r/NonPoliticalTwitter Jul 20 '26

Funny Hit me.

Post image
Upvotes

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

u/Rawhide_Steaksauce Jul 20 '26

The crazy thing is that casinos would make more money if they allowed card counters to play. For every person who makes a few grand, there's a hundred morons who think "easy money!", and drop a mortgage payment.

u/CarmenxXxWaldo Jul 20 '26

they dont stop the ones that are losing, count away champ.

u/Deep90 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26

For real.

Nobody has ever been kicked out for being shit at card counting.

u/Mysteriouspaul Jul 20 '26

You could be a literal AI card counting machine at 100% correct moves and 100% playtime efficiency (making your move before the card even properly sits on the table) and still hit runs of bad variance in the scale of negative 6 figures, even with "modest" bet ranges. It is very unlikely something like this will happen on any given day but most counters will hit strings of casinos across entire states over the span of weeks while playing 10+ hours a day. You will hit bad variance at that point

I've also seen casinos kick out card counters that were down 20,000 or more on the day just because they still knew they were counting and it's statistically more likely they will "win" on any given hand. If anything they're more likely to hit a run of good hands at that point of being so far down assuming perfect play

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '26

[deleted]

u/Forward-Cup-9513 Jul 20 '26

Yes, I also found that ironic. It sounds like they gamble, to be honest.

u/bromeatmeco Jul 20 '26

No, it wasn't gambler's fallacy. It's how card counting works; if the count is low, the player is at a disadvantage (relative to the normal house edge) and at an advantage when it's high. So if a card counter is down, but they're on the same shoe (stack of decks), then it's not gambler's fallacy for them to stay at the table as long as they keep their strategy straight. Once the shoe runs out, then it's reset.

u/FerricNitrate Jul 20 '26

down 20,000 or more on the day

Unless they've randomly chosen a high roller table for their scenario, that player has gone through many shoes such that it's readily assumed they're at a neutral state of play. Thus, inferring future winnings from past, independent losses is absolutely gambler's fallacy

u/bromeatmeco Jul 20 '26

Now I see what you mean, yes.

u/Mysteriouspaul Jul 21 '26

I don't gamble, but I do believe in large numbers and large trends. I understand gamblers fallacy but you also can only get so unlucky while on the 10th millionth data point

u/TenBillionDollHairs Jul 20 '26

For an individual yes but from a casino's point of view if you know they are counting then a return to profitability is just mean reversion and not magical thinking

u/Keljhan Jul 20 '26

Not if theyre at the same table. Losing generally means the count is getting higher and higher, so their odds are getting better. Not sure what the rules are about just reshuffling the deck, but the result would be the same anyway. The counter would leave.

u/frostyfoxemily Jul 20 '26

Not really. If you win 51% of the time but happen to hit the 49% repeatedly is life. The assumption being if you play enoug hands that the line will trend to be 51% over time.

Kinda like if we flip 10 coins its probably not going to be 50/50. But if you flip a million coins you would tend to see a close to 50/50 outcome.

Its not a fallacy just a stats that enough events repeatedly will trend to the expected outcome. Not that any individual action is more or less likely.

Its litterally how casinos work against you.

u/m4vis Jul 20 '26

In this context, not really. If you are counting, you will be playing basic strategy (which is the optimal play style in a vacuum but still on average loses to the house edge) while betting the bare minimum and bleeding money until the count becomes sufficiently high that the player gets a significant edge over the house. Which can be quite the long bleed because the count is divided by the number of decks in the shoe, so it takes much longer for the count to get high if they are using many decks. At which point you change your betting style to one that is more like playing with an expectation that a high card will show up, which you know for a fact is more likely to happen because the count being high means that there are relatively more high cards in the shoe compared to other cards in a full deck.

Then you bet the maximum allowed anytime the reveal of a high card would cause you to win, often in situations that would be suboptimal according to basic strategy. The chances of the dealer busting are much higher in certain hands, so you do things like splitting normally shitty pairs when you see that the dealer is showing a card that you now know on average will cause him to bust. So you lose the minimum amount of money consistently until the count becomes high, then you make it all back with interest by max betting on hands that take advantage of the count. The gamblers fallacy is when someone is inferring the odds are changing based on the results of previous events when in reality every event is independent. But in blackjack, the odds actually are changing with the reveal of every card.

u/TheShamShield Jul 20 '26

No, it’s not. Gamblers fallacy is thinking that a single outcome is affected by the others’ outcome

u/TheCthonicSystem Jul 20 '26

No. It's just how Card Counting Works

u/nedonedonedo Jul 21 '26

if each play is better than 50% odds that the casino loses money it's better to kick them out when the player is losing than to hope they keep losing

u/Classic-Airport-8187 Jul 20 '26

gambler’s fallacy is that bad luck is necessarily compensated by good luck and vice versa, but this is just regression to the mean since the premise is that you will do better due to having average luck, and it’s more likely to have average luck than way below average luck; a long run of bad luck is always likely to end.

u/nonotan Jul 20 '26

Previous results are independent from future results. Given that you've just had a streak of bad luck, it's not any more likely that the streak will end than it is that you would have good luck first thing that day, or after a good streak, or on any other timing. The previous results are literally irrelevant, as far as "luck" goes.

