At one point in time, counting cards was only an underground practice that didn’t have too many connections with mainstream usage. However, it can be said that we are talking about one of the most common practices people use to cheat casinos off their money. It can be said that this method was heavily popularized by a lot of Hollywood movies who’ve depicted how it’s done pretty accurately. We are talking about movies like “Casino” and “21”.
Also, we can see that there are books that had a pretty big influence like “Bringing Down the House”. The first time someone used this method to cheat gambling clubs was with the introduction of the MIT Blackjack Team. To this day, they are considered to be the most effective team that succeeded in this practice. Naturally, casinos have managed to see right through this method. That doesn’t mean that these teams haven’t succeeded in creating more effective tactics.
As you can presume, something like this is not possible with online casinos, like thefirkintavern. It should be said that not much was known about this method before casinos haven’t been able to crack their modus operandi. How this was done, you ask? Well, it should be said that the main reason it was done is the experience of previous high-quality card counters.
According to some experts, we can see that this was pretty much the only way they could do it since we are talking about a pretty complex method that’s not easy to crack. As you can presume, the downside of this method is that, when you are caught, you will be banned from entering a casino forever. Therefore, you will not have the chance to repeat it. With that in mind, let’s talk about some ways casinos spot and catch people who count cards. Without further ado, let’s get started.
1. Casinos Employ Former Card Counters
We’ve mentioned that the main way they’ve succeeded in seeing right through the tactics of card counters was the employment of counters in casinos. They had their own place in the room, from which they were able to spot any action of this kind. This approach had massive positive results since casinos were able to catch card counters and managed to learn even more about this strategy than they knew before that.
Furthermore, some of them have found their place in security booths and they had the task of overseeing the players who conduct these illegal activities. So, it should be said that this is pretty much an impossible thing to do these days. However, we can see that, even now, there are some people who succeed. So, this is the ultimate way they are spotted. Later, we will talk about how they catch them and prevent their work.
2. Dealers Striking a Conversation
One of the easiest ways casino staff can prevent card counters from succeeding in their aim is to break their concentration. As you can presume, the focus is the ultimate thing that counters need to have in order to win. If the dealer tries to talk to them while they are concentrating, their efforts will ultimately fail, due to the lack of concentration.
That doesn’t mean that these counters will be free to go after they catch them in this activity. Instead, they are first brought to the office of a manager. Their personal data is collected, and they are banned from entering that casino ever again. In some cases, we can see that they are banned from all the casinos in the state of Nevada. However, the situations when this is done is not known.
3. Facial Recognition of Banned Players
It’s not uncommon to see that someone who’s been banned from casinos try to enter them after the ban. You would be surprised to see what people are ready to do to enter a casino. We can see that some of them even performed plastic surgery to change their appearance, and obtained a fake identification. Thankfully, we can see that casinos have managed to prevent that with the usage of software for facial recognition.
As you can presume, this type of software is not cheap. However, casinos saw that this investment is a much better option than letting these people cheat them frequently. Therefore, you can be sure that pretty much all gaming clubs in Las Vegas have one of these, and cheating them is practically impossible. It should be said that this is one of the best ways of discouraging these people from trying to enter a casino once again.
4. Altering Bet Levels
The most effective tactic management uses to catch card counters is to follow the change in their bet levels. A lot of counters will change their bets after there are some low cards have appeared on the table. This instant change immediately says that there is something wrong with the player’s behavior.
Later, the behavior is further followed, and there are a couple of more red alerts that can tell them they are dealing with the counter. If these changes continue to happen whenever the change occurs, we can see that there are problems with the player itself. Therefore, they manage to catch them red-handed and ban them from a casino.
5. Looking for Usual Card Counting Behavior
Even the best card counters in the world have a bad day in the office. This bad day can lead them to get banned from a casino. One of the reasons they can get busted is when they don’t use subterfuge. Plus, it should be said that it’s possible to see right through this behavior, due to the fact there are some characteristics that are displayed every time someone tries it out.
Furthermore, it should be said that those who have a lot of experience in card counting cannot be spotted so easily. However, limiting the possible damage by catching players who are not so experienced is always a plus since there are much more of these than those who are experienced. We’ve said that those with experience have been employed in gambling clubs as observers.
