In a few casinos, the player may surrender his first two cards and lose only half his bet. This means that the hand will not be played out. The dealer will collect the player's cards and exactly one half the amount the player had wagered. The other half of the wager is returned to the player. Surrender is not allowed if the dealer has a natural, in which case the player loses his whole bet. When the Atlantic City casinos first opened in the late 1970s, they did allow players to surrender before the dealer checked for a natural.

This rule is called early surrender. It is not currently available in Atlantic City, but has occasionally been offered at other casinos. (The original surrender rule is now often referred to as late surrender.) Some casinos in Europe and Asia allow early surrender against a ten, but not against an ace.

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If a player holds two cards of the same value, he may split the pair into two separate hands. For example, let's say you're dealt two 8s. You do not have to play this as a single hand totaling 16. By placing an amount of money equal to your original bet on the table, you may play each 8 as a separate hand. Again, in the face-up game, you do not touch the cards, but simply take this option by putting your money on the table. In the facedown game, you separate each of your cards face-up on the table, and add the bet for the second hand beside one of the cards.

When you split aces, most casinos do not allow more than one additional card on each ace. Likewise, most casinos allow non-ace pairs to be re-split up to four hands. If, for instance, you split a pair of 8s, and received another 8 on one of the hands, most casinos would allow you to re-split and play a third hand.

Usually, split aces may not be re-split. If you receive a ten on one of your split aces, this hand counts as 21, but is not a blackjack. You will not be paid 3 to 2. The dealer will complete his hand, and if he also totals 21, it's a push. Most casinos, though, allow you to split any ten-valued cards. For instance, you may split a jack and a king. Some casinos, however, require that only identical ten-valued cards, such as two kings, may be split. As with split aces, if you split tens and draw an ace on one of them, it is not counted as a blackjack.

Unless told otherwise, assume the standard pair-splitting rules: Any pair may be split; any pair, except aces, may be re-split; split aces receive only one card each. There are also some casinos that allow you to double down after splitting. For instance, you split a pair of 8s, and on one of the hands you're dealt a 3 for a total of 11. Some casinos will allow you to double down on this hand if you like.

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People enjoy taking risks, and gambling, of any type, is a rush. Casino blackjack combines this run for the money with a competitive angle, a game of wit and subterfuge. Every turn of the cards is a cliffhanger. Blackjack has become popular not because most people think they can get rich playing it, but because it has been shown to be a game of skill.

Card counting is more interesting than picking a number on a roulette wheel, more challenging than pulling the handle of a slot machine. Many people who play blackjack have little interest in any of the other casino games, and most do not seriously dream of getting rich at the blackjack tables. Like myself, they are often people who had never entered a casino until they'd discovered that one of the games could be beaten by applying an intelligent, systematic strategy. It's unfortunate that so many gurus, authors, and publishers believe that people have to be tantalized by great wealth to interest them in casino blackjack. You don't have to make a hundred thousand dollars to make this game exciting. If you're dedicated and you practice hard, you'll come out ahead of the game in the long run. Why risk your life savings? For most people, the reward is in the play, not the pay.

Many years ago, I realized that the fastest way to make money from card counting would be to open my own casino. Unfortunately, my $300 savings was not sufficient seed capital for this venture. I did the next best thing—I started selling inside information to other players. I set up a network of professional players, mathematicians, and computer experts to share facts, experiences, and research, and started publishing a quarterly technical journal. But, I never stopped playing the game for fun, mostly for "nickel" ($5) chips. In the past few years, my connections with professional blackjack teams and big-money players have enabled me to play a lot more at higher stakes, but the game has remained just that for me, and the challenge still means as much as the money.

I wouldn't advise any new blackjack enthusiast to quit work and hock his car in order to stake his million-dollar fantasy. If, as you practice basic strategy, you feel the urge to dream about piloting your own airplane to your private island in the Caribbean, think of these reveries in the same way that thousands of chess players imagine going head-to-head with Garry Kasparov, or the way a tennis player might fantasize about playing Roger Federer. The fact that only a handful of tennis players will ever be professionals does not keep millions of amateurs from playing with true passion.

If you have a passion for blackjack, and you apply yourself diligently, the game will likely pay you dividends in both money and enjoyment. There are, to be sure, a handful of blackjack legends who have made a fortune from the tables, and there are many more unknowns who have done the same, steadily, quietly, and unsung. I suspect a few readers of this book may ultimately join those professional players; I know a few readers of the last edition did. For all I know, you may be among the pros by the time the next edition of this book rolls off the press.