If anything, a streak of "bad luck" might be evidence that they're actually unskilled and likely to continue losing. It doesn't have to be, but to the extent that you can tell anything from the fact that somebody just lost a bunch, absent any other context, it's that they are more likely to keep losing (compared to the situation where you knew absolutely nothing), because there are at least some hypothetical universes where those losses are not caused by bad luck despite optimal play.

u/Classic-Airport-8187 Jul 20 '26

it is likely for the streak to end because more average results are inherently more likely. what happened before doesn’t influence the future it’s just that average results are independently more likely. it is likely that a streak of bad luck will end because it is by definition less likely to have bad luck than good luck.

like imagine a situation where we say you have a 98% chance to get results considered average and a 1% chance to get “bad” or “good” luck. would you be willing to bet on getting bad instead of average luck, even if you had already got a lot of bad luck ? of course not, a 98% chance is still a 98% chance. i’m basically just saying that unlikely things are unlikely.

and yeah of course this is all assuming the card counter is genuinely proficient but you can’t say anything without having some built in assumptions.

u/greg19735 Jul 20 '26

If anything they're more likely to hit a run of good hands at that point of being so far down assuming perfect play

this is definitely gambler's fallacy.

u/chucktheninja Jul 20 '26

I kn9w it sounds like the gamblers fallacy, but if you're counting cards right, you really are skewing the edge in your favor. For most people though, the edge isn't big enough to consistently profit since you often need to blow a lot of money before the deck gets into a state where you can start winning consistently.

u/greg19735 Jul 20 '26

You can get an edge counting cards, sure.

but the guy doesn't say "if the count is right he has an edge now" he says because he has been losing he'll likely get better results.

you can count cards perfectly and get unlucky and lose.

u/chucktheninja Jul 20 '26

That is how counting cards works. You make small bets when the deck is bad. You lose that money. As the deck burns through nore cards, it gets better. You will get better results when the deck is hot. Yes you can still lose, but the casinos kick you out for doing it for a reason.

→ More replies (0)

u/Classic-Airport-8187 Jul 20 '26

This is kind of an insane argument i’m giving here, but you can interpret the comment as A and B (A is assumed correct and B is correct due to advantage) or as A and B and A implies B and both forms are logically equivalent to each other via conditional proof, but only the former is obviously correct in natural language (since it’s just two true statements)

u/Deep90 Jul 20 '26

If you're maintaining a statistical edge, you aren't shit at card counting, even if you are down.

u/Cool_Departure5702 Jul 20 '26

right but you can still be broke

u/ThePisces2k Jul 21 '26

Good card counters will calculate the odds of losing their entire starting fund and tweak their betting methods to lower those odds.

u/Cool_Departure5702 Jul 24 '26

the odds will never be zero

u/mahamoti Jul 20 '26

If anything they're more likely to hit a run of good hands at that point of being so far down assuming perfect play

Lolol

u/Conscious-Gap-1777 Jul 21 '26

 If anything they're more likely to hit a run of good hands at that point of being so far down assuming perfect play

This is 100% false. You are never due for anything in gambling. There was a famous incident of a roulette wheel not going black (or red? I forget which) for hours, and gamblers started putting insane money on the one that was "due" any moment.

House cleaned up.

No one's ever, ever due.

u/Karyoplasma Jul 20 '26

There are devices called perfect strategy computers and they are obviously cheating. They remember every card left in the shoe, not just the simplified count like a card counter would, and calculate the perfect move in every situation based on that.

Using one of those gives you about a 3% advantage over the house, normal card counting and having a firm grasp at general strategy would be around a 1 to 1.5% advantage. But, yeah, you could still lose money using one of those.

u/ThePisces2k Jul 21 '26

The whole point of card counting is that “The Law of Big Numbers” will kick in eventually and your loss and win streaks will balance out to the theoretical probability. This means if you’re card counting correctly, you will always earn your money back because you’ll have roughly a 52% winrate.

u/seaspirit331 Jul 20 '26

No, they still kick out shit card counters. At least in certain well-known (read:notorious) casinos in the AP community. There are a couple spots in Vegas that will back you off anytime you up your bet by a certain amount.

u/immortalsauce Jul 20 '26

This is not true. I’m a card counter and I have seen (and any other counter that has been doing it for a bit has also seen) people who aren’t even trying to count cards get kicked out. Casino staff don’t often know a ton about card counting and they’re way too sensitive when it comes to thinking losing players are winning players.

