Optical Recognition System To Foil Card Counting?

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Optical Recognition System To Foil Card Counting?

Posted by michael on Monday August 18, 2003 @10:12PM from the house-always-wins dept.

Adair writes "Wired is running this article about a new Optical Recognition System by MindPlay being evaluated by some casinos to keep constant track of table game play in order to identify card counters by their patterns of play. The software, using 14 digital cameras around the table, can keep track of every card played, amounts bet, and even tell the difference between your drink, napkin, cards, chips, and ashtrays."

11 of 427 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Card Counters by utdpenguin · 2003-08-18 22:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

are, if I recall, and I may not, people who pay a whole lot ofattention to the game rihgt? I mean,. it's not like they are using loaded dice or subistuting in the ace thats hidden int he their sock. They are jsut palying intelegent. Damn them!!!! We mustn't allow that!!

--
In Soviet Russia you dant have to put up with these crappy jokes
1. Re:Card Counters by utdpenguin · 2003-08-18 22:26 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  It's just more convenient to cheat the blackjack system than the others because you don't need an electronic device to help you out. But it doesn't make it very fair to the casino or the other players.
  
  So PAYING attention to the game and being creafull is CHEATING. I hope this idea never makes its way into Chess!!
  
  And since I am playing to win. how am I cheating other players when I do my best to win. If they aren't doing their damn best to beat me then they are morons.
  
  --
  In Soviet Russia you dant have to put up with these crappy jokes
What's wrong with counting anyway...?!?! by gd23ka · 2003-08-18 22:17 · Score: 5, Insightful

Why should I make stupid bets at the table when I know better?!?!
1. Re:What's wrong with counting anyway...?!?! by frovingslosh · 2003-08-18 22:47 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  even 5% gain, you should GET UP AND WALK
  Bullshit. Why are so many people who think they know something about gambling so bad at math? If you're going to play, for example, 100 hands of blackjack, it doesn't improve your odds one damn bit to spread those 100 hands over several days or weeks rather than play them at the same sitting. And if you are in any way keeping track of cards that have been played (even some of them) and you know the remaining deck is in your favor, then the GET UP AND WALK logic is extremely flawed, since when you do come back you will not have important knowledge that you have now and it will cost you some number of bets that favor the house before you can get that information again.
  Walking with small gains might keep you from playing as much as someone who does not, and in that sense it would lower your losses over time based on a favorable house percentage, but walking away from a favorable player percentage when you have determined that it is there is extremely bad play, particularly if your intention is as you expressed to come back and fight another day.
  
  --
  I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
2. Re:What's wrong with counting anyway...?!?! by The+Lord+of+Chaos · 2003-08-18 23:07 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Get a grip, man. He's not talking about improving his mathematical odds when he says "get up and walk". He's talking about not getting noticed by the casino manager. If you double their buy-in in the first half-hour you walk in the casino you're going to get noticed and they will ask you to leave. If you keep winning big they'll send your mug around Las Vegas and no one in town will let you gamble.
  
  Every game is always watched at a casino. Looking out for big winners helps them identify the counters that are really costing them. You want to be somewhere below the casino's alert threshold.
  
  Get down from your Ivory Tower for a minute and see how the real world works.
3. Re:What's wrong with counting anyway...?!?! by Scratch-O-Matic · 2003-08-18 23:12 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I was amazed that there was any game at a casino that would give me more than a straight 50% chance of winning.
  
  A friend once told me: the casino doesn't make money when they win a bet. They make money when they lose a bet.
  
  And he was right. The casino doesn't make money because they win more often than they lose. They make money because they don't pay you as much as you deserve when you do win. So the 50% chance of winning is moot. It could be 70% or 90%, as long as they pay you something less than the odds say you deserve. Over time your losses will outweigh your gains.
  
  As an aside, I once sat down at a roulette wheel and started playing the same method you described. I was doing so well that at one point I asked the dealer if it was legal. After a while, I started thinking about my chance of winning versus the payoff, and I realized that the casino still had a substantial advantage. At that moment, I started losing, and walked away empty handed.
  
  And by the way, the best bet in the whole house is the "odds" bet on the craps table, because it pays you what the odds say you deserve, as I described above. The house has no advantage on the odds bet. But you can't make that bet without making another type of bet first, so you can't freeload.
  
  --
  
  Evil is the money of root.
4. Re:What's wrong with counting anyway...?!?! by untaken_name · 2003-08-19 01:16 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Get a grip, man. He's not talking about improving his mathematical odds when he says "get up and walk". He's talking about not getting noticed by the casino manager. If you double their buy-in in the first half-hour you walk in the casino you're going to get noticed and they will ask you to leave. If you keep winning big they'll send your mug around Las Vegas and no one in town will let you gamble.
  
  That's what I've never understood about Vegas. The whole premise is 'come to vegas and win big!' and yet, when you do, you're barred from Vegas?
  That's like being kicked out of Aspen for skiing too well. Why would I want to go to Vegas when I can't improve my chances (without *influencing* the cards, just with math and observation) or I'll be put on some kind of hit list? They rig every damn game to strongly favor the house, but I can't use innate skill? That's just bullshit. I'm sorry, but why does the law support this crap? It's like saying 'you know how to putt, get off my golf course!' It's just stupid. If I just wanted to waste money while being surrounded by loud drunken idiots and half-naked women, I'd just go to New Orleans. At least then I wouldn't have to worry about being banned from the whole damn town.
  
  Looking out for big winners helps them identify the counters that are really costing them.
  
  Costing them? That's a laugh. Any big casino in Las Vegas makes more profit every day than I will likely see in my whole life. I'm sure that the 10k you could win counting is really going to offset the 3mil in cash they took in in a single night. Whatever. I'm all for catching people who are unfairly influencing a game, cause that's what cheating really is. A knowledge of odds/good memory/simple arithmatic skills; these things ARE NOT CHEATING. They'd make merely insane profits with a straight game, not ludicrous. Well, that just gives me less incentive to patronize that city. Fuck Las Vegas. Greedy casino bastards. I'll just practice my system on pogo.com or something.
  
  --
  http://xkcd.com/386/
Marked Deck! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-08-18 22:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

The optical equipment registers every card in play by reading special invisible ink printed on them.

So the house is allowed to use a marked deck!! Surely that can't be allowed, and even if it is how long before someone else works out how to read the cards.
Has anyone else ever tried card counting? by ODD97 · 2003-08-18 22:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

Even the *simplest* system (assigning -1, 0 and +1 to certain cards) is hard enough to keep track of when you practice. Doing so at the casino is incredibly difficult. I can't imagine that the casino would frown upon one guy that can do it walking out with $1,000, when watching his winning streak will inspire 50 people to lose $100 each at the table.
It just doesn't make sense to kick an individual out. Any pit boss will see a table running up using card counting, and can (by casino rules) ask them to leave.

--
The emperor is naked.
Re:They already do this by MoobY · 2003-08-18 22:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

What about the false positives? I don't think casinos care about a winning visitor who is mistakenly seen as a card counter. They should be worried more about the false negatives, those who can trick the computer system into thinking he's not card counting.

--
--- Sigmentation Fault - Comments Dumped
Re:heh by CGP314 · 2003-08-18 23:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

They're going to use a card counting system to defeat card counters. Oh the irony.

From the article:

"We've been telling the casinos not to use the computer to count the cards," says Nevada Gaming Control Board member Scott Scherer. "If players aren't allowed to use a computer to count, then the casino shouldn't be allowed to."

I think the key word there is shouldn't. I don't doubt the casino will use every advantage they can get.