Casino Blackjack Counter Measures
More and more people are learning to count cards when they play blackjack. The stories of the MIT blackjack group and others breaking the Vegas casinos are well documented. The casinos have been fighting this for decades, and there is a lot of money spent on stopping players from gaining an edge on the house.
The first thing that casinos did to stop blackjack card counters was to add multiple decks to the shoe. It’s a lot tougher to count 8 decks than it is to count one. Automatic shufflers were the next step, taking away the ability to count the cards by putting them right back into play. That’s why you can’t count cards playing online blackjack. The deck is shuffled after every hand.
Casinos employ cameras, dealers, and pit bosses who are trained to recognize when a player is counting. If a player is caught they are entered into the Griffin Book, which is a list of known counters. Casinos will also harass the counter, or even engage them in conversation to throw off their count. Some casinos have computerized scanners in blackjack tables, which can identify counting systems when in use. And the worst casinos change rules for splitting, doubling down, or playing multiple hands to gain back their edge. This also unfairly increases their edge against the unskilled players who don’t count at all.
There are no regulations to what the casinos can do to combat blackjack card counters in Nevada. New Jersey limits what counter measures can be used against “skilled players” and has always been more tolerant of blackjack card counting.
