Can a casino legally kick you out for counting cards?

Card counting is NOT illegal under federal, state and local laws in the United States as long as players don't use any external card-counting device or people who assist them in counting cards. In their effort to identify card counters, casinos can ban players believed to be counters — sort of.

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Make Your Bookie Cry And Pull The Hair By Generating $23,187

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Mark Pilarski

Special to the Detroit Free Press

QUESTION: When it comes to blackjack, why is counting cards considered a form of cheating? I see it as a case of someone being very good at the game. In my view, it's no different from a poker player who is skilled at bluffing and reading the body language and facial expressions of others at the table. — Gary P. ANSWER: When it comes to counting cards, you don’t need to be a math whiz. All card counting does is establish mathematically the degree to which the as-yet-undealt deck favors the dealer or the player. Counters do this by tracking the changing imbalance of big and little cards in a diminishing deck. Card counters theoretically have an advantage of anywhere from 0.5% to 1.5% over the casino. A deck rich with high cards (10, jack, queen, king, ace) favors the player, whereas an excess of low cards (2, 3, 4, 5, 6) favors the dealer. When that ratio favors the counting player, he or she bets more money; when it favors the dealer, the counter bets less. Your implied assertion, Gary, that counting cards is considered a form of cheating is erroneous. Card counting is NOT illegal under federal, state and local laws in the United States as long as players don't use any external card-counting device or people who assist them in counting cards. In their effort to identify card counters, casinos can ban players believed to be counters — sort of. It depends on where you are playing. For instance, in Atlantic City, casinos will let you take a whack at counting cards — again, sort of. The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that players cannot be discriminated against because of their playing skills (counting), even if they're detected.

Mark Pilarski: Craps games are strange in California

As a result, Jersey shore casinos employ countermeasures to hinder card counters. They try to impede a card-counting blackjack player by using eight-deck shoes, shuffling at will to thwart bet variance and instructing the dealers to move the cut card near the top of the shoe. In Nevada, before you sit down at a blackjack table, you're expected to check your brain at the door. There, laws allow casinos to operate somewhat like a private club, so plan on being asked to leave for using your cerebral matter. Though counting isn't technically illegal, casinos in Nevada bar counters from playing blackjack by backing them off games. Counters can expect a pit boss to come up to them and unsympathetically say: “We appreciate your business, but we are going to ask you to stop playing blackjack here. Feel free to play any of the other table games that we offer.” Translated, that means go play any other game that has a much higher house edge. Mark Pilarski is a contributing editor for numerous gambling publications. E-mail questions to pilarski@markpilarski.com.

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How much money should I bring to a blackjack table?

A decent rule of thumb is to bring at least 100 betting units (for a 4 hour session). So if your betting unit is $100, then I'd bring $10K.

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The Honest Answer

Well, it depends. I’ll give you a neat, clean, mathy answer about it in a minute, but honestly it’s complicated. And while many professional card counters are quick to say, “I wouldn’t bother getting into card counting with less than $20,000,” I cannot give you that same answer. Why? Because that’s not our story. I started with $2,000. though I don’t think I ever bought in past my first $1,000 stake. Ben started with $800. Did we start with a perfect game? Doubtful. But we worked our tails off to get perfect at blackjack. Were we patient? Absolutely. I estimate that I was generating about $5/hr to 7/hr for the first couple months, but we were growing something so it didn’t matter! Were we lucky? Probably. Our risk of ruin (the odds of losing our entire blackjack bankroll) would give most card counters (not including Ben) severe hypertension. Were we aggressive? Insanely. We weren’t worried about backoffs, and would play a 1-20 bet spread or higher, always playing the table minimum below a true 1 and leaving the table at a true -1. While a $20,000 initial stake would be great, that’s not our story, nor is it realistic for many people. But, you’ll have to be patient, aggressive, have a perfect game, and you may need to be willing to take on a little more risk. But then again, never starting your card counting career is also a risk.

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