IS IT ILLEGAL ?

No. as long as you are using only your brain to count cards as opposed to a computer device) then it is legal. Then how the casino have the authority to kick you out? In Nevada, it is because the casino in on private property and they have the right to ask anyone to leave for any reason. If you count cards and the casino kicks you out and then you return, they can arrest you for tresspassing. Although some people think this is discrimination, it doesn’t meet the legal definition of discrimination because card counters are not members of a classification that is covered by discrimination laws, as defined by the Supreme Court. In Atlantic City the laws state that card counting is allowed. But in response to that rule, the casinos have made the game tougher to beat. They do this several ways: using 8 deck shoes, having lower deck penetration, prohibiting mid-shoe entry (and therefore cutting down on the number of players who sit down only when the count is good).

CAN THEY “BACKROOM” YOU?

Backrooming” is a term used to describe the process in which the casino takes you into their backroom in order to ask for your ID, take your picture, and lecture you (in the OLD days they might even rough you up). Under the laws of most states, it is illegal for a business establishment to detain a person, unless the customer has committed a crime and the business is holding the person while awaiting the arrival of police. So they can detain you if you are cheating (by using a mini computer, etc) but not for card counting.

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Ed Thorp is often credited as the Godfather of card counting, and in many ways, he is the originator of what you might consider “modern” methods of counting cards. But Ed Thorp did not invent card counting, and he was not the first blackjack player to count cards in an attempt to get an advantage over the house.

Playing Blackjack to Win
In 1957, Playing Blackjack to Win was published. The book is important because it’s the first published book about how to count cards in blackjack, five years before the famous Beat the Dealer by Ed Thorp. The book had a small print run and offered sixteen recommended strategy adjustments based on which cards had been exposed. The card counting method recommended in this book was a crude one and didn’t increase the player’s edge to a positive expectation, since it didn’t include a recommendation to vary bet sizes based on the count.

Other Pre-Thorp Card Counters
Ed Thorp himself mentions multiple gambling “characters” with different systems for beating blackjack, some of whom used crude systems for counting cards. With colorful names like “System Smitty” and “Greasy John”, these card counters’ specific methods are lost to history, since Thorp doesn’t go into great detail in Beat the Dealer regarding how they played, other than pointing out that they had a good approximate basic strategy and that Smitty was a progressive bettor.

Jess Marcum, a nuclear physicist for the Rand Corporation was a professional gambler who had figured out how to count cards as early as 1949, and who quit his job with the Rand Corporation in the 1950′s to become a professional gambler and blackjack player.

Harold Smith Sr., the author of I Want to Quit Winners, also counted cards, and preferred to bet bigger when the deck was rich in aces. Smith’s book was published in 1961, a year prior to the publication of Beat the Dealer. (Smith owned and operated a casino in Reno called Smith’s Club in the 1930′s.)

Edward Thorp’s Beat the Dealer
But Thorp’s book, Beat the Dealer, really was the first mathematically proven system for beating blackjack to become available, and he and his book almost single-handedly are responsible for a small cottage industry of professional gamblers today. Thorp became an overnight celebrity and put the fear of card counters into the hearts of casino owners for good. Thorp wasn’t always well-respected and legendary though; he was the subject of much derision and skepticism after the publication of Beat the Dealer.

You can read more about the history of card counting in part two, Edward Thorp versus John Scarne.

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What makes blackjack different from any other casino game is that the house edge is not fixed. Your probability of winning a hand is dependent upon the variety of the cards remaining to be dealt. If the deck contains high cards it favours the player. If the deck contains low cards it favours the dealer. Players can get the edge at Blackjack by using card counting. Card counting does not involve memorizing each card that is dealt from the deck. Instead the use a system to determine the ratio of high cards to low cards remaining in the deck. One of the most popular card methods is the Hi/Lo system which assigns a point value to each type of card in the deck.
Point Values

Spread Based on Count
True Count 2 Decks 6 Decks
0 or less 1 unit 1 unit
+1 2 units 2 units
+2 3 units 4 units
+3 4 units 8 units
+4 5 units 10 units
+5 or more 6 units 12 units

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The basic strategy blackjack chart will simply help you make the best decisions about when to hit, stand, double down or split your hand – Or surrender. Statisticians and mathematicians have calculated a blackjack playing strategy for eliminating most of the casino house advantage.

With the help of computers blackjack players are now able to simulate millions of blackjack hands and from such studies comes the basic blackjack strategy and thereby the online black strategy.

Why does counting cards work? There are various reasons. Here are some of the major ones, in no particular order.

The dealer must hit a rubbish hand (total of 12 to 16), while the player does not. Correct basic strategy is to stand with a rubbish hand against a dealer low card (2 to 6), except a 12 against a 2 or 3, which the odds favor hitting. The player can also get out of some stiff hands by splitting. In a one on one game, the player will bust about 13.0% of hands, and the dealer 28.2%1. If the remaining cards are rich in big cards, that will increase the probability of busting a rubbish hand. This increased probability of busting works against both player and dealer, but the dealer more, because he is forced to hit stiff hands.
There will be more blackjacks when the deck is rich in tens and aces. While the dealer will get just as many blackjacks as the player, the 3 to 2 payoff makes blackjacks more valuable to the player overall. Blackjacks will also tend to occur when counter bets big, because he knows when the remaining cards are ten and ace rich.
Player doubles are more successful in decks rich in tens and aces, when the counter will be betting more.
Player splits are more successful in decks rich in tens and aces, because they are disproportionately against weak dealer cards. In high counts, when the counter bets more, the dealer will bust more often when the player splits.
Insurance is a valuable play to the counter. If the remaining cards are rich in tens, insurance becomes a good bet.

