get it. The slot machines are all computer controlled, and it's not just "pay out %99 of what you get in," it's probably programmed to appear to have a pattern, anything to get you to keep playing.
Gambling against casinos is entertainment, possible some exersize for the LOL's as well, but in the end money moves from the customer to the casino. If you're having fun in the process than it's worth it. Realize that when you walk in... don't become a Marge Simpson.
M@
Krispy Cream is people
Uh, not in Boston. You'll be lucky to get a converted basement in Roxbury with only 200 grand.
And I really doubt if you can get all of that through airport security; they've tightened up quite a bit at Logan... Then again, the article doesn't mention the risk of being "randomly" picked at the gate, either.. But then again, this story seems to have happened more than a year ago...
Furthermore, casinos have a number of tactics to foil card-counting, such as cutting the deck, starting a new deck, or mixing in several decks.
If the second paragraph is true, then how can the dealer count cards, as you claim? I'm genuinely curious.
example.org - powered by Linux!
some years ago I saw a Discovery channel-type show on casino security. aside from all the cameras watching for card swappers and slot tamperers and such, a casino in atlantic city once hired a consultant to check their machines.
The casino had a game similar to the lottery where you had to guess a set of numbers, 8 in this case. A friend wearing a wire watched two rounds, relaying the 16 numbers in order to the truck with the consultant in it. That was all it took to crack the PRNG. Through the friend, they then played the game using the next 8 numbers, and hit it on each one. Naturally, the casino was curious given that such an event had never happened before. The best anyone until then had done was like 3. They got caught by their own demise -- they asked that cash be delivered to their hotel room, which allowed the casino to see who actually won. Had they cashed out the winnings on the spot, they probably would have gotten away with it.
Nowadays, however, if you have a large enough winning, you can ask the casino to write out a check and mail it to you. I live near Atlantic City, and every now and then you hear of someone being followed home and getting mugged (once someone was killed) in their driveway. Granted, it's rare for that to happen, about once every 5-10 years or so, but the risk is enough that I think people would rather not carry a large sum home.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
I remember reading that John Carmack was barred from playing backjack in some Vegas Casino a few years ago.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
all of the Vegas casinos track who you are and how often you are there and when you win and such (well, all of the big ones).
they have shared access to a huge database of people that go through there. images, room data, game data, etc etc.
atlantic city was behind in getting to this - but they do it now.
the only casino that doesn't track you, as of within the past year or so at least, is Foxwoods (I think in CT).
as long as you aren't coming in everyday and winning tons, they are pretty laid back about it.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
After reading the story and closing the window, the exit pop-up invites me to take a bet at some online casino...
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
Greedy fucks at Casino's. They rig the game against you so that you basically can't win (i.e., house has 90% advantage).
If you were to go to The Wizard of Odds You'll notice that the house edge in most games is not 90%. It's more like 2-3%. They know that people are not stupid, and while some games are horribly rigged (Slot machines for example) most of them will give out 97% of what they take in...that 3% they keep is what lets you get a luxury room for $20 / night.
Then, when a few smart people (maybe one out of 1000) come along who can count cards and actually break even or better, they bitch and whine.
Execpt that one person can literally bring down the whole casino if they have an edge. Pretend that you can win 52% of the time. It takes one minute to play one round of blackjack. If you're making $100 dollar bets, you'd be making $240 / hour off of the casino. And to think that they don't let you get away with it.
Its just a technique -- a legal one, as opposed to casino's illegal techniques of winning. Look in Hoyle's rule-books on cards. They won't mention anything about it being illegal to count cards. However, their rules for blackjack don't set it up so that the dealer has a 90% advantage.
I won't debate that card counting is legal, as long as you don't use a computer or calculator. And you're right, they don't set it up so that the dealer has a 90% advantage. The advantage is that the dealer wins should both the dealer and the player bust. There are other little differences as well, but it's not overwhelming.
By the way, does anyone here really think that the dealers don't count the cards? Bullshit. You know damn well they do.
Dealers play by a set of rules. Hit on 16 or lower. Stand on 17 or higher. That's it. Not much card counting.
Furthermore, casinos have a number of tactics to foil card-counting, such as cutting the deck, starting a new deck, or mixing in several decks.
You mean they try to randomize a game of chance? They MUST be cheating
Everyone knows there is a house advantage in the casinos. When you enter a casino, you're on private property, and thus have to play by their rules. If you don't like those rules, you can go to another casino whose rules you like. But good luck finding a casino that will let you cheat.
One of the guys I used to work for was a statistics professor at Farleigh Dickenson University a while back. He has been banned from most (if not all) the casinos in Atlantic City. He goes out to Reno and Las Vegas every once in a while for a business trip and plays. When I told him where I was going for my honeymoon (St. Lucia), he asked me to find out if they had casinos.
The trick with most predictive statistics based winning is that there is also significant losing involved. He told me not to bother unless I have several thousand dollars to lose.
Ummm, Jon, aren't you supposed to be dead...? - Otter(3800)
During my last trip to London one of the gentlemen I was there with had arrived a few days earlier and joined a casino. One evening we decided to go play. In about four hours of basic strategy play I was up nearly £300 on £10 and £15 bets. My buddy who wasn't playing any strategy was up £600 at one point but lost it all playing £100 bets. I left with my profits but when we returned the next night we were told we were no longer welcome there.
Now I wasn't card counting, I don't know if I was doing something that looked like I was, but I am sure they didn't like me taking £300 from them then wanting to come back for more.
actually he is right. the way casinos have it rigged now, the game is largely in their favor.
by counting, you can push it over to being slightly in your favor.
but then the dealers also count, and they double deal (I forget the term, but I think that is it - it is when they get to a card in the deck that they like - an Ace most likely - then they hold it on top and then pull out cards from underneath it to deal out until they get to someone that they want to deal the good card to - either themselves or another player that is either casino affiliated or paying them off - if it is the latter, then they are likely to get hurt).
also they will reshuffle frequently if they see you are counting (even with many decks).
if the casino was playing by the rules, then the game would have strict statistical routines - but they cheat - it will be in their favor over time.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Dealers are trained to count cards so they can monitor if players are counting cards. When the count is favorable, they can spot opportunistic bettors, and employ counter-measures if need be.
As fascinating as the saga of beating the roulette wheels was, the factoid I got from that book that has stayed with me to this day was how to cook rice without measuring. No matter how much rice you are making or what size pot you are cooking it in, add enough water to reach the first knuckle on your finger when your fingertip is touching the top of the rice. NEVER FAILS.
MIT students are certainly not the first to take a scientific approach to card counting. Back around 1979 I read a mathematics book in the engineering library at Tektronix that explained card counting in great detail. It also predicted fractals would be a big thing.
that card-counting isn't cheating. But rather, a legitimate strategy to a probabilistic game.
Unfortunately, casinos don't like losing money. Their sole business is the fact that people come in and give them money for no real reason whatsoever. As soon as someone comes in and discovers that by following their rules they can win that money back, then they are removed from the premises.
It really does not matter if you are winning at one table or another. If they begin to think that you will take their money instead of give it to them, you will be removed. Simple as that. Card Counting is not cheating, just as keeping a poker face during a poker game bluff is not cheating. It's just good strategy.
~ kjrose
The problem then becomes picking that time. Back-counting is part of the solution. So too is the fact that machine shuffling just isn't very good for the casinos, except in terms of hands/hour, which whilst it mostly favours the house, also favours the player under certain conditions.
Two more things.
1. The maths on all this is not trivial and most people think about the problem incorrectly (ie. there is no "random" in a finite set which has had discrete operations performed on it) and it effects their maths when they do try and tackle it this way.
2. I agree with you 100% about the distractions. The kind of brain which can hold a count, up to seven side counts, track shuffles through a machine on an 8-deck shoe, remember to effectively mask play, keep an active backcount going on surrounding tables, and still smile at the dealer and appear a lucky fool, act like a chronic smoker or toilet-goer to Wong in and out effectively, etc etc is extremely rare.
