Ever since the ingenious blackjack card counting strategies of Edward O. Thorpe, the father of modern card counting and author of the revolutionary card counting bible “Beat The Dealer,” and Ken Uston, the innovator of blackjack card counting team-play and author of “Million Dollar Blackjack,” became known to casinos, a worldwide casino crackdown on card counters went into effect. It started in the late 1970s and has continued to the present day—or has it? In fact, what is happening now across the world, and especially in Las Vegas and Atlantic city, is that casinos are drastically altering their outlooks and policies concerning card counters. Believe it not, not only are most casinos in the US and UK relaxing their restrictive attitudes toward card counters, many are actually inviting them to come and play at their blackjack tables! Why this sudden change in latitude? Some of you probably guessed it: it’s due to the tremendous success and publicity surrounding the Kevin Spacey blackjack movie “21.” After having seen the movie, everyone and his grandmother wants to rush out to Vegas and become a professional blackjack card counter—and make a killing! But it is possible? Apparently the casinos have decided to make it possible.
For years, or even decades, their attitude has been “absolutely no tolerance of card counters.” Everything from casino security backroom strong-arm tactics to actual Gaming Control Board Enforcement Division arrests (mainly illegal ones as per the James Grosjean case) had been carried out against card counters, and even wannabe card counters. But suddenly casinos have decided to cash in on the newfound blackjack card counting publicity. How? By letting the counters play! Their new consensus, and I agree with it, is that the vast majority of card counters and so-called card counters will only lose their money. Only a small percentage of even what can be considered professional card counting teams will make any serious money in the long-run. So casinos have now been adopting a policy of “let everyone play; we will lose to some really professional card counting teams but we will win tons from those professional card counting “pretenders.” To me their new policy makes great sense, and the casinos will only reap more profits due to the success and publicity of the film “21” based on the MIT Blackjack Team and their new open-door policy.
So, what this really means for those few who are absolutely dedicated and disciplined enough to make a go out of professional card-counting is that golden opportunities to make money will abound—and I think for a long time to come! If you don’t want to take my word for it, take Jeff Murphy’s word for it. Murphy, a casino table games expert as well as an ex-surveillance director and a frequent contributor to Willie Allison’s World Game Protection Conference Newsletter that is sent out to casino surveillance departments all over the world, (and also a personal enemy of mine even though we have never met), wrote in the August edition of the WGPC Newsletter that casinos across the world should indeed welcome card counters with open arms! And don’t forget that his writings are targeted directly to casino executives who make decisions regarding the protection of casino assets, which, according to Murphy, are not threatened by card counters. And, as much as I hate to agree with Murphy on anything, I have to agree with him here: card counters as a whole will never threaten casinos—but for those few who have what it takes, there is indeed a rainbow at the end of the Yellow Brick Road.
For those of you who are interested in more about professional card counting and training, see my blackjack card counting page.
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