For these reasons, tens and aces are good for the player, and small cards are good for the dealer2. What the card counter does is keep track of the cards as they come out, which tells him what to expect of the remaining cards. If he knows the future holds a disproportionate number of tens and aces, he bets more. Likewise, if he knows the future holds lots of small cards, he bets less, or better yet, nothing. The counter will also deviate from basic strategy sometimes, according to how rich the remaining shoe is in small or big cards.

While Counting cards is a reliable and legal way to beat the casinos, television and movies consistently portray card counting to be an easy road to huge cash. If it were, everyone would be doing it. The fact of the matter is that card counting is hard work for a small advantage. The casino floor supervisors know the basics of card counting, and have access to software to gauge your skill level, by following what you do from the surveillance room. There is always a tradeoff between short-term profits and long-term access to play. If a casino supervisor suspects you of counting, he will usually have no compunction to stop you from playing.

About the best you can expect as a card counter is a 1% advantage. The exact advantage will depend on how strong a strategy you use, game rules, the ratio of your high bet to low bet, how deeply into the shoe the dealer places the cut card, and your skill level as a counter, among other factors.

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Blackjack is a game of skill and card counting can help you gain an advantage in the game. Edward R Thorp is considered the father of card counting. He discovered the principles of card counting and published his method in 1962 in his book Beat the Dealer. His book started the Blackjack revolution and it was also instrumental in the casinos taking action to ban card counters. Card counting is not illegal but casinos can ban players from playing blackjack if they detect that a player is counting cards.

Many people remember the movie Rain Main man where Dustin Hoffman’s character memorized all of the cards coming out of the shoe. This has given the wrong impression as to what card counting really is. Even the term card counting is misleading because when you count cards you are merely keeping track of the ratio of high to low cards left in the deck.

Why It Works
What makes blackjack different from any other casino game is that the house edge is not fixed. The odds of getting a natural blackjack are dependent upon the cards that have already been dealt and the cards remaining in the deck. If an ace is dealt on the first round the odds of drawing another ace has gone down.

In the game of blackjack your probability of winning a hand is dependent upon the mix of the cards remaining in the deck. If the mix of cards remaining in the deck contains high value cards, it is a positive and is favorable for the player. When the deck contains a large number of tens and aces it increases the players chances of drawing a pat hand (17 or higher) or getting a natural blackjack. It also increases the chances that the dealer will bust. Even though the dealer is just as likely to draw a good hand when the deck is positive, the player is getting paid 3 to 2 for a natural blackjack. This is why card counters raise the size of their bets when the deck is rich with high cards. They may also deviate from basic strategy depending on the count.

If the cards remaining in the deck are low value cards, it is negative and it favors the dealer. Card counters usually lower their bets when the count is negative. When the deck is rich in low cards it less likely that the dealer will make a pat hand and it is also makes it less likely that the dealer will busts when he has to draw.

Counting Methods
The concept of counting cards is simple. Each rank of card is assigned a point value and the card counter adds or subtracts those points to get a “running count” to determine if the deck is positive or negative. There are many different card counting systems used by the players. Some are more complex than others but they all are designed to keep track of the high and low cards left in the deck.

The values assigned to the cards determine whether a counting system is balanced or unbalanced. A balanced card counting method such as the popular Hi/Lo values a complete 52 card deck as zero. When you use a balanced counting system you keep a running count of the cards as they are played but you then have to divide running count by the number of decks not yet played to get the true count.

With an unbalanced method such as Speed Count or Knock Out (KO) the total of the 52 card deck does not add up to zero. You start with a predetermined number to tell you when the deck is positive or negative instead of using zero as a starting point. The advantage to using an unbalanced method is that it is simpler because you don’t have to estimate the remaining decks and convert to the true count.

Getting the Edge
The purpose of any of the card counting methods is to tell the player when the deck is positive with high value cards. The Blackjack player gains the edge over the house by betting more when the deck is positive and sometimes even deviating from basic strategy. The difference between the size of your bet when the deck is neutral or negative and the amount you increase as it becomes positive is known as the spread. As the positive count increase so does your advantage.

More Than Counting
Being a successful card counter takes more than just being able to keep track of the cards. Many players find that they can successfully count a deck in the privacy of the quiet home but then have difficulty in a noisy casino with all of the distractions. Successful card counters must also be able to camouflage their play so they can go undetected by the casino pit bosses. The easiest way to get caught counting cards is to make big jumps in your bets from one hand to the next. You have to learn play a cat and mouse game with the casino and if you can do that you can get the advantage over the house.

Be Realistic
There are many players counting cards and making money but you have to be realistic about your results. Card counting will only give you a one to two percent edge over the house and the advantage you gain by card counting is based on the long run and your given results during any single session can vary greatly. When the deck is positive they dealer has just as likely a chance of getting the high cards as you do. Still any edge you can gain over the casino is worth the effort that it takes to learn and winning is a lot more fun.

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This Video will show you how to count cards on your I-Phone

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