Also remember that most people who say they win at cards are LYING. I do not even play Blackjack, I can't do the above with my brain. I know hundreds of _gamblers_ some of whom lie about winning at cards. I only know one person who does, actually, win at cards.
The trick to counting cards is to push probability a bit more in your favor...so in the long run you will win more.
Many casinos have different standards for shuffling and usage of decks that try to prevent card counting, but it is possible nonetheless.
Blackjack tends to be the most popular game in this discussion as the odds of winning aren't too far off from 50/50 (certainly better than most casino games, where the odds are far more daunting), assuming you play intelligently. Even if the decks are reshuffled 2/3 of the way through, you can still push probability by successfully counting.
One cheap tactic is to count the cards as a bystander, and then join in (if it is allowed) when the card supply is nearing it's end. This guarantees an unfair advantage, even if it isn't huge. Simply knowing that a particular card or cards are in short supply (or large supply) can be enough to push the odds a bit.
In all honesty, anyone can count cards...sure not everyone can memorize everything, but to at least keep track of the more important cards (aces and 10-K) will be beneficial. It's all about the law of averages and using repeated trials to get ahead.
And yes, casinos regularly kick people out that win over and over suspiciously, and as they are private organizations, it is their right to do so.
Is to have the team switch off a lot and visit other places in the casino. It's a heck of a lot harder to track a team of about 30 around the place, with spotters switching off and blowing money on craps and roulette. I mean, they're already blowing money on the minimum bet, why not make them chase you around the entire casino? Then have the BP's and Gorillas only play for an hour or so, and switch them off with other BP's.
Course, that would mean you don't get caught. Probably not the most effective way to win your money.
And then someone gets greedy....
If a and b in c, and a can create b, and a can create a, and b can create b, and b cannot create a, then a created c.
I go to check out the article and I get a pop-up ad for an online casino?
I smell a conspiracy......
True, card counting is not illegal. But did you notice that every time he was caught, the guy *ran* out of there, rather than go into the basement to have a "talk" with the bouncers?
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
I read that about 5 years ago when I was in eigth grade, it took me all of about three days and I have never forgotten it. I picked it up on chance from the local library and happend to do so when I was first getting interested in Physics, Programming, hacking, etc... If you get a chance it is an amazing story, and incredibly cool. I believe the characters in it are permanetly banned from Las Vegas because of their ability to win at roullete by using a shoe-computer. Great book!
The Casino's are the entities that are involved with and/or organized crime, not card-counting groups.
Breaking into people's appartments, stealing their money, harassing them, killing people -- this is stuff that Casino's do, not card-counters. They are the one's involved with organized crime.
The rulings by courts that Casino's can exclude individuals for any reason are unconstitutional. McDonald's can't ban anyone from coming in there; restaurants can't ban people from coming there who come there and order cheap meals along with water to save money. In other words, they can't ban the people who aren't as profitable to them. So why should Casino's be able to?
Stories like this illustrate why gambling is illegal in most states. Casinos are run by crooks and mobsters, who will use illegal tactics to maintain their profitability (i.e., breaking/entering, harassment, murder, blackmail, etc).
I agree that gambling should be legal; however, it should be tightly regulated and controlled.
Casino's don't like card counters. Tough. That's not a good enough reason to ban them from your resort. Fast food places can't ban people for any reason, why should Casino's be able to?
If Casino's have a problem with card-counting, its up to them to come up with legitimate tactics to deal with it: cutting the deck, switching dealers, using large decks, mixing more thoroughly, etc. Plenty of tactics they can use which aren't illegal.
But quite frankly, I don't care if this ruins their business. They have billions of dollars to spend. If they aren't smart enough to catch on to card-counting schemes and develop counter-measures, they deserve to go out of business.
Bunch of big whiners. Waaah! Waaah! Keep on crying because your too fucking dumb.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Actually, I think you'll find that in most casinos dealers do not count cards and they do not double deal... why? Oh, a funny little think I like to call The Law.
Most dealers are barely making enough money to stay alive, and if they are caught doing either of these things they will be fired and will most likely end up hungry and homeless.
The Nevada Gaming Commission has very strict rules on what kind of behaviour is allowable by casinos, and cheating is not allowed. If a dealer is caught cheating (and remember those cameras watch both players and dealers) they lose their dealing priveleges and have to find a new job.
Many casinos hire professional card manipulators, but not to deal, they use them to watch dealers and look for double-deals or anything else that is illegal.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
I love that an ad opens up for Casino On Net or whatever when you read this article ... figure out how to beat those guys and you'd really be on to something. How will you throw me out of the casino when you can't see my face?
And why do people play, knowing there is a house advantage? Because people play short-term, but the casino makes money long-term. The house advantage isn't large enough to cause concern for anyone out for a good time, but it's more than enough to rake in good profit for the operators.
Everyone knows the deal (pun intended) when they walk in, as Slepnir indicates. So people shouldn't whine about it. Card counting isn't cheating, but it certainly annoys the casino, and you should just exit gracefully (with your money) when you're asked to leave.
gm
Ad luna, Alicia! Ad luna!
A-fuckin'-men, man. I hope they all get cancer and die, just like their mothers.
I went to the Black Hat briefings in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago and I noticed a couple of things:
1) Casinos often have moving walkways going INTO their casinos, but none coming out. My theory is that they expect you to be loaded down with a bunch of cash when you enter the casino and that you will be unencumbered by said cash on the way out.
2) People that play slot machines are stupid. While walking through a casinos, I saw two different slot machines with credits in them... more than 40 credits in a $1 slot machine and 13 credits in a $5 slot machine. Nobody was around. Nobody. I figured that if someone is too dumb to hit a button to pay out the credits, they deserve to lose the money. My souvenirs from the trip were paid for!
Gambling is a tax on people that are bad at math.
.sig wanted. Inquire within.
To prove once and for all that math can be fun
Why that big article to prove math is fun. Why not just say you add the bed, subtract the clothes, divide the legs and multiply?!?
Come on, wern't you ever in grade 3?
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
I first started counting in high school. I had a chemistry professor that turned me on to Beat the Dealer. Every weekend, I put on a fake mustache and hit the casinos. Back in 1980, the casinos really didn't care that much about who was playing, and I was only ever asked for an ID once. Since that time, I've counted off and on and have made, oh, about $75,000 over the years. Luckily I realized fairly early that the life of a gambler is, frankly, a crappy one.
I've met several pros over the years, and, without exception, their lives suck. Divorces, endless travel, few friends, tobacco fiends. Most that have been into the game for more that ten years or so wish they had pursued a more legit career.
As the article states, to make any real money, you have to play in teams. The lone counter can make a living, but not a great one. There is a high to playing and winning, particularly when you're young and you have more cash in your pocket than any of your friends.
Long term though, follow the advice of your elders. Get an education. Get a good job. Invest wisely. Take care of your family. That's a much better recipe for happiness. I know.
Best Windows Freeware
Why is no one talking about my favorite casino game, Pai Gow? I feel that being the banker in Pai Gow is one of the best deals on the strip. Plus, no game is as fun as Pai Gow.
What they need to do it grab the mallet with one hand alsmost at the mallet end and the other at the end of the handle. Then swing and allow the hand next to the mallet to drop down to the end of the handle. This creates much more force and allows thin "weak" guys the power to be able to ring the bell.
The next time you are at a carnival or someplace that has one of those. Take a look at how people swing away at that thing.
-.-
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Caltech students were also responsible for the famous box-stuffing (spamming, really) of a nationwide fast food chain (McDonalds, but I can't be certain) contest in which they took home a vast majority of the winnings by computer-printing their entries.
In addition, there's a very good review of successful and legal professional gambling by the technically savvy by another Caltech alumnus that was published in "Engineering and Science," a Caltech alumni publication. Get the PDF here or here.