For me, a major joy of this game, however, will still come from discovering, analyzing, and revealing its secrets. Over the next fifteen years, I expect to see shuffle-tracking strategies expounded upon by other authors. I feel sure that "lite" strategy tables — simplified strategy charts that are easy-to-use—will gain popularity. I expect to see more running-count systems with accurate "Kelly" betting strategies, and further variations on my simplified methods of true count adjustments. I also expect the casino industry to continue moaning and crying, as a small handful of players get smarter, the games get tougher, surveillance gets more high-tech, and the majority of card counters keep losing their shirts, due to their own sloppy play and general incompetence.

The information that follows is the information you need to keep a few steps ahead of the casinos. Study it. Learn it. And give 'em hell.

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The mega-corporations that have taken over the casino industry have money and political power; professional gamblers, on the other hand, are nobodies, and lawmakers know which side their bread is buttered on. The majority of the American public is ignorant of the issues, and the small handful of professional players who see their civil rights being trampled are like a small voice in the wilderness.

When Bill Bible, the Chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, was appointed by President Clinton to the new Federal Commission on Gaming in 1997, the American press reported extensively on the opposition to this appointment by the religious right. The debate centered on the pro-gambling vs. anti-gambling issues, with Bible portrayed by the right wing as the penultimate pro-gambling apologist. Ironically, all the professional gamblers I knew were more vehemently opposed to Bible's appointment than the anti-gambling lobby, as he is held by many to be personally responsible for the Nevada casinos' right to violate the state's cheating statutes at blackjack.

So, is this forty-plus-year war with the casinos almost over? Is this the beginning of the end? Hardly. Despite the technology, politics, legal persecution, and immense financial strength of the casino industry, I remain optimistic. With legal blackjack games now being offered in more than 25 states, there are more profit opportunities for card counters today than at any time in the history of card counting. Despite four-plus decades of stupid, sometimes illegal, and often very costly countermeasures, the casinos are not so stupid as to give up all their profits from their biggest moneymaking table game.

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So, where is this all going? Are the days numbered for card counters? Many players fear this may be so, especially considering all the technological countermeasures that have been developed in the past decade.

Automatic shuffling machines are being introduced on more and more tables. These devices make shuffle tracking impossible, and they make it faster, and cheaper, for the dealers to shuffle more frequently. The new continuous shuffle machines make card counting itself impossible. Various types of "auto-peek" devices are now extensively employed to read the dealers' hole-cards, eliminating the possibilities of most legal hole-card strategies—tell play, warp play, first-basing.

Surveillance software that analyzes the skill levels of blackjack players is now used in many major casinos. Counters who have fooled the pit bosses for years suddenly are called up on a computer. Prototypes of "smart" blackjack tables—equipped with shoes that can read the cards as they're dealt, keep track of the players' hands and strategies, and record the players' betting histories via magnetized chips—are now being introduced in Nevada.
Even more ominous than these technological horrors are the legal problems card counters face. In Nevada, the Gaming Control Board is supposed to be an agency that protects the rights of both the casinos and the players, ensuring the fairness of the games. To the consternation of blackjack players, this official state agency has officially taken the position that Nevada's cheating statute, which prohibits the casinos from altering the table games in a way that would change the frequency of the payouts, does not apply to blackjack. Because of this ruling, many Nevada casinos now train their dealers in hand-held games to count cards and shuffle up any time the game favors the players, only dealing when the cards favor the house.

In New Jersey, the state supreme court has ruled that players whose civil rights have been violated by the casinos—even if those players are cheated at the tables—may not sue the casinos for damages. They must settle their differences with the Casino Control Commission, a state agency which claims no authority to order monetary reparations to casino patrons.

Card counters must accept the fact that the state gaming regulatory agencies are often corrupt. These "protective" agencies are in fact puppets of the casinos, controlled by that immensely wealthy industry. As a result, one of the most rewarding aspects of card counting is taking money from some truly evil entities. The dealers, pit bosses, shift managers, hosts, and most of the people a card counter will actually come into contact with in the casinos, are not themselves corrupt; they're worker ants, in the same way that people who work on the assembly line at a cigarette factory, or a munitions plant, are just people who have found a job to do, and they try to do it well in order to pay the rent and raise their families.

But lurking in the shadows of this gambling business are some truly slimy bastards. If you get into card counting with any serious amount of money, you will learn firsthand what a nasty business this is. Though it has been shown over and over in the courts that card counting is perfectly legal—nothing more than using your brain to play your hands—counters are viewed within the industry as parasites, cheats, and enemies to be eliminated by whatever means necessary.

Casinos throughout the world keep "mug books" of card counters' names and photographs, and these photos are hawked and sold on the open market. Despite the fact that these blacklists might violate various consumer laws, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, civil rights, laws against libel, slander, and the invasion of privacy, the state courts and police agencies throughout the U.S. and around the world systematically use these mug books to harass card counters and deny them access to the gaming tables.

