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Optical Recognition System To Foil Card Counting?

Posted by michael on 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."

12 of 427 comments (clear)

  1. Card Counters by utdpenguin · · 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
  2. What's wrong with counting anyway...?!?! by gd23ka · · 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 · · 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 · · 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 untaken_name · · 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/
  3. Eye in the Sky by AtariAmarok · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Reminds me of the Alan Parsons-based musical "The Gambler" that reveals that the "Eye in the Sky" is merely one of those monitors over casino tables.

    The lyrics in the original become more ominous:

    "i am the maker of rules
    dealing with fools
    i can cheat you blind "

    This development is sure to turn Ocean's 11 into Ocean's 0.

    --
    Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
  4. Marked Deck! by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

  5. Great! by rylin · · Score: 5, Funny
    "The software .. even tell the difference between your drink, napkin, cards, chips, and ashtrays."

    Great!
    Hopefully it'll warn me the next time I try drinking from an ashtray

  6. Lone Wolf vs a Pack? by CGP314 · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is interesting, but it sounds as though it is only useful against individual card counters. What could it do against a team of counters like in this older story by wired?

  7. Has anyone else ever tried card counting? by ODD97 · · 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.
  8. Re:heh by CGP314 · · 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.

  9. Outlawing thought? by HarryCallahan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Isn't outlawing card counting kind of like outlawing a certain thought process? I mean even with kiddie molesters we still wait till they make take some kind of action the actual thinking about it isn't illegal (yet). It's like if someone can count cards they have to play stoopid to do it lawfully, "yeah I know there's lots of tens left, but I'll stand anyway don't want to cheat you guys". Maybe it should be casino policy that u has a sub 90 IQ or submit to a lobotomy before you can enter the casino.