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
I know that virtual card machines have to maintain virtual decks, but would these card counting schemes apply to them as well? And how might that affect detection of your methods by the casino?
For a group, you need a large number of people -- perhaps 100 or so -- to work together randomly and hit different casino's. That makes it difficult for Casino's to notice a "regular" winner.
Also, probably a good idea to bring a few lawyers along. The people who work in or own Casino's are all mob-affiliated crooks, anyways.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Tuition is like buying a car. The list price is for the rich and suckers. Poorer people get steep aid discounts. Students a college really wants get merit scholarships. MIT does little of latter. With most applicants being valedictorians, they dont need to bribe the smart ones in.
You want a good read, go get Ken Uston's Million Dollar Blackjack. The article is basically a rip off of that book (He uses the exact terms Gorilla and BP). And the book doesn't have chessy pictures of idiots on the side either... =]
9 14 314084/qid=1029344691/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-013473 6-5827122?s=books&n=507846
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0
These guys never heard of a cashiers' check?
They act as if taking money from Mass to Nevada
is a crime or something. I think it's just journalistic sugar, though, as it sounds just
like a quote from Midnight Express.
If you win large amounts at a casino, they matter-of-factly do the tax reporting "for you", and unless the stakes they were using were ill-gotten, there was no reason for "smuggling" it.
Leaving the country with large amounts of cash is another matter.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
A guy at my work used to work at the JPL branch of the team, and has some pretty interesting stories. (JPL in Pasedena has a bunch of MIT grads and other assorted geniuses, and is a lot closer to Vegas than Boston is, so it's a natural fit for the club.) He was never one of the really big high-rollers, but did manage to get to go to Vegas with 25K or 50K several times.
On interesting thing he mentioned is that the club really started to fall apart when the group's average winnings began to fall far below what theory predicted. There were two possible explanations: Vegas had changed something to make the game more in their favor (but I guess nobody ever figured out what they changed) or the members were getting greedy and underreporting winnings back to the group.
One of those stupid little monopoly-money type casinos where the cash could be used to bid at an auction at the end--things like hammocks, phones, etc.
/. after all), and I happened to notice the roulette wheel. They had the odds posted beside it.
Anyway, I was wandering around the tables while my date was off dancing with her boyfriend (hey, I am posting on
50-1 payoff on guessing the right number.
There are only 38 slots to pick from.
Well, my first attempt at putting a chip on every spot got me throttled by a football player who said I was messing up the board. My later attempt of just telling the guy working it what my bet was just had him handing me 12 chips on every spin.
Very entertaining, humorous, and extremely sad that no one else in the junior or senior class happened to notice this.
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
Said his girlfriend used to do this in Atlantic City. Did the disguise thing & all.
So a magic question, then, is what's X? Can you win $5000 a week at one casino and not be noticed? $10k?
The problem with that system is that anybody who is that good of a gambler will, of course, get greedy, and eventually get caught.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
I tried to google the reference, but about a year ago the NY Time Sunday Magazine or Wired had a story about professional card counters in Southern California card shops. It sounded like a pretty grueling job. These syndicates hired young men to gamble around the clock under avery strick set of playing rules. The odds were slightly in the players favor under these rules, but you needed to turn over hundreds of thousands of dollars a week to realize these odds. The card shops know who these syndicates are and who the players are and dont discourage them. The professionals seem to attracts lots of amateurs to the tables who then lose in favor of the house. The job gets tired quickly for the young men who play.
Sorry,
If they don't like card counters in the game, they should drop the game from their floor, or modify the game's rules so they can maintain their advantage without kicking people out.
The whole idea of being able to kick out people who have a perceived advantage rubs me the wrong way... If they're cheating, arrest them - otherwise the game is there to play, so play it.
Infact, the first thought I had was a Invader Zim flashback to Megadoomer - two kids playing and when one has a perceived advantage, the other yells "I'm not gonna play with you any more!"
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
Has anyone asked why the house has an edge? It's because the house wins ties. Some casinos, though, occasionally do specials (announced over the intercom) where players win ties for the next 10 hands, or something like that.
If you don't want to count cards or find 5 people to form a gambling ring, just hang out in a casino and wait for their blue light specials.
I believe we all know who the spotter in yellow is... http://www.sporting-heroes.net/tennis-heroes/displ ayhero.asp?HeroID=14
Carpe Canem - Seize the Dog
Check out this amazing article about the first wearable computer built by Claude Shannon and Edward Thorp to predict roulette results.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Ah. Great article. This brings back memories but counting isn't as glamorous as they make it seem. I picked up some counting books in high school, got hooked and made decent money for a teenager with no job. When I went off to college I stopped. It just doesn't make sense to go through all that work for a 2-4% advantage over the house. In that last session of the article the guy walked off with $12k. I'm willing to bet(no pun intended) that was luck. Getting a 2% advantage over the house is one thing but you've got to do it for 8 hours a day and then some. And mistakes are costly. Losing a big hand on a high count is acceptable but losing a big hand when you mess up the count is devistating. One thing the article did not mention is that the number of hands is important. One person for 8 hours a day is equivilant to four people working 2 hours a day - the more hands your team sees, the more likely your advantage over the house will be realized. Either way, you have advanced counts, gorilla BPs, dozens of people...that's a lot of work.
/.'ers may want to read about the computer he was using back in the day to do his counting. It was small, strapped to a users leg, and would take input/output as binary signals. Pretty impressive for its time.
Also, for any techno types out there I recommend Ken Uston's Million Dollar Blackjack book. He has some great stories plus
If you can legally come up with a stratagy to beat the house then all's fair. Fuck Vegas, it's a idiot's paradise (or MIT counter). Skanky hookers (or mexicans passing out fliers), overpriced food, hotter than shit weather, horrible layout of casinos. Overpriced shows.
All this just to gamble. I just go to New Orleans and avoid vegas altogether. And N.O. has a lot more to do that actually involves something cultural.
Hell at least Atlanic City has the boardwalk and pizza (very scary area though).
1) Dealers generally don't know if you're counting cards. The guy on the other end of the surveillance camera, on the other hand, does.
:)
2) Playing a "standard" game (always split 8s, hit on foo, stand on bar, yaada) will always be against you-- casinos aren't stupid. However, anywhere where casinos have to compete against one another, you have a chance to find "better rules"-- for the most part, anything that gives the player a choice is good. There are odds calculators out there on the web to tell you what you ought to "expect" from a given game. Expect odds for any game on a cruise ship to suck rocks.
3) Once you've found a close-to-even game (only off by a percent or so), then you can swing the odds barely in your favor by counting cards. Your expected payout is going to be less than a percent, and the fact that you've deviated from the "standard" play when the count is good will be a signal to the security camera operator to inform you that the house simply can't offer you a blackjack game anymore.
4) Even without counting, you can "make money" playing blackjack. On a good table, you can basically expect to keep your losses to a sufficient minimum (over large amounts of hands) to cover free drinks. Cheap entertainment over the long haul.
5) Even counting, you can't expect to walk up to a $5 table with twenty bucks and expect to parlay it into, well, anything. You need enough of a bankroll to handle long strings of "bad luck"-- numbers I've seen are between 200 and 400 times the wager at the table.
6) Similarly, a night of counting cards isn't going to make you fabulously wealthy overnight. If you play fifty hands at a $5 table, and you've pushed the odds into your favor by a half a percent, which is really good, your expected return is to walk out the door with $1.25 more than you started with. Glamorous, huh?
7) It's not illegal to count cards. It's also not illegal for a casino to tell you they're unable to offer you a particular sort of game.
With all of this, you have to play an awful lot of blackjack before you've parlayed your bankroll to where you can graduate to a bigger table with bigger payoffs. You can't lose count, you can't "feel lucky". Most people are better off simply playing the "rules" and making it back on free drinks...
-JDF
300 pounds? You think they gave a crap about 300 pounds? Was this run by a wanna be mob or something? An amatuer mob? A part-time mafia?!?!??!