Plus they can’t detect bankroll (how much money one is devoting to the trade). A counter may be doing everything right but because of their low bankroll relative to how they play, it may be very likely they go broke and there’s no way for casinos to know if a counter is over betting for their bankroll.

u/adius Jul 20 '26

Do you think this could be happening more often post-covid as the casinos feel like they have to work harder to stem any bleeding due to lower traffic from 'normal' gamblers?

u/seaspirit331 Jul 20 '26

Oh almost certainly. I had to give up trying for any sort of meaningful profit just because the heat and rule changes have gotten so bad recently. Now I just have a much smaller fund that I use on vacations if there's a place with good rules.

I've mathed it out before, and I think with a minimum spread I'm barely breaking even, but the casinos still don't like that if the looks from pit bosses have meant anything. Nowadays I mostly just stick to poker because it's a lot less stressful 🤣

u/pax284 Jul 20 '26

Former Put Boss here(though I left the industry pre-covid so this may not be true anymore). I could sit there and know for a fact you were counting I wouldn't step in until you were up big enough that I had to actually start giving a shit about people above me getting involved. I never kicked out a counter that was losing. Granted this was a small casino in Indana s not exactly a gambling hot bed.

u/NickRick Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26

They do stop players who are losing, if they are showing signs of counting and just getting unlucky

u/Main-Cheesecake3287 Jul 20 '26

Yes, they absolutely do.

u/foggy123 Jul 20 '26

Not true at all. Some pit bosses kick you out as soon as they sniff card counting even if you lose that hand. Card Counters don't always win. Card counting basically requires waiting for the count to be in your favor. Card counters win by playing a lot and by betting when the count is in their favor, so you can go on streaks of losses and even when the count is in your favor you can lose so yes there are days where counters lose big. That's why some counters go in teams so basically more hands more winnings and on certain days some people may come out negative.

u/seaspirit331 Jul 20 '26

And even when the count is in your favor and you're betting big, it's only in your favor by a couple of percentage points. Card counters can and will over the course of their careers go on massive losing streaks, because at the end of the day these are essentially still just coinflips, but with the coin coming up tails only 48% of the time instead of 51%.

u/So_HauserAspen Jul 20 '26

A lot of people seem to believe OP content is a real experience and not some make believe attention grab

u/loslosati Jul 20 '26

They will. I'm sure it depends on the casino and other factors, but I've heard about counters being backed off quite quickly, even if they lost a bet. Was just reading about one such incident in the Vegas sub this morning, actually.

u/The_GoodDr Jul 20 '26

That's usually when they're using facial recognition. There are databases of known card counters and some casinos will walk anyone in them. You don't even have to play.

u/FabulousFerdinand Jul 21 '26

Yes they do.

u/KSF_WHSPhysics Jul 21 '26

They absolutely stop the ones that are losing

u/KamakaziDemiGod Jul 20 '26

Card counting isnt actually against the rules, they can just ask you to leave if they suspect you are doing it successfully

So you've just described how casinos make money

u/Whosebert Jul 20 '26

they can do it at any game at any time, you just mostly only hear about it with black jack and they only do it if you win assloads

u/djddanman Jul 20 '26

Yep. A business in the US can refuse service to anyone for any reason other than a short list of protected reasons. Winning too much is not protected.

u/Annie_Yong Jul 20 '26

It makes sense if you think about it from a more individual angle: if someone's continuously kicking your ass at a videogame that you've been playing for money in each round, you are free to decide you don't want to play with the other person anymore.

For blackjack, you are free to cut your losses as a player at any time and just stop playing. So yeah, the casino can use the same logic to decide that you're winning too much and that they don't want to play with you anymore either.

The fact that the odd in so many games are stacked against you and in favour of the house is why you shouldn't be playing in the first place though. Or, at the very least, do t go into a casino thinking you're going to win and just see it as going into an arcade: you take in money to play some games and when you're out of money, you're done.

u/PinsToTheHeart Jul 20 '26

I mean, they can have the right to do something and still be kinda scummy for it. The analogy doesn't quite work because the casino isn't your friend or some random person. Its a for-profit business, so you're never operating on equal footing to begin with.

Cutting off people for winning too much at a Casino is more like someone in an ELO based game refusing to play people better than them so they can continue to farm points without any risk.

