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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.
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
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)
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.
Casinos, on the other hand, bar card counters. Ensuring they keep profiting from poor old retirees and others who don't understand basic probability. Reminds me of a
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.
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Yeah, I called up Hillary Rosen to ask her if using my CDs to make a compilation disc for my personal use is stealing. She said it is.
If counting cards was actually cheating, the casinos would have card counters arrested rather than simply ejecting them.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
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
So let me get this straight... using skill at card counting to win is cheating, but setting up a game so that you're guranteed to win in the long run (w/o counting) isn't? Hmmmm...
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
When you win large amounts at a casino, you get chips at a table, which are then cashed in at a cashier's window. They make you fill out tax forms if you cash out more than $10,000, but less than that is up to you to report (or, ahem, not). If you however cash out several times for $9,000, there is no automatic tax reporting... and you needn't show any ID at all.
;) but I've seen it happen.
So, you're holding a wad of cash untraceable to you and you're going to voluntarily report it to the IRS so's they can take ~40% of it? And you're a card counter? Riiiiight.
Turning $200,000 into a cashier's check requires running that money through a bank and raises a big red flag to the IRS. Carrying big wads of cash == ~40% increase in profits.
Not that I've ever won anywhere near enough for this to be an issue
"Luck is the residue of design" --Branch Rickey
ummmm. no. The "odds" bet has Zero edge. Nada. You get paid based on the odds of the event happening. For instance Odds on a point of ten (this is behind the pass line) pays $2 for every $1 wagered. This is because there are six ways to lose ( six ways to roll 7: 1-6, 6-1, 5-2, 2-5, 4-3, 3-4) and only three ways to win ( 5-5, 6-4, 4-6) 6:3 = 2:1. This is, to my knowledge, the ONLY bet in a casino which has no house edge (in other words, in the long run, the casino makes no money from it. That's why you usually don't get comp credit for odds bets)
BUT, to be able to place that bet, you have to place a pass bet, which DOES have a small house edge (1.414%). This is why casino's limit the size of the odds bets to some multiple of the size of the pass line (or don't pass line) bet. When you see an advertisement for 3x craps, that means you can place 3 times your pass line bet.
Want some good, cheap entertainment while gambling? Forget slots. Go play craps. Ask the dealer for help. Just play the pass line for the minimum (usually $5, but you can find cheaper in downtown Vegas) and the max odds behind it unless it's out of your $$$ range. Cheer like a mad heyena, drink a lot, and under no circumstances say "seven" out loud. Craps players are a superstituious lot.
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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.