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.

• The Great Blackjack Myth Part2 (0)
• The Great Blackjack Myth (0)
• The Future Of Blackjack (1)

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!"

• The Future Of Blackjack Part2 (0)
• The Future Of Blackjack (1)
• The Great Blackjack Myth (0)

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.

• The Great Blackjack Myth Part2 (0)
• The Future Of Blackjack Part2 (0)