Talk:Card counting

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	Card counting is part of WikiProject Gambling, an attempt at building a useful gambling resource. If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit the article attached to this page (see Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ for more information).
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Contents 1 Countermeasures 2 MIT Blackjack Team 3 Hi Lo Count? 4 Typical traits of card counters 5 Remaining tasks 6 Disputed Statement: probability of winning is lower at higher counts 7 Whole new deck for every coup most simple method? 8 Link? 9 Preferential Shuffling 10 History of Blackjack Card Counting

[edit] Countermeasures

I came here to find out about the aspects of card couunting seen as cheating by the casinos and what countermeasures are being taken... Right now it's just a description of the technique itself. --Lenton 19:55, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

This section is just utter drivel. It needs a complete rewrite. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.173.76.141 (talk • contribs) .

Well go ahead and do it then. -- Chuq 23:35, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I have only a superficial knowledge of card counting but I sense it would be good to include info on how casinos counter card counting. Georgeslegloupier 12:43, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] MIT Blackjack Team

In the history section, there's a lengthy paragraph regarding the MIT Blackjack Team. Does anyone agree that this information would be better placed in that article? Rray 03:22, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it would be good to take it all and put it there, and just leave a see also to that article. 2005 03:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hi Lo Count?

Is this clause missing jacks queens and kings?

the cards number 2 through 6 are counted as +1 and all tens and aces are counted as -1.

-if not, why are only tens and aces counted as high? 213.219.161.27 01:12, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Jacks, queens, and kings are considered 10's, since that's the point value for the face cards. Rray 01:45, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Typical traits of card counters

Please do not re-add this information without citing a source. Encyclopedic content should be verifiable and the Wikipedia has a policy against including original research. The official policy on original research can be reviewed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research and the policy on citing sources can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability. (This isn't the place for logical deductions; it's an encyclopedia, and it's meant to provide verifable, factual information.) Rray 21:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Why did you remove it completely? What next I remove the whole article because none of its states any source for Verifiability? If You are going to trust the rest of the article (which was written by me anyway, not on this account) why stop at believeing part of it and not the rest? And logically deducing facts isnt research - its pointing out the obvious. I suggest you read the article and you would see clearly why such traits are common - because a counter would play that way to achieve maximum advantage.--Dacium 23:58, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I removed it completely because you indicated that the source was your own logical deduction. That is original research, and there is a clear policy regarding original research in the Wikipedia. I also added a note to the rest of the article indicating that it needs citations and references. Just because there aren't citations doesn't make the rest of the article original research; it could (and probably does) just mean that no one has referenced any sources yet.

Thanks for your suggestion that I read the article, but as you can see in the history of the article, I've not only read the article, but proofread and copy-edited a great deal of it for grammar, style, and spelling.

If the policies regarding original research and verifiable facts aren't clear to you, perhaps you might read them again a little more closely, and ask for clarification from some of the more experienced Wikipedians here. I'm assuming you made the edits in good faith, but it seems like you misunderstand what a Wikipedia article is supposed to consist of, which is verifiable facts with references. Rray 00:19, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand that am I am not trying to start a fight or anything. I am just saying that I wrote pretty much all the other sections too so you should probably remove them, because they are just as bad.

I've edited quite a bit of the article, maybe the first half, so if you see anything that seems mistaken or unclear, please feel free to help out with it. I've tried to add references and footnotes to a good deal of it too, but it's obviously far from finished still. You're obviously quite familiar with the subject matter. :) Rray 16:22, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Remaining tasks

I've edited and cleaned up quite a bit of the article, and added footnotes where appropriate, but the following sections of the article still need to proofread and rewritten:

Expected profit from card counting Countermeasures against blackjack card-counters Detecting card counters History of blackjack card counting

Future appropriate articles might include individual articles about different card counting systems. If we decide to move forward with such a thing, it would be good to create a sub-category of the blackjack category for card counting systems. Rray 03:53, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Is giving a full description of a card counting system relavant to an encyclopedia?--155.144.251.120 20:47, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

