From Card Counting To Shuffle Tracking How To Beat The Casino

If there's one thing that is certain about gambling it's that the house always wins in the end.

And while it's true casinos always make a profit, there are a number of ways to cheat ceme the system - some of which are perfectly legal.

So is it possible to outplay casinos today? And what will it be like in the future? 

Professor Graham Kendall answers these questions in an article for The Conversation. 










Half a century ago, mathematician Edward Thorp published a groundbreaking book outlining how a player could use 'card counting' to get an advantage in the game blackjack (pictured) by keeping track of the cards left in a deck.


Half a century ago, mathematician Edward Thorp published a groundbreaking book outlining how a player could use 'card counting' to get an advantage in the game Blackjack by keeping track of the cards left in a deck. 






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Ever since, casinos have been trying to eradicate card counting while card counters are getting increasingly skilled at not getting caught.



HOW TO COUNT CARDS

Assign a value to each card in the pack. 

Mentally keep a 'Running Count' of all the cards that are played. 

The total provides what's known as a 'true count' for each deck of cards. 

Change your bets as the true count rises. 

A a simple example: A player, playing basic strategy, is dealt a ten and a six. 

One of the dealer's cards is visible to the player, and it shows a three. Another is hidden.



The player would typically stand on the hope that the dealer's hidden card is a high number and that will draw a ten and bust.

A dealer must hit up to a soft 17, and if a dealer holds a soft 16, he has to hit.  

However, if the player was counting cards and knew there were low cards in the deck, the player could draw another card safely. 






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What casinos don't like are 'advantage players' - people seeking to have an edge over the house. 

Sometimes this involves cheating and/or illegal activities ranging from past posting (making a bet after the time when no more bets are to be taken) to collaborating at the poker table and using a computer to help make decisions.

Card counting, however, is legal. 

In Blackjack, the aim of the player is to achieve a hand of cards whose points add up nearer to 21 than the dealer's hand, but without exceeding 21. 

Many hands are played from the same deck of cards, so what happens in one hand will influence what happens in future hands. 

As an example, if a ten has been played from the pack then it can't appear in the next hand.

This is different from other games, such as roulette, where the outcome of one spin has no effect on the next spin. 

Card counting is based on the fact that a large proportion of high cards (such as tens, jacks, queens and kings, which are all worth ten points) left in the unplayed deck statistically improves the player's chances. 

This is because a player can decide not to draw a new card to a hand such as 16, but the casino is forced to, as it follows strict rules. 






Card counting is based on the fact that a large proportion of high cards (such as tens, jacks, queens and kings, which are all worth ten points) left in the unplayed deck statistically improves the player's chances. A player can decide not to draw a new card to a hand such as 16, but the casino is forced to, as it follows rules




HOW CARD COUNTING WORKS 

In Blackjack, the aim of the player is to achieve a hand of cards whose points add up nearer to 21 than the dealer's hand, but without exceeding 21.

Card counting is based on the fact that a large proportion of high cards (such as tens, jacks, queens and kings, which are all worth ten points) left in the unplayed deck statistically improves the player's chances.

 This is because a player can decide not to draw a new card to a hand such as 16, but the casino is forced to, as it follows strict rules.

If there are a high proportion of high cards left in the unplayed deck of cards, the dealer has more chance of busting (going over 21).

This can be combined with 'basic strategy' - developed from computer simulations of millions of blackjack hands - which tells the player the best action to take for each possible card combination. 





If there are a high proportion of high cards left in the unplayed deck of cards, the dealer has more chance of busting - going over 21. 

This can be combined with 'basic strategy' - developed from computer simulations of millions of blackjack hands - which tells the player the best action to take for each possible card combination.

Combining card counting and basic strategy can help a player convert the long-term house edge from 2.7 per cent, in favour of the casino, to about a 1 per cent advantage to the player. 

Of course, once you have this advantage you can increase your bet.

Casinos have introduced a number of measures to deter card counting. 

These include spotting those doing it and simply banning them from playing, or even from entering the casino. 

Another approach is to increase the number of decks from one to (typically) six, or even eight. 

Some casinos also shuffle the cards after only about 75 per cent have been played or shuffle them constantly using automatic shufflers.

You might wonder why casinos don't simply withdraw blackjack. Well, it remains a popular game, and one that is still profitable. 

There are also many would-be card counters who are not actually that good at it, and they provide income to the casinos.






In Blackjack my hands are played from the same deck of cards, so what happens in one hand will influence what happens in future hands. This is different from other games, such as roulette (pictured) where the outcome of one spin has no effect on the next spin




Many blackjack players have fought back against such measures, arguing casinos should allow gamblers to use skill when playing the game.

As a card counter operating on their own is relatively easy to spot - intense concentration, increasing bets and so on - a team of students from MIT showed it could successfully be done in teams. 






Combining card counting and basic strategy can help a player convert their edge from 2.7% in favour of the casino, to about a 1% advantage to the player


The idea is that somebody else counts the cards - they may not even be sitting at the table.

When the count reaches an agreed value, they signal to another player, who joins the table to start betting. 

This is a lot more difficult to detect but casinos may stop players joining the game until after a shuffle to combat such a strategy.

Other players have used shuffle tracking, where blocks of cards are tracked so that you have some idea when they will appear. 

If you are given the option to cut the pack, you try and cut the pack near where you think the block of cards you are tracking is so that you can bet accordingly. 

A variant on this is to track aces as, if you know when one is likely to appear, you have a distinct advantage over the casino.

It's been 50 years since Thorp's book, and it is unlikely the war of wills between blackjack players and casinos will end any time soon.

Some of our work has investigated how artificial neural networks (simple models of the human brain) could help evolve blackjack strategies.

 This was done by playing thousands of blackjack hands and the computer learning what to do in any given situation, getting better each time. 

There is a lot of scope to see if automated computer programs could learn even more sophisticated strategies.







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