Fake. Counting cards (in blackjack) isn’t a good way to make money. It involves large changes in your bet size that make it extremely obvious. If you’re bad at it, places will let you do it while you lose money. If you’re actually good at it (he’s not), they’ll kick you out. It’s an obvious thing that places don’t put up with if you’re winning.
Op is counting 52 cards in a basement game, he’s found his calling, until he encounters a shoe
Or worse.
For his sake, I hope he takes his winnings so far and walks.
Clowning on a bunch of underground gambling rings is a good way to end up on a lot of shitlists of a lot of less than scrupulous people.
The good thing about underground gambling rings is that 2k is hardly an amount worth shitlisting about…
I assume you aren’t talking of a literal shoe?
A shoe is several decks shuffled together. Usually they’ll go though less then half the shoe before shuffling and starting over, making your counting much less effective.
It’s really hard to do in casinos too. They often use something like six decks and shuffle well before they’re through it.
It’s not impossible to count a standard 6 or 8 deck but with dealers moving at 90mph it’s fuckin hard
It’s absolutely possible to make good money counting cards. There’s a great series by Steven Bridges on YouTube where he goes through the process of counting cards in action, in several different casinos in different states and countries, both alone and with team-play.
Oh, it’s on youtube? Must be true then!
Literally has videos on his channel of him card counting and winning big. Consistently.
No it doesn’t involve abnormal shifts in betting. Only idiots would move from $5 directly to $100 per hand. Average gamblers start small and get excited too.
If you do it slowly, starting at the minimum and getting “excited” when the deck is rich in tens, no one will notice or care. Play $5 to $50 and order a drink.
The average card counter is a young single dude in a baseball cap drinking a water. Wear a fun outfit, get a free drink, and talk to the dealer. No one will notice.
And yes, you can count a shoe. You just need to find a dealer that deals about 70% of the cards.
If you’re actually good at it (he’s not), they’ll kick you out.
I never understood why this isn’t allowed. Just seems like getting good at the game to me
Just seems like getting good at the game to me
Because it isn’t sportsmanship that they’re interested in it’s getting all your cash. They don’t give a damn about the integrity of the game or anything like that.
Card games basically don’t have integrity.
Because the whole point of a casino is to take your money.
I mean. Temporarily.
While the profits rolled in, so did the “heat” from the casinos, and many MIT Team members were identified and barred. These members were replaced by fresh players from MIT, Harvard, and other colleges and companies, and play continued. Eventually, investigators hired by casinos realized that many of those they had banned had addresses in or near Cambridge, and the connection to MIT and a formalized team became clear. The detectives obtained copies of recent MIT yearbooks and added photographs from it to their image database
I’d argue that getting away with it for 20yrs means they were still pretty successful.
past two months
In the OP implies this wasn’t twenty years ago.
So? I was replying to a comment that said it wasn’t a good way to make money. I gave an example of a group using it to make money for 20yrs. I’d argue that that proves it can be a good way to make money.
Oh, I meant it’s not a good way to make money now. I wasn’t speaking for 1990.
It 100% is still a good way to make money. It’s harder than it was, but I guarantee there’s card counters out there clearing heaps of cash each year. I know someone who makes good money doing it here in Australia (he used to be a top ranked poker player but picked up blackjack cos the money is easier. Ie, he doesn’t have to sit at the table as long to make his wad). And I just googled, and there is a shitload of people still saying it’s viable, many of them well known in the field. It’s not even hard to do right either, those big bet swings you talked about? Yeah, you do them your first week of learning to count before you wise up…
Detectives
Lol if there’s one thing the police are needed for it’s protecting capital
Edit: looks like they were private dicks, carry on
Can’t be the police, card counting isn’t actually illegal, they literally have no jurisdiction unless you refuse to leave the premises etc.
I like how he went to a poker night and figured out he’s good at blackjack. Sounds like his friends wanted to gift him some money even though the idiot couldn’t even figure out what game they are playing.