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Just wondering, how long can someone be banned?
If they were all banned in their 20s, what's to stop them from doing it again in their 40s?
I think I could be happy on a few million for 20yrs....
hmmm...what are you doing to plan for retirement? Studying math....
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
The casinos are accussing others of organized crime!
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
Next thing you know, pasty-faced geeks in un-stylish clothes with poor posture are gonna be put on the Casino Shitlist.
Sheesh, all they wanna do is win some extra cash to pay for the latest computer hardware (and maybe some hookers.. hmm.. horny virgin geeks in Las Vegas introduces interesting possibilities)
As I close the window to the story ... Guess what pops up.... And add for an only casino ... Hahahahaha.
--=.=-- www.cyber2000.qc.ca
i recall hearing that the small metal strip found on the right hand side of any of the new US dollar bills, while not only being an anti-counterfeiting measure, would trigger metal detectors if stacked in large quantities (such as the 100k this reporter was traveling with). is that just some urban legend or ... ?
The funny part is that when I loaded the page, I got a casino pop-under.
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
I was thinking that the whole way through reading the article (yes I read all 6 pages before deciding to post a comment,
Some things I found rather un-nerving though were this on the fourth page:
My first few days in Las Vegas, I get a small taste of the new paranoia. I awake one morning to discover that my laptop has been stolen out of my locked hotel room while I slept.
And this on the sixth page:
Lewis decided to go it on his own, forming an alliance with Jill Thomas and Andrew Tay. Then a few months later, someone broke into Thomas' apartment, stealing more than $50,000 in blackjack winnings from a safe in her bedroom. Although he has no proof, Lewis suspects that the robbery had something to do with the MIT team.
Pretty crazy stuff, almost like something out of an X-Files conspiracy episode or other equivalent conspiracy show/movie. I wouldn't imagine some Casino thugs ordering a break-in of someone's house to steal a measly $50k. But, I could imagine some Casino thugs ordering a break-in of someone's hotel room to steal some card counting trade secrets.
From the boilerplate:
"Adapted from Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, to be published in October. Ben Mezrich wrote six novels before turning to nonfiction."
Seems like old habits are hard to break...
There is often a small positive margin on cumulative games and slots that pay a big bonus every so often. Sometimes these things really are 'due' to pay big. But there are syndicates that go after these opportunities whenever they find them and push the available income down close to the minimum wage.
If you are very smart, you can win at sports betting, but this is also getting much harder and more competitive.
Some casinos are lazy and you can actually win a little on roullette the same way that Thorpe did in 1950. But if you win more thant $50k per year or so, they'll put you out of business on that, too.
I always thought that the Eudaemonic Pie book wasn't 100 percent accurate, that the description of their roullette system was slightly disguised in the book so that they could try later to use it again, but I don't know.
I've been a blackjack card counter since the late 1970's. I started out using the Revere APC system but switched in recent years to the excellent yet simple Knock-Out unbalanced count system.
:)
This article, as with most Wired pieces these days, has a few grains of truth along with a lot of hype and dazzle. Here's a few points that should be made.
Fact #1: You don't have to be a math genius to count cards. Using the Knockout system, I just start with a count of zero and add 1 to my count every time I see a card with a value of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7. I subtract 1 from my count every time I see a 10 or face card. The size of my bet changes as the count goes up. It's that simple.
Fact #2: You can't make money at Blackjack unless you already have money. The way the statistics work out, you need a bankroll of approximately 1000 times your minimum bet to have a reasonable assurance that a bad statistical swing doesn't wipe you out. That means about a $5000 bankroll just to sit down at a $5 minimum blackjack table. Playing at that level will net you approximately $17.50 per hour.
Fact #3: It's pretty boring. While everyone else is having fun, you're sitting there playing a game that is the gambling equivalent of working a factory job. It's repetitive and tedious; you get penalized cash every time you make a mistake. Most people find that they don't have the discipline to do this over the long haul.
Fact #4: It's the antithesis of glamorous. The people you meet who are really trying to make money from the casino industry are a pretty unsavory lot. The few who have the discipline, bankroll and skill to beat the casinos also realize that it's important to look just like another player. The professional card counter at a given table is probably the paunchy, middle-aged guy in the "I love Las Vegas" tourist T-shirt.
Fact #5: It's a dying art. In the 70's, the games were so good, that it took very little to get an edge. The casinos aren't run by mobsters anymore though, they're run by Harvard graduates who understand the games just as well as you do. The rules aren't as favorable, more decks are in play, and they're introducing "Universal Shufflers" that have the capacity to destroy the concept of card counting permanently. The casinos make their money from slots now; they don't have to offer a hyper-competitive blackjack game to lure in players.
Fact #6: If you have a large bankroll, the willingness to study, the discipline to stick to your game plan no matter what, you can make some money playing blackjack. If you have all of the above, however, I guarantee you that you can find a better way to make money.
All of that being said, blackjack isn't a bad hobby. Friends of mine like to gamble, and my business sometimes finds me in Vegas. Instead of handing my wallot over to the casino, I instead make some money, have some free drinks and meet interesting people. That's not so bad.
Just don't listen to too much hype from Wired.
Neat article. However, I was rather perturbedby the opening anecdote about ferrying an enormous amount of cash through Logan Airport- the same one that the hijackers that destroyed the WTC flew out of. Bricks of hundred dollar bills, box cutters, no questions asked... just what the hell does security do there anyway?
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
while some games are horribly rigged (Slot machines for example)...
I'm not sure if you said that to illustrate your point, but Nevada state law requires that each slot machine pay out 75% of the total amount of cash is put into it.
I will be in Vegas in a couple of weeks and have been practicing my card counting. It is really not that hard - You start with 2 of them and add one to that every time you hit.
No big deal.
Instead, I recommend people start with Snyder's Blackbelt in Blackjack or Olaf's Knock-out Blackjack.
A good blackjack discussion website for serious players is Sanford Wong's bj21.com.
The Wired article is surprisingly accurate; usually the media makes a hash of articles about card-counting.
P.S. to any Griffin employees out there: I don't know anything about blackjack. Please remove me from your files. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. These aren't the droids you're looking for. :-)
I play Nerd-Folk!
It's even more difficult or impossible to find a casino that doesn't cheat(where the odds are tipped in their favor). The best way to get rich is not to go to a casino, but to own one. Because there are always notlack of suckers that will come in to give you their money.
There is a memoir by a casino cheat in Vegas, I think the name is John Soares, and in it he points out that early on (thru the 60's) there was not any law in Nevada making cheating the casino a illegal act. However, JS points out that law or no law, it was extremely dangerous.
It is by coff... er, will, alone I set my mind in motion...
Here's the best way to make money from a casino:
It's simple. Own one.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
I remember that, but later, well, even John Carmack got booted:
.plan file link. :/
<I>A few of us took a couple days off in vegas this weekend. After about
ten hours at the tables over friday and saturday, I got a tap on the shoulder...
Three men in dark suits introduced themselves and explained that I was welcome
to play any other game in the casino, but I am not allowed to play
blackjack anymore.
Ah well, I guess my blackjack days are over. I was actually down a bit for
the day when they booted me, but I made +$32k over five trips to vegas in the
past two years or so.
I knew I would get kicked out sooner or later, because I don't play "safely".
I sit at the same table for several hours, and I range my bets around 10 to 1.<I>
Sorry can't find the
Will code a sig generator for food
There was a croupier in Monte Carlo who worked there for very many years. On his last day at the roullette wheel before his retirement, about 30 years ago, a young lady came in and started betting single numbers at his wheel. She won twelve of twenty numbers and cashed out with a pile of money. When the croupier retired and left work that day, he ran into the young lady at a restaurant. A relationship ensued. They married and retired in the nearby countryside. The legend is that the croupier had spent his last fifteen years on the job practicing hitting single numbers on the wheel.
