STEPS USED TO IDENTIFY CARD COUNTERS By Bill Zender Bill Zender is a former Nevada Gaming Control Agent, a casino owner and operator (Aladdin Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas), professional card counter, and presently a gaming consulting to casinos. During his career, Zender has instructed courses at various colleges and institutions on game protection, card counting, advantage play, and gaming operations. He had written five non-fiction books on gaming including Pai Gow Without Tears, Pai Gow Poker-Understanding Strategy & Procedures, Card Counting for the Casino Executive, How to Detect Casino Cheating in Blackjack, and his latest, Advantage Play For The Casino Executive (the latter is available in our store at 12% discount. Click here for details).
One of the most frequently asked questions that I receive as a gaming consultant deals with how to identify card counters. I’m not only a seasoned casino executive, but also an ex-card counter, so I get plenty of e-mails from casino supervisors and surveillance operators about the best methods they can employ to handle players who are counting cards. Many casino operators want to know how to spot the counters. Others want to know the different degree of specific observations they must make before they can either reject or confirm that the fact the player under observation has a long-term card counting advantage over the casino. Advice of this nature is hard to impart to someone in a concise format. There are a number of variables that need to be considered before baselines can be drawn that can be used to determine a customer’s level of card playing ability. One important factor I always stress; always be certain that a person possesses the abilities necessary to gain a long-term mathematical edge over the game of blackjack. Do not act on a hunch. If it is your intention to back a player off the game of blackjack, and you are not 100% sure the person is a threat to your bankroll, you may be chasing away a potentially good customer worth thousands of dollars to your casino in future blackjack play. Following are a few card counting factors that I look for in a suspicious player. Each area needs to be understood, and used to some degree, when making a decision on how to handle the observed player. Remember, it’s far easier to determine that a person is not a card counter, than it is to confirm that they are. Bet Spread Correlation with True Count You need to observe a close correlation between... Specific Play Decisions The professional level counter has to deviate from... Watch Betting and Playing Strategies in both High Plus and Minus Counts The supervisor or operator needs to see a suspected customer’s... Determine Long-term Loss Value As the Director of Casino Operations at the old Aladdin Hotel/Casino, I implemented a rule that we would not... Making the Tough Decision: Restriction or Ejection I can’t stress enough the fact that you have to be 100% sure... Let me mention one more point. I don’t believe in utilizing... ...enter your member login information below to read this article/newsletter... Paid Members-Only ArticleYou have clicked on a link to a Blackjack Insider web page or article for paid subscribers. You must have a paid membership to the Blackjack Insider newsletter to view this content. About 1/2 of the articles in each issue of the Blackjack Insider are for paid members only, while the rest are viewable by everyone. Your purchased membership will allow you to read all Blackjack Insider articles for 12 months. Enter your user name and password below (they were listed and e-mailed to you after you purchased your Blackjack Insider membership):
Forgot your membership id or password? Click here.
How do I get a membership?A membership can be purchased online at our secure store with your credit card for only $19.95 per year. You will receive a user name and password immediately by e-mail which you can use to read the all past and future members-only articles for 12 months, as well as the regular free articles. CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE A ONE YEAR MEMBERSHIP NOW... only $19.95Do I have to buy a membership?No. Blackjack Insider will continue to be published as a free monthly e-newsletter. But about 1/2 of the articles each month will be for paid members only. Subscribers without a membership can still view and read the non-members articles for free. What happens after I buy a membership?Immediately after you complete your purchase, you will receive a unique login user name and password. These are displayed on the final purchase page, and are e-mailed to you. When you click on a members-only article in our web site, you will be prompted for this user name and password (as shown above). Simply enter them, and enjoy the article! Note: make sure you turn on the checkbox above when you login, to save the user name and password so that you don't have to re-enter them every time you view members-only articles. Why did you switch to paid memberships?Blackjack Insider is a professional monthly publication with top-notch articles by world-reknown gaming experts. In addition, we have regular reporters that monitor game conditions and tournament schedules throughout North America. We use a partially paid subscriber model to enable us to continue getting the best content for our readers from leading authors on blackjack and gaming.
| |||||||||||||
©2015, DeepNet Technologies. No material to be copied without express permission of DeepNet Technologies. |