It's relevant to people looking for information on the subject, yes. It's certainly a notable gambling activity. In an encyclopedia that includes such far out subjects as the seven different forms of Light saber content, it's hard to say that something like card counting isn't relevant. Rray 01:13, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I have subject-matter relevant expertise. Is your list of tasks still current? I rewrote and extended Detecting. Having skimmed the other three sections I don't see anything too terribly objectionable. It's all pretty straightforward and supportable other than that the "History of" part looks to be full of arcane trivia, possibly rewritten from a web source. (For instance, the aside mentioning that four people who wrote in 1957 are known among card-counters as "the four horsemen" - I'm a card counter pretty well-versed in the relevant literature and I'd never heard of these bozos. Why mention the nickname without some context to explain why anyone should care?) Okay, so I should take a scalpel or a meat cleaver to "History Of", but other than that: do you just want more footnotes and crosslinks everywhere, or are there specific assertions you find dubious? Blogjack 09:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

If you think removing some of the "History of" section will make the article better, then by all means, cut away. The important thing is that the article be accurate, useful, and well-written. More footnotes would be appropriate in the lower part of the article; I think most of the top half of the article, or maybe even the top 2/3, is pretty well referenced. Rray 16:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disputed Statement: probability of winning is lower at higher counts

The article currently reads as follows:

"Another interesting aspect of the probability of card counting is the fact that, at higher counts, the player's probability of winning a hand is actually lower than at lower counts - so that, with an optimal strategy, the player places his highest bets on hands whose probability of losing is actually the highest."

This is not true. See for example the website http://www.bjstats.com/bjsc.asp and select the "Win, Loss & Tied Percentages by True Count" table for this case: Decks: 6 Decks, 83% penetration; Betting: no cover; Rules: S17, DAS; Strategy: High-Low. Look at the column labeled "Including Ties, Wins" and notice that for true counts in the range of -12 to +12 (which encompasses over 99.9% of the hands in the simulation), the Win% increases monotonically with increasing TC.

140.158.46.101 22:47, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Correct this is not true. The opposite is true. Although it is true that the difference is fairly minor. Mostly Pushes increase. I changed the paragraph.Objective3000 00:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Whole new deck for every coup most simple method?

In the german Wikipedia it says, that nowadays there are automatic set mixing machines, that use a whole new deck for every coup, therefore eliminating card counting for good. Why are there so many issues on recognizing and banning counters there yet?

Here's some pure opinion: Card counting was developed in the US. The book that made the concept famous was published in the US. It was a bestseller (from 1962-4, and still in print) and inspired a counting fad in the US. US casinos were the first to have to deal with relatively significant numbers of counters and would-be counters. They went through several phases, first of indifference, then paranoia, then massive paranoia. But soon American casinos realized their blackjack revenues were breaking all records. The counting phenomenon was luring huge numbers of dreamers, drifters, and crazy people to the blackjack tables, and the amount the casinos lost to good counters was trivial in comparison to their winnings from incompetent losers. As a result the casinos made the strategic decision to accommodate counters generally -- by continuing to offer beatable games -- while developing methods to identify and thwart the few truly dangerous players. A kind of equilibrium has existed for decades now in the US.

European casinos have not had the same experience. Counting has never been as popularized in Europe as it is in the US. It has not drawn nearly the numbers of would-be counters to blackjack tables. Casinos have not come to see it as a revenue-enhancer, but simply as a threat; and they are probably correct. It probably is the case that a much higher ratio of the people attempting to count in European casinos actually know their stuff (especially if they have US passports). This is the reason you find more count-proof games in Europe than in America.