Betting on a color is less than 50/50 odds. You forgot to account for the green "00" and/or "0" slot(s). I don't think the house considers these to be odd or even, so the odds there would be less than 50/50 there, as well.
I read this book a decade or so ago, when I was 14. Good system. If you don't know how to count cards, it's easy to learn. It doesn't require a degree from MIT.
There are a ton of card counting techniques, and I believe it was in the rec.games.blackjack FAQ where I saw some payoff percentages associated with different methods.
I wonder how easy it would be to make a genetic algoritm that would find the "optimum" card counting technique.
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More recently in life than when the following story was set, I was part of a counting team, and nearly wound up in Griffin from an incident at Bally's. I've since stop gambling all together, since after all, I have a problem with gambling.
It's quite a heady rush to be making money and know that you're going to profit where most everyone else is going to lose. A kind of ugly duckling fantasy about how some day you'll be recognized for your brains over the brawn of those stupid jocks who tormented you in school.
Eventually, though, I had a moment where I didn't like the company I was keeping. That moment is described below.
--------------
I have a problem with gambling. I didn't have a lot of risk in my real
life, so I courted simulated danger across the green felt of a blackjack
or poker table. After all, all that's at risk is money. I was lucky
enough in my 'real' life that if while at the blackjack table fortune
smiled upon me I got to feel good and make some
money. However, if I didn't do so well, I could still go home to a warm
bed and know where my next meal was coming from. As my once-upon-a-time
shrink described to me, gambling was where I got my juice because I
had repressed all the rest of the more normal sources of risk and
excitement in my life.
I lived for a while with rules that defined how and when I could
gamble. I did this, because I recognized I had a problem, but didn't
want to give up gambling. Since then, I've abstained completely.
The reason that I set up these rules goes back to an incident from
back in my college days. I was taking classes at the University of
Arizona in Tucson and working as a programmer at a local real estate
development company. One little trick that I played a couple times was
to be working late one evening and call my then fiance to let her know
I would be working for quite a while. Then I would drive down to the
airport and catch an 8 or 9 p.m. flight to Las Vegas to play a little
blackjack. The plan would be to fly back on the 7 or 8 a.m. flight and
'awaken' at my desk, having 'fallen asleep' at my keyboard. I would
then go straight to classes and most likely sleep there part of the
day, and resume my regular schedule late that afternoon.
During one of these trips, I had managed to go through the $200 I had
brought in fairly short order. This is not easy to do betting $5 per
hand of blackjack, but is well within the realm of possibility. I then
proceeded to get $300 from the ATM out of my checking account, which
was the daily limit. Unfortunately, that also disappeared around 2:30
or 3. Fortunately (kind of) it was the next day as far as the ATM was
concerned, so I managed to get another $200 out of the machine, which
was all I had left in the checking account, barring what I needed for
rent, etc.
5 a.m. rolls around, and I'm once again functionally broke. It has
been a very unusually bad trip, but once again, not unheard of playing
$5 blackjack. I had kept $20 aside for getting back to the Las Vegas
airport and for getting my car out of the parking lot, but I had
nothing left to gamble. I went for a walk out on the strip. I left
where I had been playing, which was the Flamingo Hilton, and as I
stepped out onto Las Vegas Boulevard South, the pink fingers of a
desert false dawn were rising from the east. I believe it was a
Wednesday morning. The Strip was absolutely deserted with the
exception of myself, a jogger on the opposite side of the street in
front of Caesar's Palace and two or three other tired looking people
with that thousand-yard stare of the economically shell-shocked.
I stepped out into the street, into the non-existent traffic. I
crossed the median and approached the driveway to Caesar's
Palace. Before me were the fountains that Evel Knievel jumped across
time and again. The sun was starting to peek over the mountains east
of town and illuminated the mountains west of town. The sky lightened
considerably and the hotel towers and the Fuller dome of the OmniMax
theater loomed above me in silhouette as I walked up the driveway.
Ahead of me was an ornate shrine featuring a white elephant. I stopped
to consider what Eastern religion this might be a symbol of good luck
for. It was done up in an appropriately tacky Las Vegas fashion,
however. The entire elephant was covered in various colors of
mirrored tile and was dramatically uplit by hidden lights of various
colors and several white spotlights. There were coins all around the
base of the elephant and a railing with a sign in all languages
warning that the railing was alarmed and that the shrine was monitored
on video. I remember laughing at the prospect of only in Las Vegas
would security be needed at a wishing well.
Even though I don't believe in lucky elephants, I took this burst of
black humor for a sign of my luck changing. In that instant I decided
that I would either come home a really big winner or a really big
loser. $700 was actually the biggest loss that I had ever sustained in
Las Vegas, but I was past the threshold of pain. I must credit Mike
"Mad Genius" Caro with the genesis of that phrase. It refers to the
state where you've lost an amount of money that has numbed you to any
further pain of any additional losses. It doesn't hurt any more to
lose another $1, so losing it becomes very easy. I decided that I
would take my credit card and charge another $700 on it, and I would
play for the first time at the $25 minimum tables.
Once I had determined my course, my step lightened. My eyes cleared
and my blood once again began to flow. I was back in action. Just the
decision to start on this path was enough to lift my spirits. I
quickly made my way to the Comcheck machine and ran my card through
with aplomb. I punched in a request for $700 and strutted up to the
cashier's cage as if I owned the place. I received my seven
one-hundred dollar bills and advanced on the casino floor.
I spied my victim. A $25 table right near the main entrance. It was a
6 deck shoe with four players already on it. After all, if I wanted to
stage a big comeback, I certainly would want an audience. The poor
dealer and pit bosses wouldn't know what hit them.
I sat down and spread those seven insignificant pieces of paper across
the felt and watched the dealer push me a stack of even less
significant green $25 chips towards me. My destiny hung from those 28
clay discs. I saw visions of them turning into black $100 chips or
even purple $500 chips.
At the time, I played a basic strategy and a simple winning progression. I would always
start betting one unit, in this case one green chip. If I won the
hand, I would let it ride and wager two chips on the next hand. If I
won my second hand, I would then wager three chips. If I continued to
win, I would wager five chips, then five chips again, followed by
seven chips and then ten chips after the sixth win. Starting with the
seventh hand, I would treat ten chips like one chip but I would repeat
the ten, so the wagering would go ten chips, ten, twenty, thirty,
fifty, fifty, seventy and one hundred chips. Then in the incredibly
unlikely circumstance of getting that far, the series repeats itself,
treating 100 chips like 1 chip.
I played for a while, never varying too far from either side of even,
when it happened. I hit a losing streak that would not snap. I was
down about two chips at the time, but my stack started to dwindle. I
got down to twelve chips, then eleven, then ten. When I lost the next
hand and I now only had a single digits worth of chips in front of me,
I began to seriously question my earlier optimism.
It was now about 6:15 and I had to leave for the airport at 7. I was
resigned to play out this particular grim scene to its conclusion,
when finally I won a hand. Suddenly I could do no wrong. The next
hand, I bet my two chips and won. Then, with three chips wagered, I
got a natural blackjack. Because naturals pay 3:2, in addition to the
four green chips I received two red $5 chips, two silver dollars and a
fifty cent piece. I put this "odd money" out for the dealer as a tip
on the next hand where I had five green chips wagered, and won
again. I repeated my five chip bet and won. Now I placed seven chips
in the circle and got an 11 where the dealer had a 6 up. I placed my
recently won profits in the circle beside my bet and doubled down,
receiving a single face-down card. The dealer turns over a 4 followed
by a face card from the shoe and the whole table slumps in
disappointment at the dealer's 20. I haven't looked, but I just know
that I have a ten underneath, and the dealer reveals my card to have a
lovely face. He restacks my fourteen chips in three piles of four and
the remaining pile of two. He places a black chip in front of each of
the three piles then places a fourth black chip in front of the pile
of two green ones and picks up the two green ones in change.