Don't get me wrong, I also don't think anyone should ever walk into a casino planning to win big, but that doesn't mean the Casino should have free reign to screw people over either.

u/YoureProbablyAB0t Jul 20 '26

Usually this topic is full of people looking like the meme.

But I'm surprised to see someone with a fairly even perspective. 100% the casino can decide to not play against someone they think might win. They never take back winnings from a card counter. They just say we don't want to play against them.

Card counting is so specific though. It's not difficult to learn but in order to turn the odds in your favor you have to be precise.

u/RechargedFrenchman Jul 20 '26

The casinos often won't even "kick you out" (certainly not ban you from the premises) if they've decided you're counting, they'll just ban you from that game's tables and maybe others like it. You're welcome to go play craps or slots or whatever where your edge at blackjack can't be used to get a different edge over the casino. Even something like poker is fine since the casino is making its money in the rake and who's winning each hand is irrelevant.

Now if you're banned from the blackjack tables and get caught sitting at them again or otherwise make a big fuss or whatever sure the response from the establishment will step up.

u/readilyunavailable Jul 20 '26

The Casino is set up with the premise that both parties agree to put up money to a game of chance and let "luck" decide who wins it. If one of the parties then only allows plays that benefit them, then they break the rules of that agreement and the other party would be within their rights to seek redress.

It's like people that get kicked out of an all you can eat buffet. If you don't actually plan to do good on your advertisement of "all you can eat" then you are just lying to the customer.

u/Annie_Yong Jul 20 '26

Yes, and if you win a hand (or even a few) the casino does have to pay out. But they can then decide at any point that they're done playing with you because you're too good. I don't think I've seen a casino ever make a claim like "you can keep playing all you want and we'll never cut you off".

Hell, most buffets don't run with "all you can eat" anymore and even have policies about you having to pay if you leave food waste behind.

u/johnnymarsbar Jul 20 '26

Even then if a business wants to make you leave or not hire you for protected reasons they'll just make up some bullshit.

u/OhWhatsHisName Jul 20 '26

Even then if a business wants to make you leave or not hire you for protected reasons they'll just make up some bullshit.

That always baffles my mind when someone is fired for a protected reason. Like, you can LEGALLY fire anyone for anyone reason other than the protected classes, so when people are fired for those protected reasons, it's just like.... WHY?!?!? You could have legally fired them for chit chatting too much, for coming in 1 minute late, for coming in 1 minute early, for wearing a blue shirt, for literally any other reason other than protected classes..... and you chose the VERY limited list of things to fire them for!?!?!

Now granted, firing someone without cause will mean they'll be given unemployment and the business will probably pay higher UI, and while the real reason you wanted to fired them was a protected class, as long as you pick something else, they have to then prove it actually was for the protected class... but they don't have to prove shit when you hand them the proof.

u/johnnymarsbar Jul 20 '26

Im atleast happy that its fairly hard to get fired here in Ireland, I hear in certain American states you can be fired instantly for whatever reason. For example here you can be late up by up to 10 minutes every shift and they cant fire you due to it being "reasonable lateness" that may be hard to defend in court but its there I suppose. If you're in a union its nigh impossible to be fired.

However if you're trying to find a home, god help you, its illegal to refuse people who are on HAP (Housing Assistance Payment) which helps struggling families pay rent, a landlord is required to accept HAP families. After some testing it seems that if you mention that you take part in this scheme THEY WILL NOT CONSIDER YOU, fact.

The housing market here is completely fucked and so predatory to the point where they will have literal rent auctions.

u/OhWhatsHisName Jul 20 '26

I hear in certain American states you can be fired instantly for whatever reason. For example here you can be late up by up to 10 minutes every shift and they cant fire you due to it being "reasonable lateness" that may be hard to defend in court but its there I suppose.

For some context, in the US when it comes to employment law, each state does have their own laws so what applies in one state may not apply in another, although there is a lot of similarities.

Generally speaking: you can be fired "for cause" and "without cause" and these will determine if you can collect unemployment.

For cause means you did something that warrants immediate termination. Lets say you stole something significant (let's say $1,000 cash, and I'm saying clearly stole, it wasn't someone taking money to buy something for the business and there's confusion around it, I mean clear cut theft), and you got fired for it, this would be "for cause". You were at fault for this and you cannot collect unemployment.

"Without cause" means the employee wasn't at fault. Let's say a company is closing a location and letting employees go. These employees would be able to collect unemployment.