This is known as “The Chandler” method.
I do love a game of cups!
I see people latch onto that detail. I find it plausible that some guys having a “poker night” might play other card games in addition to poker. Play a few hands of 5 card draw, some 7 card stud, maybe a round of blackjack or two.
Do people even call Euros, “bucks” or did he switch currency as well?
A friend’s poker party had blackjack? Sounds weird
Almost as if this was made up.
You really think someone would do that? Just go on the internet and tell lies?
Also the buy in was apparently $5 but the winnings are in euros
He specifically said “bucks” which had me wondering if they even use that slang across the pond.
It happens when people’s primary sources for learning English are american tv shows
I believe the term is Eurobucks.
Quid in the UK, Euro elsewhere
Yes that’s what I was hinting at
While it almost certainly made up. We would sometimes play black jack…
For money? Would be awesome for whoever was the “house”
Yeah, we would rotate “house”, like quarters nothing major.
There’s a sizable minority of male zoomers into gambling in some countries, tightly related to the proliferation of small casinos in working-class neighbourhoods through a historical period where typical socialization spaces have been getting dismantled. I met a guy whose friend group’s main activity for socialization was going to gambling and his life was pretty much a mess, roughly around the same as the guy from the green text.
This started with grey-market online poker in the early 2000s. In my big lecture classes, there would always be a dozen or so people just playing online poker, and I knew lots of people who got so sucked into it they dropped out of school
I guess this could be possible, but I’m just thinking how weird it be to host such event and be the house in blackjack because the house always has the advantage. It’s not really a group game like regular five card poker or hold’em would be
Lol You’re overthinking it. People organizing such nights among friends are not officially hosting the event and are not always play as the house. The person who plays as the house is rotating
I’ve never just had that played in such nights because of the house issue.
The house edge for standard blackjack is 61 cents for every $100 bet.
If the house provides snacks then they lose out.
I would’ve expected it to be way worse. Is this with perfect plays? Because when we’ve been to casino it’s always house raking in money because people are shit players and go over constantly
Yes. This is assuming perfect strategy.
You are correct to point out that any deviation increases the house odds.
Who gambles a house favoured game with pals
If you’re going to be a “professional” gambler. You need to be a PROFESSIONAL.
That means ledgers, records, receipts, keeping track of travel expenses, meals… its easy to lie to yourself about how you’re really doing.
Also a lot of professional gamblers lose a grip on what a dollar is worth, because this week they are $60,000 up and just bought themselves a brand new car, and in 2 months they havent hit a decent win in weeks and are selling the car to make their rent.
Also, you cant put it on your resume. About the only place that might care if you’re a professional or semi professional gambler is a casino if you’re looking for a job. In that case the ledgers might be able to prove that you know your ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to gambling. But beyond that you arent really building to a career. So either git gud or have a backup plan.
Good luck OP.
Why can’t you put it on your resume:
Self employed, semi-pro poker player
Managed ledger of winnings, generated X% average profit margin, completed in X tournaments, kept up with competitive strategies, etc.
Would be a decent resume for a lot of jobs, like she’s, some management roles, etc. Combined that with other expertise and it’s a good measure of being a self learner and being motivated,
Where it says “19, bad grades, no job, fat”
Sure it might actually be an asset in some roles, but with no formal education to back it up it reads as “I’m a bad week from stealing from the till”
A good resume entry for a management role generally involves managing people beneath you.
Why would a professional gambler, a “career” track with no need for managing anyone but one’s self, want to be hamstrung by the reality and nuance of management? You know (I presume) how exhausting that is.
No, a smart (or even passably well written) professional gambler could present their legitimate skill set for jobs that make use of it.
They also, aside from hard skills (corroborated by good record keeping), would presumably develop or possess at least above average soft skills in the areas of communication, assessing client needs, and negotiating.
They would be terrific lenders, corporate salesmen, insurance investigators, the list goes on and on.
