Counting Cards Targeted By Casinos

Posted by admin on February 2, 2010

Counting cards is widespread and taught as one of the key strategy tips. The fact that casinos have started to take countermeasures is proof that it does work. If it didn’t, the casinos would embrace all the card counters to play at their tables.

Some of the countermeasures being used by casinos is the use of more decks or they may have the dealers shuffle more often. There is a downside to the frequent shuffling because it reduces the time that players are playing and losing money to the house. Casinos have started using automatic shufflers to make up for the loss of time. Some automatic shufflers will shuffle a deck while another is use. Others, allow the dealer to return used cards to the shuffler without slowing play. A continuous shuffler will remove almost all possible advantage of counting cards as the cards are being returned and the only ones that can be counted are what is showing on the table.

Other countermeasures that hurt card counters are casinos using new rules such as no double down after a split or having a dealer hit an ace/six which could play as 7 of 17. Other casinos changed the odds from 3:2 pay off to 6:5 pay off. Unwary card counters stumble into these new odds because they are generally played with a single deck which lets the card counter think they will have the better 3:2 odds and makes the house virtually unbeatable.

Some casinos will have a pit-boss invite a card counter into a different game or ban them from the casino. This is not legal in Atlantic City and a few others casinos. For these casinos the pit-boss can require the card counter to flat-bet or disallow new entrants after play has begun. Many casinos also use surveillance cameras to name and photo ID card counters and share these with other casinos.