I take back these four black chips and four of the green ones leaving
a ten chip bet out for my next hand. I win that one and the dealer
repeats the restacking ritual to pay me with three black chips, taking
two green as change. I restore my ten chip bet and once again win. The
dealer again gives me three black chips and takes back two greens in
change. I stack up all the chips in the circle to make a pile of three
black chips and eight green chips.
I won the next hand as well and the dealer paid me with five black
chips. Now my progression called for thirty green chips. I began
fumbling with the green chips in my stack and adding them to the stack
in the circle when the dealer said to me, "Hey buddy, slow down, the
casino will still be here tomorrow."
I actually snapped back, "Thanks for the advice, but I know what I'm
doing," as I added the green chips to the top of the stack. The dealer
looked at me. I honestly do not remember if it was with anger or with
pity.
I won that hand as well.
Now my hands were visibly shaking.
I had won ten hands in a row. As the dealer paid me with a purple
chip, two black chips and two greens, he called out to the pit boss,
"Purple out."
The pit boss looked over and then slowly walked over as he said, "Ok."
My next bet was fifty green chips. I added the purple chip to the
bottom of the pile as the dealer got ready to deal the next hand. The
rest of the table was quiet. I won.
The whole table cheered. Well, maybe they didn't cheer, but they did
make a set of noises that could be interpreted as well wishing. It may
have been shock or envy, I don't recall.
As the dealer set out one yellow chip, two black chips and two green
chips, I realized two things. First, that I had risen out of my seat,
and second, that this yellow chip was worth $1,000. I had just been
paid one thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars. This was just a bit
more than I and my two roommates were paying for rent. Combined. For
two months. While I recognized that fact, I was past caring. I realize
now that there is a threshold of pain in both directions. There is a
certain amount of money that once you win it, you are indifferent to
any more.
Mechanically, I put out the $1,750 required by the progression for the
next bet. I lost. I once again began shaking. I said to the dealer, "I
think I'm ready to go now, please."
The pit boss said, "Son, I think that would be a good idea." Thinking
back, I don't believe I'm imagining the look of concern on his face. I
also don't believe that he was concerned about losing a couple
thousand dollars on his shift. All told, that run of cards had left me
with $2,250 on the table. I had made back my $700 cash advance, I had
made back my earlier losses of $700 and I had come out to the good by
$850. I gave the dealer a $25 chip as I departed and thanked him.
As I looked from him to the other players at the table I was leaving I
saw something that scared me. I saw three aging people, smoking,
drinking and hunched over in their chairs. They were immersed in their
own world and my passing through was a momentary breeze, quickly
forgotten. In seeing them, I imagined someone like me, years down the
road, having an experience like I just had, and seeing me as one of
these caricatures through their young eyes. That is the image that I
remember whenever I find myself getting carried away by my addiction.
Not A Sig
I wish I could disagree with you.
Pre-Night Court, Harry Anderson was a professional magician. Still is, I guess, but I bring it up to recommend his book Games You Can't Lose (B&N). He covers a lot, and with great style, including Blackjack strategy and winning legally at Craps, including the really good bets that they don't mark on the tables.
Plus, for all those hotshots out there who think it's cool to get tossed out of a casino, Anderson was banned from playing cards anywhere in the state of Nevada. Tells the story in the book....
N
-- Watch the REAL Jon Katz.
This is at the very least, humerous which, Anonymous Coward you suggest isn't. There might be hint of truth through your words though; in so much that with some practice a few of your methods might actually work in real world situations. The humor of your piece comes with the language you use. For a moment is as if you are reading a step-by-step manual setup with sequence in the forefront of publication. Then, you effortlessly toss in the C*#t word or say tits like your in a bar room chating with the boys... Good stuff man...
Put some more out there for us to read.
Casinos wiped out card counters ages ago with massive decks that screw up the math. Winning blackjack is still pretty easy with memorization of the tables and techniques Avery Cardoza came up with in his book Winning Casino Blackjack for the Con-Counter." Anyone who wants to come out ahead in blackjack really, really needs to read this book.
>Their sole business is the fact that people come
>in and give them money for no real reason >whatsoever.
BUt, but . . . doesn't the
hawk, Las Vegan in exile
I love to play blackjack. I used to play it a lot, but have since waned in my activities (most notably after 4 consecutive unlucky trips to Las Vegas).
It's really hard to look at an article like this and not run down to your local bookstore and pickup some of the many texts that show you the basics of card counting, but before any one does, there are a few things to consider:
You won't win a lot of money unless you have a lot of money to loose. Never, ever gamble with money you can't afford to loose; it's that simple. If you are planning a gambling trip, you have to set yourself a limit, and figure if you loose it all, you're still going to make rent, pay your bills, be able to get back home etc.
That having been said, lets assume you have $500 to gamble with. In fair conditions, playing in perfect form, (this is very, very hard to do) over the long run in a weekend, on averages, you may end up making ~$12 an hour. Yes, you could win much more, but on the other hand you could loose too. It's kind of hard to justify putting that kind of money on the line when your best expectation in the long run is to end up with the same amount of money you would get if you were working (albeit tax free as long as you don't win too much)
Then consider that if you learn the fundamentals of basic strategy (which is easy), the casinos edge over you really isn't that great, and you can take a smaller sum (say $100) last a long time, perhaps even get a few extra bucks, and just have a good time with your friends. I always take Vegas newbies to the Stardust, where you can get a $1 table 24/hr a day. Sure, they have a six deck shoe, but the play is slow and it's easy to learn. I find I have a good deal of fun sitting down with a $20 bill, making it last a long time, meanwhile getting juiced on free drinks (ok, $1 drinks, because it's hard to get a waitress and they won't come back often unless you tip them). The rule of thumb is, sit down with 20, leave with 10 and be completely sloshed. (never, ever, ever, get drunk trying to count cards or gambling with real money. It makes you play sloppy, and the booze silences that little voice inside your head that says if you go back to the ATM again you can't make rent).
The Internet is generally stupid
Not the ones I know.
By the way, does anyone here really think that the dealers don't count the cards? Bullshit. You know damn well they do.
Most of the dealers I have seen (mostly in Ontario Casinos) couldn't count cards if they wanted to. Do you really think people smart enough to count cards would work as a dealer for barely over minimum wage? Besides, what incentive is there for a dealer to win? He gets paid regardless of what happens. It isn't like they work on commission. But if they did, well then, time for a career change...
Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
He was able to make money off of it, but I'm not sure how much.
The FBI also used card counting many years ago when they did some undercover investigation in Las Vegas. They siphoned cash through the Casinos and then did statistical analysis on how much of it made it to the banks. They used Card counting to limit their losses.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
I love how the ad for the "World's Largest Casino" popped up when I clicked on the story.
Why don't the casino's hire these counters and pay them decent money to help them perfect their side of the game. At the end of the article the "Kevin" guy is told that he's too good for the casinos. If that is the case, then if you can't beat them, join them.
...and IN SOVIET RUSSIA, beowulf clusters imagine 1, 2, 3 profit!!!! jokes made out of YOU!!!
This one is used by a friend of mine...
Sit down at the smallest bet table with your friends. Always place the minimum bet. Guzzle the free drinks as fast as you can. Then, when you start getting too fuzzy to play properly, just ask the dealer how to play...
In most places (Vegas is one) the dealer is obliged to give you the best possible advice if you ask. That means they will tell you how to play the optimum non-counting game - the one that gives you 97% returns. So if you play 60 games an hour at a $3 table, you're paying (on average) $5.40/hour for all the free drinks you can handle... whee!
Yeah, Swingers had a great portrayal of a vegas casino!
I can't wait to lose my shorts while a bunch of 80 yr olds look on with delight (although they're probably just happy to still be alive!)
double down, baby!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I went to an MIT backjack club introduction in January of 1998. I always wonder what it would have been like. They aren't necessarily all that unerground. I'm not surprised they got busted. Maybe woulda been fun, though.
Is why Poker is better than Blackjack.
