On March 19th, 2008, blackjack player dave stann does not hide that he uses card counting during his game. He is a member of Mensa who has used their brain to identify when the odds are in their favor, not the casino establishment. Stann commented that his skills have helped him to win thousands of dollars at the game of blackjack. But Stann said that he is not a criminal. Card counting is not unlawful. But that has not stopped top casino officials from telling Stan that he is not welcome to play in their property and he will be arrested for trespassing on private property.
The new blackjack movie "21", starring Kevin Spacey, Jim Sturgess and Kate Bosworth is based on the book "Bringing Down the House" by Ben Mezrich. It is based on the mit blackjack team who has won millions of dollars by playing blackjack in Las Vegas casinos and using card countering in order to win in the game. The team was discovered by the husband and wife tandem of Bob and Beverly Griffin, who owned Griffin Investigations. They have distributed the details of each student to their clients on Las Vegas.
When the students realize that they have been discovered, they began to wear disguises. Back in the 1990s, Shufflemaster release a machine that will continuously shuffle cards randomly in order to prevent card counters of taking advantage of the game. Shufflemaster's vice president of World Wide Marketing said that blackjack counters will have a hard time predicting the outcome of the cards if the deck is continuously shuffled.
Since the skill of card counting involves giving a number to each card given out in the game and keeping a mental track of the count, such shuffling machine can really help the cause of the casinos. Aside from that, casinos have already installed facial recognition software and surveillance cameras so that they can immediately identify if a known card counter entered their premises. There are also computer programs that can immediately recognize questionable patterns of playing.
Monday, April 28 , 2008
Thomas Johnson