Now of course there's a drastically huge grey area in between. Using your late example, yes, they can legally use that as a reason to fire someone. Now does that fall under with or without cause? If it's the very first time, then most states would probably see it as "without cause", so the employee would be able to collect unemployment. If it's a pattern of being late, and the has given the employee multiple warnings about not being late, and the company tries to put the employee on some disciplinary review, and the company has shown they have tried to work the with employee on this, then the Xth time they are late after all those things they get fired, then it would probably be seen as "with cause".

If you're in a union its nigh impossible to be fired.

Very similar here, it's just that so many jobs are not unionized.

However if you're trying to find a home, god help you, its illegal to refuse people who are on HAP (Housing Assistance Payment) which helps struggling families pay rent, a landlord is required to accept HAP families.

There are various programs here to help low income people pay for housing, but landlords are not required to accept it, and in order to accept it, they have to be approved to do it. And there's lots of issues with these programs as well. On top of state laws, local laws (usually city) can have additional rules and requirements as well.

For the most part, landlords can set their own standards on who they accept, but cannot refuse anyone based on a protected class (basically the same as reasons you cannot fire someone), but again, it would be up to the renter to prove that is why the landlord rejected them. So a landlord could have in their mind that they rejected a family because they were a minority, but if the landlords says it's because they got an application from a family that had longer and more stable job history and thus seemed like a safer bet, then they're probably in the clear.

The housing market here is completely fucked and so predatory to the point where they will have literal rent auctions.

I wouldn't be surprised if that becomes a thing here too, if it isn't already.

u/johnnymarsbar Jul 20 '26

Thank god there are at least some protections, we'd be alot worse off without them, those in power do not have our wellbeing in mind thats for sure.

u/OhWhatsHisName Jul 20 '26

Thank god there are at least some protections

Some being the keyword...

If a company wants to fire someone and not pay severance nor have the employee collect unemployment, they often start writing the employee up for every little thing. 10 minutes late one day, a small mistake the next, and so on, to the point that they have built a case that the employee is a constant problem, and can be fired for cause.

Unemployment is temporary, and has requirements that you apply to jobs while collecting it, and if you receive only one job offer, you may have to accept it or lose unemployment, even if the pay is insufficient.

It is also generally only up to 60% (exact rate differs by state) of your regular income, and some states have a cap on it so it doesn't exceed $X if Y% of your income was greater than that.

And most places that require income (loans, landlords, etc.) wont accept unemployment as an income source, so while looking for a job you are seen as having no income. Then when you get a job, most loans require 2 years of consistent employment or you get a high rate.

Oh, and I haven't even touched on our healthcare situation....

Being unemployed is so life crushing here in the US (by design).

u/FrostyD7 Jul 20 '26

Yeah this is like being fired or not hired for an illegal reason. It's a massive uphill battle to prove it. Casinos know better than to handle these situations in ways that would leave the victim with a smoking gun paper trail of their illegal activities.

u/JimDemintRecession Jul 20 '26

In Atlantic City, New Jersey, casinos can't refuse service because someone is winning too much or is too skilled. Someone sued and the appeals court ruled against the casinos. They can impose a flat bet on every hand (which breaks a lot of card counting strategy of betting low until an advantageous count then betting high) but they can't kick out or refuse service to card counters anymore.

u/djddanman Jul 20 '26

Huh, interesting. I'll have to look into that because I'm curious what their reasoning was.

u/KamakaziDemiGod Jul 20 '26

Yeah that's more what I meant, that they can do it at anytime for any reasons, but they tend to only do it if they are losing money to a player

u/Drunkgummybear1 Jul 20 '26

If you win assloads and aren’t counting, they’re better off letting you stay and letting the maths play out.

u/The_GoodDr Jul 20 '26

They do not only do it if you win assloads. There are casinos that have walked card counters before they've played a hand.

u/GenericFatGuy Jul 20 '26

Yeah but card counting isn't a free money glitch. You'd think they'd be chill with the counters, and let those guys convince the rubes that they can do it too.

u/MattTheGr8 Jul 20 '26

That doesn’t work; the only reason why more people aren’t card counters is because of the effort required to evade detection. If the threat of getting kicked out were removed, everyone with half a brain would do it. And blackjack is already a game with a very low statistical edge for the house if players are playing basic strategy (but not counting cards). If they allowed unlimited card counting and incentivized everyone with basic math skills to become professional card counters, casinos would absolutely lose money on blackjack in the long run.

u/GenericFatGuy Jul 20 '26

So the movie trope of the card counter being some mathematical genius really isn't accurate?

u/MattTheGr8 Jul 20 '26

Nah, the theory/probability has already been worked out and there are systems you can just look up online and memorize. You can’t do it very well if you’re a TOTAL idiot and you need to have a decent memory/attention span, but I’m sure anyone in the top 10-15% of the population intelligence-wise could manage it easily… and that’s a pretty conservative estimate.

u/echino_derm Jul 21 '26

The people who solved it were mathematical geniuses from MIT. But to do it and make money there is calculus involved. However this can be broken down into simple arithmetic after it is solved.

u/seaspirit331 Jul 20 '26

Sort of kind of. Anyone can learn the very basics of card counting, but it's another thing entirely to implement it in practice in a casino environment to a degree that actually gives you an edge.