EDIT: Meant to reply one level up, sorry.
If I saw poker player as someones last couple years of work experience I would toss that resume in the trash immediately. If they were any good at it they wouldn’t be looking for a job.
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just generally not a good person
Is fucking sending me. At least anon is in touch with themselves.
Don’t casinos use something like seven decks simultaneously to make card counting super hard to impossible?
Usually yes, but some casinos do offer low deck shoes as a way to attract players.
Because you would need to be a class 9 sperd to capitalize on the odd differential.
Not really. Counting cards is easy.
2-6 = +1
7-9 = 0
10-Ace= -1
Bet more when the running total is positive.
I’m too dumb to know if this is smart, can you expand on this?
There’s a couple of Modern Rogue (RIP) episodes that explain this pretty well.
First thing you need to know about a proper game of blackjack: the players at the table aren’t in competition with each other, they’re all playing their own games of blackjack against the dealer. It’s possible for everyone to win, everyone to lose, or some combination thereof. Second thing you need to know: the dealer is not allowed to make any decisions or judgement calls; the dealer must follow a set algorithm for how the house’s hand is played.
So because the dealer’s behavior is algorithmic, there is also an algorithm for players to follow that will cause players to lose least often. Not necessarily win most often, because the rules are tilted in the house’s favor, the house will win eventually, but…if you show up with $10 in your pocket, sticking to the ideal play algorithm will allow you to lose it as slow as possible.
What counting cards does is maybe inform you about when it’s better to deviate from ideal play, but also when to bet minimum and when to bet higher. If you happen to know there are more low-value cards in the deck because several of them have already been played, you know the dealer is more likely to bust, so the odds are in your favor. You don’t have to keep like a running tally of each individual card in your head, you can simplify it by keeping track of one integer number, called the “count.”
When the dealer shuffles the deck, start the count at zero. When you see a card in your own hand, in another player’s hand, or the dealer’s hand that is:
a 2 through 6: add one to your count.
a 7, 8 or 9, add nothing to your count.
A 10, Jack, Queen, King or Ace: subtract one from your count.
When the count is positive, the dealer is more likely to hit until he busts, meaning the player is more likely to win his hand. So possibly don’t hit at all, don’t risk it and let the dealer step on that landmine, or even if you do, bet more than the minimum bet.
If the count is zero or positive, the dealer will likely win the hand, so stick to ideal play and bet minimum.
If they suspect you’re doing this, because you’re winning too much, they may ask you to leave the table or leave the casino. To prevent this, the dealer may burn a card each hand to deny the players some info, and not deal to the end of the deck, as counting cards gives you more information toward the end of the deck. Higher stakes tables probably use multiple decks of cards at once to render card counting useless.
Thanks! Great explanation!
It’s not impossible, a big shoe just makes it much more difficult. There are a not insignificant number of people who make a living gambling at casinos with varying degrees of success.
It makes the initial state of the shoe harder to determine. And it makes it more obvious when people are sitting around watching the tables to infer that state.
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Depends on the table. Lower stakes tables may use one deck.
If you’re using a random number of decks what’s even the skill? You might as well go to a slot machine
That’s the thing, they don’t want skill to be involved. It’s gambling. The house wants to win.
> Get beaten to a pulp outside an underground casino for counting cards.
Still a loser…1000 a month barely going to keep you alive homegirl
Sounds like a pretty decent job to me
My younger brother counts all 52 cards without effort when playing Bridge, he’s an ace at mental math, has zero facial expressions.
Could have gone pro as a poker player, said “you spend your whole life actively seeking out drunks and malcontents”.
Ended up an IP lawyer, I guess the pay is more regular.
1000/month? It is gambling still, anon won’t keep this up.
Yeah their winnings are so light this has to be a joke. Up 2k is a lucky run lol
so he played poker or blackjack
Geev dees maahn hees mah-nnahey.