In a town fille with college students you can stroll into a random frat party, sit in on or start up a poker game, and walk out 2 hours later with 500$. Blackjack is for suckers.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
funny, when I went to dealer school I seemed to miss that class...
They eye in the sky is trained to catch people, the dealer is little more then an auotmaton, as far as the casino is concerned.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Oh yes? Where do they deal? :)
Fact #3: It's pretty boring. While everyone else is having fun, you're sitting there playing a game that is the gambling equivalent of working a factory job. It's repetitive and tedious; you get penalized cash every time you make a mistake.
Sounds alot like playing Diablo 2!
Casinos make more money from people who are bad counters than they are losing to good counters.
Casinos use software which can track you betting pattern through the eye in the sky. Even a complete idiot using that software can find out whether you are counting. Some casinos cut the stack of cards in the middle if they suspect you to count. Some casinos employ dealers who deal seconds to cheat you out of your money.
BTW: 95% of those who claim to be ahead in casino games are liars. I know what I'm saying. I was playing poker (probably the _one_ game where you can make money playing in a casino) for more than 30 years. When I found out that live is to precious to waste it flipping chips sitting at the felt, I stopped.
One thing the article makes clear is that the winnings were not exactly fairly reported to the IRS. Depositing large sums of cash in a bank in Boston, withdrawing it in Las Vegas, and depositing an even larger sum in Las Vegas a few days later makes for a tremendous paper trail. Audit anyone?
In late 2000/early 2001 I spent 6 months playing on the team that MIT has since been rolled into. The Wired article, while admittedly full of dazzle and drama, is mostly dead-on.
Your facts are not quite correct:
Fact #1: Maybe you don't have to be a math genius, but you have to be pretty f-ing sharp. The count you've described is only the first step in a real counting sytem. Your "knockout system" is called the "running count"; the "true count" is the running count divided by the number of decks remaining in the shoe (which is determined by subtracting the number of decks in the discard tray from the total number of decks per shoe) rounded down to the nearests whole number. The true count determines your bet - you multiply the true count times your base unit (say $100) to determine your bet for the next hand. Today's team counter has to do all this on the fly, instantaneously, while simultaneously chatting up the dealer, checking out the waitress's cleavage, and doing whatever else it takes to look like the average Joe Gambler. Then he has to signal his BP to make the appropriate bet and vary his play according to the count. It requires significant mental resources!
Fact #2: Your math is correct, but there is a way to make money at blackjack without having a huge bankroll. You play on a team - a few senior members can provide most of the bankroll (and take most of the profits, alas).
Fact #3: I've always found counting to be a bizarre mix of boredom and pure adrenal high. Yes, you're repetitively processing the same data stream for hours on end. But you're also this undercover superhero of sorts - using your superior abilities to make gobs of money under the unsuspecting (well, when things go well) noses of these greedy corporate thugs. It's the purest form of excitement I've ever found.
Fact #4: I've never counted solo, but being on the inside of a successful team is quite glamorous. There's just too much money around for it not to be.
FAct #5: Possibly true. Counting only works if the casinos don't stop you, and they only don't stop you if they don't realize you're counting. When mainstream magazines start publishing articles about your system, it ain't too clandestine anymore! Counters are in a continual arms race with the casinos, and this particular weapon is about obsolete. Counters are still inventing new ones, but things like continuous shufflers and facial recognition software are getting harder and harder to counter. It may be that we're reaching the point where a counter and his mind can't beat the technological countermeasures used by the casinos.
Ever see those "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" signs? Fact is, if I own a property, I can tell anybody to get the hell out and come back, and if they come back, it is "criminal trespass"!!! Read the statutes for your state, I guarantee you you do not have a right to enter somebody else's property against their will! And if you really think you can't ban anyone, why not give out your address on the 'net, and we'll all come over and crash at your place for a couple weeks, ok?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
What it essentially boils down to is that the casinos are asking people to choose to deliberately forget specific things, as if that was even possible.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Just get a willing person from the streets and have him act as your human proxy in the casino. Attach that cool button-sized video device described in the article to his shirt. Also give him an earpiece that can receive audio signals only. Tell the proxy that you can make him rich but you would like a 25% to 50% cut. Proxy agrees to your plan.
So go to your van that is hooked up to the video feed from the device on the proxy's shirt. The proxy will go into a casino and starts the blackjack stuff. You count the cards via the video feed and signal to the proxy via the audio earpiece when to bet high or low, etc. Basically, you can act as the spotter outside of casino property. So the proxy makes tons of money from your counting of cards and eventually gets banned from the casino for card counting. You take 25% to 50% cut of his profits and he keeps the rest. Human proxies won't usually care if they are banned from the casinos since the profits from the card counting will more than make up for the grief (if any) from the ban.
Repeat the whole thing over again with the next available human proxy on the street. Eventually, the 20% cut should add up to a lot of money. . a lot more than if you went to a casino yourself since you have an unlimited number of proxies to do the dirty work for you while you count from the safety of your van on public streets (I believe there is an excess of 100 million gambling-age adults in the USA available for human proxy service).
If audio earpieces are banned from casinos, I'm sure there must be other technology that can somehow let the proxy know when to bet high and low.
If the MIT students had employed the human proxy approach instead of going to the casinos themselves, they would have eliminated any risk to themselves since there is no way a casino can identify human proxies.
to do as you're suggesting, I'm not saying people don't do it, but I can tell you I was flown to El Paso, TX to testify by the DEA to testify against someone that did 4 $3000 cashiers checks in a day --- they couldn't make a drug case, but they could make a money laundering/structured transaction case -- you don't want to mess with the reporting paperwork -- there are lots of safegaurds in place to see aggregates that trigger reports as well...
But you don't call a gator a gatour or a operator an operatour. But maybe it's just words with two syllables?? If so, that's a REALLY stupid language rule. Almost as bad as two, to, and too, or there, their, and they're.
;-)
And what HELL is up with the "eigh" crap. Why not just naybor? Pretty simple, eh?
Face it, English sucks, and you're just pissed because the American's wanted to simplify it. Jealous? Or should that be jellus?
The reason? In a regulated environment (i.e., Vegas, Atlantic City or any of the other major gaming centers), the laws stipulate that the machines have to be truly random -- and the take from them (and from other casino operations) is sufficiently large that it's been years since any casino tried to jimmy the chips controlling the RNG or other aspects of the machine.
"Bullshit!" you say. "That's just a version of slots, and slots are a loser's game!" Well, you'd be wrong on that count, sparky.
What you get with video poker are a couple of good things and a couple of bad things. If you choose correctly, the good outweighs the bad:
An example of Video Poker math:
In San Diego, there's a $1 NSUD (Not-So-Ugly Deuces) game that pays 99.75% with perfect play. However, once a week the casino runs a 3x cashback promotion that bumps the return up to 100.5% (and also lowers the volatility, as does any cashback offer).
700 hands per hour * 5 per hand * 100.5% = $17.50 per hour net. A somewhat chickenshit amount, to be sure, but it's an easy-to-find play and representative of what you can find with almost no research. Pros (and there are many) search for opportunities where the denominations are higher and the return is up past 101-102%.
Bob Dancer (the leading author and professional player in the VP world) recently wrote about how a four-day-a-week player who knew the right games and the right promotions could easily net $30k a year in the Denver casino market. Again, that's not great money -- but it would be tax-free (if you're playing quarters none of your jackpots would generate a W-2G form) and, playing that much, you'd never pay for a meal.
I know people have a misty-eyed love of blackjack, but there are other alternatives.
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
But there's a somewhat famous story of a guy (occasionally attributed to MIT) who found a way to beat roulette, sort of. The idea was that although the game is in the favor of the house, if you're allowed to place bets while the ball is rolling you can shift the odds in your favor. The guy put a computer in his shoe heel to tell him where to bid, with some sort of feedback and a wire running through his pantleg.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Just as it was about to wrap up, page 6 is broken. Can anyone please post page 6 here?