Plus, counting brings with it some wild swings in variance that not everyone can stomach or afford to lose. Even with perfect technique, there's anywhere from a 1%-5% chance that you go bankrupt anyway if you're trying for an aggressive, high-growth spread.

And even when you are playing that aggressive spread, unless you have that 10-20k of seed money (that once again, you're potentially fine losing if you just get unlucky), your EV at the end of the day ends up barely above minimum wage.

Card counting is very much not for everyone

u/MattTheGr8 Jul 20 '26

I’d agree that not everyone can count profitably, but there are 340 million people just in the USA, including over 20 million millionaires and obviously a lot more multi-hundred-thousandaires who have enough spare funds to bankroll themselves. Out of the whole country, it wouldn’t be terribly hard to find, say, 10,000 people capable of professional card-counting, which would be enough to cause serious issues in Vegas if they were all allowed to do it full-time without being kicked out.

You might want to check out the podcast “The Economics of Everyday Things,” which specifically had a card-counting episode. They interviewed one card-counter who said he managed to clear low-ish six figures even with all the hassle of trying to work around security and such. So that gives a rough idea of what the economics would look like if those restrictions were lifted.

u/[deleted] Jul 20 '26

[deleted]

u/nonotan Jul 20 '26

To be honest, I don't know why they don't just use huge decks (like 100x regular decks worth) and just shuffle before counting could ever feasibly give the player a statistical advantage. Seems like the extra effort would be worth not getting the bad PR from "kicking out people just for playing well within the rules". Like the casinos are so unskilled at what they do they can't even setup the games so that house advantage is guaranteed without kicking out overperformers? That's just embarrassing, at least rig it properly.

u/Th3_Admiral_ Jul 20 '26

Card counting isnt actually against the rules

It's just frowned upon, like masturbating on an airplane. 

u/KamakaziDemiGod Jul 20 '26

I wouldn't really say they are equal, public masterbation is illegal for a start

u/Th3_Admiral_ Jul 20 '26

Well yeah, maybe after 9/11. Thanks a lot, Bin Laden. 

u/kitsunewarlock Jul 20 '26

You say the plane is public, but I try to check out the cockpit and suddenly I'm on a list.

u/obeythed Jul 20 '26

There were Skittles in there!!

u/SeroWriter Jul 20 '26

Card counting isnt actually against the rules

It depends what state/country you live in. In some places it is very against the rules and they're allowed to give you a lifetime ban, in others they're only allowed to kick you out, and in others they're only allowed to back you off the table.

In places where it's illegal to stop someone from doing it and the back off hasn't worked the casino will just reduce the max bets to $1 to waste the card counter's time.

u/So_HauserAspen Jul 20 '26

The casinos don't kick people out for successfully counting cards.  

The casino will put someone in the last position who will start playing against your plays.

The casino will also close the table down while there are still playable cards in the shoe.

The casino will not kick you out because they want your money.

I was at a craps table with someone who obviously knew how to set their dice and throw them for maximum wins. Casino let the game go for a little while and then closed down all lower stake craps games.

u/Glad_Position3592 Jul 20 '26

They do allow counters to play. What OP posted isn’t a thing anymore. Casinos just increased the number of decks and made it virtually impossible to make money counting cards. They’re not going around banning counters

u/Nydus87 Jul 20 '26

Aren't there also some tables that use the automatic card shufflers every couple hands so the count is constantly reset?

u/ELIte8niner Jul 20 '26

Yeah, most casinos use like, 4 or 5 decks, and all the cards immediately go back into an auto shuffler after each hand. It's basically impossible to count cards nowadays.

u/PrisonerV Jul 20 '26

We use a 6 deck auto-shuffler. Card count all you want. It won't do any good. The play is now completely random. Only the whales can use a single deck dealt by hand and they only allow that for stupid whales who think they're pros. The good ones get the auto-shuffler.

u/EpicRussia Jul 20 '26

Doesn't that mean its possible to get 2 of the same card though? I guess that doesnt matter in BlackJack?

u/PrisonerV Jul 20 '26

Doesn't matter in black jack.

