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What is card counting?
Card
counting has nothing to do with remembering every
card that has been played, that's more a feat of
memory. Although the card counting systems take
many forms, one of the most popular and simplest
is the high-low count. Each card is assigned a
positive, negative or neutral value:
- 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 = +1
- 7, 8, 9 = 0
- 10, J, Q, K, A = -1
The player keeps
a running total of the count, adding or
subtracting as each card is played. The player
raises their bet according to the positive
strength of the count. The count also determines
how to play each hand. For example, if the deck is
strongly positive the player is more likely to
draw face cards, so may profit by playing a more
cautious strategy.
Is it illegal to count
cards?
No. A card counter is using
information available to everyone at the table, so
they are not regarded as cheating. But if a casino
suspects a player of counting, they will usually
ask them to play a different game, or to leave the
casino.
Are there any other casino games where
the player can win?
No. Probability
theory was developed by mathematicians studying
gambling games. Casinos and bookmakers use
probability theory when setting odds, and make
sure they are always slightly in their favour.
Without this edge, casinos would not exist.
Occasionally a casino may make a mistake and
change the rules of a game or increase payouts,
skewing the mathematical advantage to the player.
When this happens, alert players flock there. The
casino will swiftly change the rules back.
How hard is it to card
count?
The actual counting is simple.
The player just needs to keep track of how many
high or low cards leave the deck. Making money
from counting is, however, a completely different
matter. Even playing the perfect game and betting
exactly optimum amounts, the player advantage is
so small that there is always a reasonable chance
of losing all the money you began with.
To get a realistic chance of a profit, a player
may need to play for hundreds of hours, and have a
very large bankroll. The odds of winning overall
vary with the number of packs, the house rules and
the frequency of shuffling. And there is always
the risk of detection, which makes it almost
impossible to play an optimal game and not be
spotted. It is so hard to make money from counting
that casinos will often make more money from
inexperienced counters than they will from a
player simply playing optimal strategy from hand
to hand.
How much money did the MIT teams
make?
There are so many different
teams, many operating since the 1980s, that exact
values are hard to find. The money was split many
ways, and much of it had to go back to the
original investors. Also, many of the teams
eventually lost all their winnings in streaks of
bad luck, triggering them to split up.
So the amount each player earned depended on
how long they stayed in the team. Andy Bloch
estimates the Amphibians and Reptiles (the team
which also formed from Strategic Investments) each
made around $1m in their most successful years
during the mid-90s.
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