Another common misconception is that it is possible, through methodical play, to tilt the odds in your favor at the blackjack table. This is simply not true. As a fan of blackjack, I have read several books on the subject and all of them admit that the only way to get the odds in your favor is to count cards. If you play by the rules (hit on 16 versus a 10, stand on anything above an 11 if the dealer shows a 6, etc.) the odds come CLOSE to 50/50, but still don't quite reach the point of being even. As a strict adherent to the rules, I often watch, amused, as I see people make obvious mistakes and pay dearly for them. I've watched people split 10s and end up with a pair of 16s, and double on 12s, busting with 22. It's never a pretty sight... The best advice you can offer to anyone who wants to try to make money at blackjack with minimal effort is this:
Play by ALL the rules (you can buy a small card in most casino gift shops that has a chart for how to play every possible player-dealer hand combination, they are about $1 and they are legal at all tables).
Once you know how to react in almost every situation you can start to count 10s and Aces. This isn't going TELL you whats coming up, but it will give you an idea of how likely you are to get high hands. With a 6-deck shoe, count down from 96 (10s) and 24 (Aces). This works especially well on tables where you have the option of an over/under 13 bet (a bet where you guess whether your initial 2 cards will be over or under 13. Aces are 1, and a hand of 13 loses either way). The goal with this method isn't to predict whats coming, but to tip the odds very slightly in your favor. If you play by the rules, it should help.
Dealer: "19"
Homer: "Hit me"
Dealer: "20"
Homer: "Hit me"
Dealer: "21"
Homer: "Hit me"
Dealer: "22"
Homer: "Doh!"
A few points from a former 'insider'. I worked in a casino for 6 months before I left in disgust.
Before being hired, I had the naieve view of casinos being glamorous exciting places. They are not. The casino business is about feeding off the compulsive behaviour of regular people. The place the casino makes most of it's money is in the slot machines which typically administer 'rewards' (money) in a perfect variable ratio reinforcement scheme. It is a science that has been known and used for training animals for years.
Now everyone knows who the worst addicts are. They are the slot players who shit in their pants, piss into plants nearby so they don't have to leave their machine. (Yes, this is quite common). But these people never get barred or thrown out. Why not? Because they are the most reliable source of the casino's income. Even the provision in many areas of asking to be "self-tresspassed" is a joke because the way it's done most people will never go through with it or be able to circumvent it.
In a casino, surveillance is "THE" department. They are like the CIA of the casino. This is not an exaggeration. They don't usually eat or fratrenize with the other employees (they aren't allowed), their identities are kept secret and they get all the cool toys. They are extensively trained in the art of cheating, so they can spot it. And it's very cool. Some of the techniques that have been developed over the years are incredibly cunning and could only have come from the most devious of minds. This is what card counters are up against. They are like robin hoods and nobody deserves it more then the greedy pigs that own casinos. There are too few IMHO. I hope more people try to hack these dirty bastards.
Anyway, I did some research, and strictly speaking you're right. There's no law against card counting, only the casino's right to bar known counters from its tables. However, a counter can get into legal trouble. If you try to sneak into a casino that's barred (which might be a casino you've never actually played at!) you can be arrested for trespassing. Even worse, they can refuse to give you your winnings!
It's true that Blackjack is the only game you play against the casino where you can gain a positive expectation over time. But keep in mind that Poker is not against the Casino, it's against your fellow players. It's not terribly difficult to become reasonable "good" at poker (at least to the point where you can beat the average Vegas tourist). Plus this has the added advantage that the Casino doesn't care if you win or lose - no matter who wins they still get their rake. Why spend all kinds of time and energy trying to fight a multi-billion dollar industry for their money, when you can just sheer the sheep at the Poker tables?
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
It seems like every 10 years there is a splashy article about it. Remember Ken Uston? I knew the guys on his team (or at least some of them). They all laid low and made a bundle. Ken wanted the fame and fortune and then killed himself in the end.
At least the "American's" have the grammar down...
> If they don't like card counters in the game, they should drop the game from their floor, or
> modify the game's rules so they can maintain their advantage without kicking people out.
They have - the modified rule is "no counting cards."
Think of it this way: in a carnival dart-throwing game, you're not allowed to walk up to the board and jam the dart in. Sure it's legal, but the carnival is under no obligation to allow it (and they'd be stupid to not ban it). Same with casinos and counting cards.
when do you draw more cards or split etc
"Perhaps card counting begets good programmers, not the other way around?" This intuitively makes sense, and seems to have a lot to do with personality types. For example, a person becomes interested and good at counting cards because they are the type of person who is A. Very Competitive B. Wants every advantage..wants to do the thing they do (gambling in this case) the best way possible. C. Pays attention to details. D. Can work VERY quickly while paying attention to details. These are qualities have parallels to qualities found in great programmers: A. The are very comptetive (self critical of code etc..and thus it improves) B. They want to do what they do (code) in the best way. (IE: Optimize their code, pick the right algorithms) C They pay attention to details, knowing not only the "how to do" but also the "why it works like that" of different programming disciplines. D. They can absorb these details, and do what they do very quickly.
For anyone wanting to know how hard it is to count here is a quick training session. This is the uston advanced count.
Assign point values to cards such as 2, 8 = +1; 3, 4, 6, 7 = +2; 5 = +3; 9 = -1; 10 = -3; Ace = 0.
Now take two cards out. Count down the deck and see if you can predict the value of the two cards that were removed. Then do it in under 20 seconds. Then have friends try to carry on a conversation while you count down the deck and do it for an hour nonstop with no mistakes. Counting is easy but it takes skill to be perfect for long periods of time.
I had my fun counting cards and made decent money in high school. If anything cashing out $1000 as a teenager with a lame fake ID was the hard part. I remember one day when a lady in the cage questioned my fake ID. So she asked her friend for help, Does it have a name and say ID on it? The lady replied, Yes it says Identification in bold letters across the top(that's about ALL it said), then the other laid said It's fine. Too funny. To anyone thinking of counting, good luck. It's not easy. I quit the sport a few years ago.
I am just curious seeing that randomness doesnot truly exhibit in digital systems. Can someone deduce the order of these decks when they are shuffled. Anyone ?
someone explain to me why they dont just play online. then how do you get kicked out? and you could take as long as you want to count the cards right? unless theyre shuffling randomly or something i guess that would mess stuff up
The article just doesn't ring true to me. For starters, why would anyone go to the trouble and risk of smuggling hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash through an airport? It's just going to raise eyebrows when they start converting it to chips anyway. If they're using that many accomplices, it can't be hard to establish a line of credit under a name that won't trip any alarms with the casinos. If they must have anonymity, it seems cashier's checks or money orders would be a whole lot more convenient. And if it absolutely has to be cash for some reason, I think I'd travel by Amtrak or a chartered/private plane instead of commercial air.
/play/, and the traveling expenses for that many people begin to suck up a significant fraction of the take. My strong suspicion is that the author read an article or two about counting cards and spun the rest from whole cloth.
The schemes they set up to prevent the casinos from detecting the wager patterns seem overcomplicated, too. Why not just use information about the median value of the next few cards to shift the points at which one hits or stays, or chooses to split or double down? And when the deck gets really hot, why not act like you've resolved to play "just a couple more hands"
and leave to justify the go-for-broke bets? Players do that all the time without arousing suspicion.
The numbers and names of the accomplices also sound a bit too imaginative. The mathematicians who develop these schemes are going to want to
You don't go play cards in a shady casino. They're criminals there so play it their way and rob them. You know, guns, blood and corpses, that stuff?
Is hte counterfitting of the money tokens. While the actual money goes though lots of test, token seem to get ignored. In addition most casinos will accept token from other casinos in thier same family and with no problem.
So just figure out how to counterfit them and you are in business. Another benifit would be since you are not counterfitting actual money it would just be a county or maybe state level crime, not federal.