u/MikeWrites002737 Jul 20 '26

The casino of my hometown uses 6 deck shufflers, not sure how often they reshuffle though

u/migrainium Jul 20 '26

You can still play at tables that use like 6+ decks in a shoe without auto shuffle. But the quantity of decks and that they end the shoe well before it runs out makes counting cards mathematically much harder, if not impossible.

u/Nydus87 Jul 20 '26

I mean, they only need to keep your win percentage at 49% or lower for the system to work in their favor, so that 6 deck stack is probably more than doing the job.

u/Conscious_Music_1729 Jul 20 '26

You don’t need a win rate above 50% to profit in blackjack because you specifically increase your bet size while the count is high, which is also exactly what pit bosses look for to kick you out.

u/nonotan Jul 20 '26

You still need an expected winrate above 50% for that hand. If they never let the card pool get lopsided enough for that to happen, no amount of counting and betting strategy will eliminate the house edge (it might make it slightly lower, at best)

u/Exterminator-8008135 Jul 20 '26

Let's say the Pit Boss got a bad eye and kick a big cash player who spent lot here, i wouldn't want to be them if the person tells them

If you fail to prove your claim, i want the Manager here, I'd like to tell them what i think of how you take care of big players who abide by the rules

u/NotNice4193 Jul 20 '26

even if the wait a long to shuffle, with that many decks, it takes MUCH longer on average to ever hit a point in which it becomes profitable...so it drastically decreases profit and sometimes you can go several hours losing before even havibg s chance to break even. if they shuffle frequently, you will never have an overall edge.

u/Zaq1996 Jul 20 '26

Was gonna say, every casino I've been to has a deck of like 500 cards that gets periodically shuffled, good luck counting anything

u/Drunkgummybear1 Jul 20 '26

Some of those games are still beatable. Try living somewhere where continuous shuffling machines are the norm.

u/Main-Cheesecake3287 Jul 20 '26

At the gen pop tables sure. Same tables where BJ pays 6:5. If you’re at the lowest min bet tables the rules will be shit

u/mikere Jul 20 '26

8 deck 3:2 shoe games are still very beatable

u/meany_beany Jul 20 '26

I have a friend who counts cards. You can still find some tables that do fewer decks. He is banned from several casinos. I was with him once in Vegas when he was approached by the pit boss and asked to leave. He was not drinking or behaving inappropriately in any way -- they could just tell he was counting and he was up so that was that. That was last year. This is definitely still a thing.

u/zan8elel Jul 20 '26

It's not a thing anymore because they changed the rules to use more decks and reduce the payout for a winning hand

u/K20017 Jul 20 '26

It's definitely still a thing. Using 8 decks isn't a great game but can still certainly be crushed pending on the rules and how much of that 8 deck shoe is dealt before a shuffle. 8 deck game is roughly 0.65% advantage to the house. The real killer to blackjack is the 6 to 5 payout rule, the norm being 3 to 2 for blackjacks. This rule alone increases the house edge by 1.4%.

u/MartianDinosawr Jul 20 '26

"What OP posted isn't a thing anymore"

The several card counting youtube channels I'm subscribed to would disagree with you.

"Casinos just increased the number of decks and made it virtually impossible to make money counting cards."

Increasing the deck count doesnt actually change much, changing the payouts for things like blackjacks and introducing automatic card shufflers is actually what makes card counters leave and find better casinos.

u/ward2k Jul 20 '26

A lot of people in this thread don't seem to even understand what card counting is

They think it's like in movies where the player is keeping track of every single card in their head and knows exactly what card is going to come up next

Where in reality most counters have a 'count' value which goes up or down based on the dealt cards. You don't need to remember exact cards, you just need to know how to count

u/MartianDinosawr Jul 20 '26

Yeah, the difficult thing is managing the count, whilst also playing perfect basic strategy and bet spreading to increase your expected returns when the count does start getting high.

It's a lot to keep in your head, most people struggle to play perfect basic strategy in a casino.

u/seaspirit331 Jul 20 '26

Plus, whatever strategy deviations you're working with on whichever count you might be on.

And while you're doing all of this, you need to somehow be able to not sound like an antisocial weirdo when the dealer/other players decide to make smalltalk. Keeping track of the count is the easy part...

u/letthetreeburn Jul 20 '26

Which is the same thing as not letting counters play. There’s a strategic angle here and they’ve eliminated it.

u/Main-Cheesecake3287 Jul 20 '26

All you have to do is play a higher min bet table to get better rules and fewer decks.

u/Judgm3nt Jul 23 '26

Lol, no, this is ridiculously false. There's never been a moment in time where there have been more countable games of blackjack than today.

u/TheBakedGod Jul 20 '26

That's EXACTLY what they're doing. They threaten bans to trick people into thinking card counting is easy money, so they try it themselves. They just don't advertise that most low stakes tables use automatic shuffling machines, so card counting is literally impossible unless you're sitting down with 100k+.

u/The-Only-Razor Jul 20 '26

Yes, I'm sure the tens of thousands of casinos out there making countless dollars hand over fist just haven't figured out how to make the most money. If only they listened to the Redditor about how to make more money. They simply dont know what they're doing.

u/pexoroo Jul 21 '26

It's so easy too, just let anyone cheat! Can't believe they didn't think of this before.

u/Fucky0uthatswhy Jul 20 '26

They do allow card counters to play. How does no one understand anything about casinos!?

u/Own_Reaction9442 Jul 20 '26

They probably think they take you in the back room and threaten you, like in the movies.

