Made famous in books and movies, card counting is considered cheating, at least by casinos. In most states (but not New Jersey), known practitioners are banned. The wagering of card counters assumes a clearly recognizable pattern over time, and Johnson was being watched very carefully. The verdict: card counting was not Don Johnson’s game. He had beaten the casinos fair and square.
Card counting is not cheating, at least if you can do it without an external device. That's like saying that you can play this game but only if you don't think about it really hard. Even with card counting the casinos have a slight edge against you. They swap the shoe out frequently so that you have to reset your count.
The reason it's not illegal in NJ is because someone sued them and won. It should be legal everywhere.
As of January 2012, there are no federal, state or local laws which prohibit card counting in the United States as long as no external card counting device or person assists the player in counting cards.
BUT:
In all parts of the United States, with Atlantic City being the sole exception, casinos may ban any player for any reason including card counting as long as the Federal laws against discrimination based on race, creed, sex, national origin, age, or physical disability are not violated.
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I think that a casino should be able to kick out anyone that they want for any reason, including card counting, being extremely lucky, being a jerk, etc...
Allowing casinos to kick out anybody who shows winning potential is pretty much guaranteeing that the odds are always in their favor. It eliminates the 'jackpot' style story like present here.
Also of note though, is that while Atlantic City casinos can't eject people for winning, they can hamstring them in a variety of other ways. Usually they just change the table stakes from "$100,000 max bet" to "$0.25 max bet" on whatever table the winner is on, severely limiting his winning potential.
Yes I think you're right, it is legal but it can hardly be used anymore because most casino's use an automatic shuffling machine where they refill the cards after every deal and that continually shuffles.
Yeah this article is awfully written. Its portrayal of counting as even possibly unfair ("he had beaten the casinos fair and square [by not counting]") is ridiculous, and it does a horrendous job explaining his method. His method isn't even addressed until half-way through the article, the article is littered with totally unnecessary comments like "He plays perfect cards" (if you're not counting, every hand's decision should be set in stone), and the actual method they describe isn't logically consistent. At first they make it sound like he won by bargaining down special rules to give himself a substantially greater discount than the house's edge, but then they go on to say that he won $2 million later on without the discount (despite the house having a fractional edge), without further explanation. They've already made it clear that this guy plays to win rather than to gamble, so he obviously didn't win it by pure luck. So we're clearly missing something here...
You couldn't have written it any better. Mark Bowden, the writer of the article, is superficially looking at the situation and not telling us Don's methods of success. I'm more interested in what tactics Don is doing rather then the romanticized story behind it all. That's just me though.
if the balance is 50/50 (or close enough to), but your losses are 20% less than your wins, then over the long game (which is repeated several times in the article) you will come out ahead. You will have some winning streaks and some losing streaks. But in the long run, that 20% difference at 50/50 win/loss will give you an overall win. He did not just walk into each casino and win those millions in one sitting apiece.
which can happen on a winning streak - stats works that way. $2M is only a part of the $15M he took the casinos for. If he's playing on 'their money' - that is, he's already ahead, he can keep playing until the streak turns.
He wouldn't do that. He's playing to win, not to gamble. Streaks aren't a statistical phenomenon in the sense that once you start a streak, you'd be more likely to keep winning. As far as non-card counters are concerned, and as far as all players are concerned if a continuous shuffle machine is in use, each hand of blackjack is an independent event. Once this player wins the casino's money, it becomes "his money," not "their money." By "their money" the article meant if he's up during a game and the odds are still in his favor, he'll continue as long as he feels like it. If the odds are no longer favorable, there's no way an advantage player like him would start gambling $2M for kicks.
Note that I am not calling it a lucky streak, it is a winning streak, where a series of hands has left him with more money won than lost - he keeps on going because he's up on the day. The statistics of probability quite happily support this - all I am saying is that a winning streak is feasible, not that it is probable.
You might be right. Apparently he "would not divulge his betting strategy" (http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/meet-the-bl...), which means we won't be able to even know if he is an advantage player or just got really, really lucky. Nevertheless, the article I just linked to says that $100,000 per hand is the highest maximum Johnson has ever heard of, so assuming he is in fact the only person betting this much, and since he claims to have bet that much only because he's using a mathematical strategy that puts the odds in his favor, a liberally applied combination of Occam's Razor and Bayes' Theorem suggests that the positive outcome is likely more than just luck but that the odds really are in his favor.
It's not illegal, but how do you define cheating - is it by laws, or by rules set by the game runner?
For example, in football (soccer) it's cheating to punch the ball into the goal... but the associations that decide on the rules could make this perfectly fair play next year, just by deciding that they no longer define it as cheating.
There are rules set by the gaming commissions in each state that the casinos are fairly well bound to upholding. In Vegas, the legislation is more in favor of the casinos than in New Jersey, but both are pretty broadly pro-casino.
In Vegas, it's worth noting that a casino can eject any player for any reason, whether they are 'cheating' or not. If they are deemed to be actually cheating, they have the potential to sue for recompense, as well as blackball the gambler from that (and other) casinos. Nevada also has state laws that define what cheating is[1] and what recourse the casinos have.
Card counting is considered 'illegal' by the casinos, but most legislation only applies to physical tampering, such as marking cards or using illicit devices. That won't stop the casinos from ejecting or blackballing you for counting.
In Atlantic City though, they can't eject you for card counting, but they are allowed to change the table stakes on you. If you're at a $10,000 a hand table, and wiping out the casino in a way they don't like, they're perfectly allowed to change the table stakes to 25 cents at any table you sit down at.
It's crappy, but you're still welcome to enjoy the gambling experience, just without the potential to win anything significant.
Made famous in books and movies, card counting is considered cheating, at least by casinos. In most states (but not New Jersey), known practitioners are banned. The wagering of card counters assumes a clearly recognizable pattern over time, and Johnson was being watched very carefully. The verdict: card counting was not Don Johnson’s game. He had beaten the casinos fair and square.
Card counting is not cheating, at least if you can do it without an external device. That's like saying that you can play this game but only if you don't think about it really hard. Even with card counting the casinos have a slight edge against you. They swap the shoe out frequently so that you have to reset your count.
The reason it's not illegal in NJ is because someone sued them and won. It should be legal everywhere.