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What many people—including most card counters, system sellers, dealers, pit bosses, and the media at large—fail to comprehend is that being a successful professional card counter takes no less ability, study, dedication, time, and luck than any other profession. Card counters attempt to inconspicuously, legally, and consistently siphon large sums of money from a multi-billion dollar industry, which utilizes the most advanced surveillance techniques this side of the Pentagon.

Most card counters believe in the Great Blackjack Myth that flatly states that a card counter can beat the game of casino blackjack. The truth is that some card counting strategies can beat some blackjack games, depending on the number of decks being shuffled together, the number of players at the table, the number of cards being dealt out prior to reshuffling, the rule variations, the betting spread being employed, the size of the counter's bankroll, the actual skill of the player at applying the system, and so on. In casinos outside of New Jersey, the threat of being barred causes many counters to kill their own chances of winning. In Atlantic City, despite the no-barring law, card counters must still hide their skill because the casinos may enforce other betting restrictions on suspected counters, which eliminate the potential profits from counting cards. So, counters seek out more crowded, less conspicuous tables. They hold down their betting spreads, and they make occasional "dumb" playing decisions. All of these camouflage tactics cut into, and often kill, the counter's small potential edge.

Card counters, as a subculture, have developed a unique jargon. One term that all counters understand is "heat," which means that a pit boss is sweating your action, dealers shuffle the cards any time you raise your bet, or, worst of all, a floorman reads you your rights: "You may play any of the casino games except blackjack; if you attempt to place a bet at any blackjack table, you may be arrested for trespassing."

Many counters think they're getting away with murder when they don't get heat from casinos. The truth is that the casinos are swarming with counters, and most are easily detectable. By standing behind crowded blackjack tables, and counting down the cards as they are dealt, I can spot many obvious card counters in the course of a few hours. If I can spot them so easily, you can be sure the casino counter-catchers can spot them. Most counters follow obvious betting schemes, and to be sure, most counters are likely to get heat at one point or another in their playing careers, especially if they don't camouflage their play, although most of the time counters are not bothered by casino personnel. If the casinos actually gave heat to all the card counters at their tables, they would lose hundreds of customers, and their money, every busy night.

I'm not trying to give the impression that dealers and pit bosses are talented con artists who can act like they're afraid of card counters while knowing most counters are losers. Lower-level casino employees, such as dealers and pit bosses, know very little about card counting, and even those few who are trained to count cards in order to recognize their adversaries, often believe that all card counters pose a real threat to their profits.
There is no reason for the upper management of the casinos to educate dealers and pit bosses about the realities of card counting. Dealers and pit bosses, like many in the gambling subculture, are often highly superstitious, and ignorant of the mathematics of any of the games themselves. Counters love to share stories about superstitious pit bosses, and to most, casino management is dumb. This reminds me of Lenny Bruce's "Religions, Inc." bit where the fire-and-brimstone preacher is accused of being dumb. "Yeah, Tm a big dummy," he responds to his detractors. "I've got two Lincoln Continentals, that's how damn dumb I am!"

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In New Jersey, in 1982, representing himself before the state supreme court, the late Ken Uston, renowned author of numerous books on card counting, won a landmark case against the casinos. Today, the fourteen Atlantic City casinos may no longer bar skillful players from their tables. The immediate response of the casinos to this law was to stop dealing a game that card counters could beat. This is, and always has been, a very easy thing for the casinos to do. Converting their 6-deck shoes to 8-deck shoes, the dealers were simply instructed to deal out only four decks between shuffles. Voila! Card counting became a waste of time!

Within a few months, however, the A.C. casinos threw in the towel and reverted to their prior practice of cutting off only two decks. In an unofficial boycott reminiscent of what happened in Nevada eighteen years earlier when some Las Vegas casinos tried to change the rules of the game to thwart Thorp's followers, the players again forced the casinos to loosen up or lose it all.

Never forget that blackjack exists as a beatable game only because the casinos choose to keep it that way. They do not need mechanical shuffle machines, or electronic card readers, or any other high-tech contraptions to eliminate the potential profits that card counters might extract from the tables. A simple change of rules or dealing procedures could make every blackjack game in the world unbeatable by any card counting system, no matter how advanced, in an instant. But the casinos simply cannot afford to let that happen.

To this day, however, the 8-deck shoes still predominate in Atlantic City, making them some of the most difficult blackjack games in the world. Many Nevada casinos, as well as casinos in some two-dozen other states and around the globe, currently offer blackjack games that are unprofitable for card counters, primarily due to the large betting spread necessary to get a small edge. In most cases, casinos protect their games from counters with poor deck penetration. The casinos, naturally, want players to believe that every unbeatable sucker trap, just because it is called "blackjack," is still a game of skill. It is common knowledge among casino executives that hopeful but incompetent and self-deluded card counters, like other "system players," are a major source of income. If card counters actually stopped playing blackjack in the lousy Atlantic City games, the casinos' blackjack profits would nosedive.

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