When I worked in the industry the most common reason we banned people was for passing bad checks.

u/Anshin Jul 20 '26

Every time i read online comments about a topic I know about i realize people online talk out of their ass 98% of the time

u/Oceanman72 Jul 20 '26

They allow card counters, most people aren’t good enough to be like, rain man level and lose money anyway

u/noturaveragesenpaii Jul 20 '26

I cant imagine a casino being anything less than grotesquely greedy.

Count cards and take as much as you can until you’re banned from all casinos forever.

u/NickRick Jul 20 '26

They generally do allow people who can't count cards to try. They only look at the way the person is playing to see if they are playing +ev. They walk counters who are losing money, and let donks who win to continue. 

u/CowboyLaw Jul 20 '26

But they absolutely DO allow successful card counters to keep playing. The most common casino reaction to a good card counter is to "level bet" them. Meaning: they have to bet the same amount on every hand through an entire shoe. That takes a lot (but not all) of the advantage away, because what a card counter WANTS to do is min bet their way through until a substantial delta develops, and then big bet every hand that follows until the delta dissipates. By "level betting" the player, the casino "bends" that advantage curve back closer to zero.

u/EnjoyerOfBeans Jul 20 '26

No, in that case you just wouldn't play at all unless the count is high, and if you do that they will back you off. If you are level bet then there's literally 0 advantage to card counting, no card counter will play, so it's equivalent to backing people off. It's just better for them to do it this way, since if they hit a false positive, some regular schmuck might keep playing.

u/JonathanPhillipFox Jul 20 '26

I think you're right, I think you're right and I think that might even factor in to the decision to ban it; because you're so correct about that I'm inclined just to jump to the, "so how does this comport with that obvious truth?"

One answer might well be that while theoretical behavioral science finds a niche in more novel portions of the economy, "back home at the ranch," where the data has been in for decades if not hundreds of years,

They're less interested to market things at all, "doesn't make a difference," alike perhaps how you don't see Beretta at the market like you do Daniel Defense, "shhh," la cosa nostra, "this thing of ours," does not require tricks nor an expansion into household without an invitation; vampires will of course literally never do a home invasion nor ever of course leave one without a resident to blame.

Otherwise might well be that while I don't know one hand from another in poker, I am aware of a thing, called, "counting," that's outlawed but also invisible which can be used, in theory, to take advantage of a poker dealer; here is where I suspect that you're both correct and this latter explanation makes more sense, "if it were permitted then there would be workshops and lessons how to do so," those whom have failed to produce the results of their training,

  • Will perhaps complain that the house cheated, "No, I'm certain," I counted the cards
  • Will Perhaps complain to the press, "No, I'm certain," I counted the cards
  • Will Perhaps cease to be individuals for whom the mortgage went to the house, rather,

Become the well known statistic, "people whom though they'd been able to count the cards with their mortgage money," and here is the kick: rather than the reckless High Roller flame out for whom all possible combinations of words and their expletives are available for complaint save:

"No, I'm certain," I counted the cards

u/sixmachine Jul 20 '26

I remember reading that Atlantic City tried this in the 70s or 80s. Advertising that they allow card counting. They quickly stopped this.

u/EnjoyerOfBeans Jul 20 '26

Card counting is extremely easy, it's literally just adding and subtracting 1. The difficult part is doing it without getting caught. So no, this is not true at all.

u/Main-Cheesecake3287 Jul 20 '26

Not really. Because for all the morons there’s a small number of high rollers that would take hundreds of thousands or millions from the casino.

They want to evenly enforce the policy. They don’t want professional advantage players to see their casino as a good mark. So even if you’re small time and losing money, if they see you adjusting your bet as if you’re counting you’re gonna get backed off.

u/Responsible-Onion860 Jul 20 '26

They don't want to scratch out a profit. They want to earn as much as possible.

u/Dry_Travel_4220 Jul 20 '26

Casinos absolutely love people who THINK they know how to count cards. They only throw you out if you're good at it.