While some US casinos do use continuous shufflers, the more sophisticated operators in this country understand that making blackjack completely unbeatable will kill the myth, and change the game enormously; and that's why they've experimented with continuous shufflers but largely rejected them. Casinos, of course, are not ashamed to offer "sucker" bets. A majority of the revenue in all major US casinos comes from slot machines. But if the casinos do business with suckers exclusively, they'll run into marketing problems. The fantasy of the beatable game is intrinsic to the way they sell themselves. They need at least a few these games. They want them. Poker rooms (which barely existed on the Strip in the early 2000's) are in all the big casinos nowadays; not because there's significant revenue in poker (there isn't), but because poker is very popular, especially among a class of "thinking gamblers" who would not otherwise be drawn to the casino floor. They put poker there to draw them. They put blackjack there to draw them. Eliminate those draws, and you're left with ghetto casinos riddled with total doofs, like what you have in Germany.

If Las Vegas casinos are trying to preserve the card-counting myth, they're certainly not doing a very good job at it. The best game you can get on the Strip these days is a 6- or 8-deck shoe with dealer hits on soft 17. The Basic Strategy odds for such a game are so poor that even with perfect counting and generous comps you'd still be hard pressed to break even. You may be able to find some 8-deck $50+ tables where dealer stands on soft 17, but deck penetration there will never be any better than 60% or so, and you'll quickly attract attention if you triple your normal bet. The traditional one-deck game is gone from the Strip, replaced by the 6:5 Blackjack rip-off, which--with a 1.5% house edge--is worse than some slot machines.

In downtown Vegas you can still find a few tables playing the true hand-held single deck game, but in those tables they won't let you increase your bet between shuffles. When it comes to Las Vegas, I believe counting is mostly limited to downtown dealers, who are trained to count in order to spot counting players. Owen× ☎ 18:07, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi Owen. Conditions are worsening in Vegas, but not as bad as you say. Six-deck, stand-17 games are available in most of the major properties, although generally at higher limits. The 6:5 game is a curious thing, and you're right that it's alarming. It's a sucker game designed to simulate a player-favorable game. Casinos would prefer to perpetuate the old blackjack myth without actually offering the beatable game, I guess. Will they get away with it? With players like yourself spreading the word -- and a little help from the Internet -- they might the find the public a bit more educated than they hoped.

Vegas aside, it's an extraordinary time to count cards. The proliferation of new legal venues in the US has created a lot of opportunity. Even today, inexperienced casino managers are making unbelievable mistakes with their games, all around the country. You have green managers, green surveillance teams. Sometimes it gets pretty neat, out there.

[edit] Link?

Does this make sense as an external link? http://www.qfit.com/privacy1.htm. It covers card-counter identification, facial recognition, surveillance and other issues related to card counting in casinos. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Objective3000 (talk • contribs) 20:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

It seems it would fail point 14 of WP:EL: Sites that are only indirectly related to the article's subject: the link should be directly related to the subject of the article. If the information were organized onto a "identification of card counters", then it seems that would be a fine link. As it is though, it seems like a better link for advantage gambling, but even then it is still "indirectly related" more than directly. 2005 (talk) 21:31, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I see the point and some of the text certainly could apply to general areas of privacy. But the document was written by a card counting team manager specifically to help team members avoid detection in casinos. Objective3000 (talk) 21:57, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Preferential Shuffling

"Automated card-reading technology has known abuse potential in that it can be used to simplify the practice of preferential shuffling—having the dealer reshuffle the cards whenever the odds favor the players."

Anyone have any information on the legality of this? Seems to take 'house always wins' to extremes, but I don't know anything about gambling, so not sure to what extent the casinos are allowed to weight their games. Cheers.

(86.152.217.26 (talk) 14:44, 6 April 2008 (UTC))

See http://www.blackjack-scams.com/html/mindplay.html Objective3000 (talk) 15:12, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History of Blackjack Card Counting

The ace sequencing info in the current entry is unsourced and also wrong factually. (The entry conflates the cuts game with the sequencing game.) This is fine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paleoriffic (talk • contribs) 18:20, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Agree it's wrong. And it's also wrong on the Shuffle Tracking page. Been meaning to rewrite it; but been too lazy. Objective3000 (talk) 00:01, 16 May 2008 (UTC)