There is a state that allows card counting in casinos and that's New Jersey. In the case of Utson vs Resorts Interational Hotel, the courts declared that counting cards isn't cheating and is considered a skill.
That's why in New Jersey they apply countermeasures to everyone and ensure that card counting isn't profitable. The common ones are half-shoeing, flat betting, and CSM.
Half-shoeing is putting the cut card in the middle of the shoe (card dispenser) and shuffling when there are still half of the cards left. Since in card counting, you typically divide your count by the number of decks left in the shoe to decide whether you have an advantage, this essentially makes higher counts and more profitable bets impossible and reduces to the profitability of the table so much that professional counters won't bother. But if you're a casual counter, you're more than welcome to sit there generating $5 an hour in positive expected value for as long as you like.
Flat-betting means you're only allowed to bet a fixed amount. So if this is a $20 table then only bets of exactly $20 are allowed. The profitability of card counting comes from increasing one's bet in situations which favour the player, so flat-betting makes that very difficult.
A continuous shuffle machine (CSM) is a machine that has a tumbler full of cards and dispenses them one at a time at random. Whenever a hand is finished, the dealer puts the cards into a slot on top of the machine and they're shuffled back with the rest of the cards. This also makes card counting impossible because the cards are shuffled back after each hand, making each hand an independent event. So your advantage from counting cards is a fat 0 and you'll just be eating the 0.5% house edge if from basic strategy if you keep playing.
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u/OhMySwirls Jul 20 '26
There is a state that allows card counting in casinos and that's New Jersey. In the case of Utson vs Resorts Interational Hotel, the courts declared that counting cards isn't cheating and is considered a skill.