Computer-Based System To Crack Down On Casino Card Counters

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Yahoo Tech outlining a system currently being researched: "Card counting is perfectly legal — all a counter does is attempt to keep track of whether the cards remaining in a deck are favorable to his winning a hand (mainly if there are lots of tens and aces remaining in the deck) — but it's deeply frowned upon by Vegas casinos. Those caught counting cards are regularly expelled from casinos on the spot and are often permanently banned from returning. But given the slim house odds on Blackjack, it's often said that a good card counter can actually tip the odds in his favor by carefully controlling the way he bets his hands. And Vegas really doesn't care for that. The anti-card-counter system uses cameras to watch players and keep track of the actual 'count' of the cards, the same way a player would. It also measures how much each player is betting on each hand, and it syncs up the two data points to look for patterns in the action. If a player is betting big when the count is indeed favorable, and keeping his chips to himself when it's not, he's fingered by the computer... and, in the real world, he'd probably receive a visit from a burly dude in a bad suit, too. The system reportedly works even if the gambler intentionally attempts to mislead it with high bets at unfavorable times." It's not developed in Vegas, though, according to the brief description (the other projects are also interesting) from the University of Dundee's release, but rather in conjunction with the Dundee Casino.

Comments

And things like this are why...

[TheSpoom]

I will never play Blackjack in a casino environment, unless it's for negligible amounts of money.

"How dare you attempt to win one of our games!"

Re:And things like this are why...

[anagama]

I have a lifetime $1200 positive average at roulette (I don't bet large amounts) in my local tribal casino. I've never been to vegas, but I'd imagine the casinos have better resources there. When I play roulette, I look for wheels that aren't level or on wobbly tables (tilt reduces randomness), watch for croupiers with a habitual spin pattern (also reduces randomness), and observe for a long enough time to feel reasonably comfortable with the pattern. Then, and this is the absolute most important part, I walk away when I hit my goal, usually $50 or $100. I've failed to walk away letting the emotion of winning overcome me, and have usually lost my winnings that way.

The thing is, it turns out to be so much work that it feels more like a second job than an entertaining Friday night. As a result, I think I've only played twice in the last two years. Gambling is about a mental state where one thinks about "easy money". When you have to work at it, the easy money glitter goes away and it quickly becomes boring repetitive work. Anyway, to your question, a skilled croupier could easily destroy all the work a player makes at observing wheel/croupier patterns. I know there were certain croupiers I simply would not play against.

As for the math, if a croupier is dropping the ball on one half of the board 75% of the time, and playing every number in that sector gives you a 47% chance of winning (double zero wheel), you'd be an idiot not to bet. But it takes a while to find the lazy croupiers and you have to watch over many visits to make sure it wasn't a fluke. Toward the end, Friday morning began to feel almost exactly like Sunday night does when you hate your job. So I quit.

Re:White trash Re:And things like this are why...

[dargaud]

There's actually one very good reason to go to Vegas: to climb the excellent sandstone of Red Rocks, just a couple miles off the city. But for all I care you could nuke the city; it would certainly lower the amount of car break-ins while we are out climbing.

Re: their choice is...

[EdIII]

I had heard before that for the most part they don't care about people trying to count cards because it's hard to do correctly

That seems to be true with most casinos in Las Vegas. My friend would tell them he was going to count cards and most of the time the pit bosses actually come over smiling. They want to see if you can actually pull it off.

99/100 dumbasses that say they can do it are full of shit, screw it up, and ultimately look foolish in front of the casino. That was straight from the pit boss. They really don't seem too worried about it.

My friend was the 1/100. He kept it small though and we just ending up getting comped into a couple of shows and buffets since he was bringing a lot of other action to the table.