``notes

[NICK REDWELL]

To optimize the time spent in the casino, there is a division of labor.

A number of card counters, called spotters, are dispatched to tables around a casino, where their responsibility is to keep track of the count and signal to the big player when the count indicates a player advantage. The big player then joins the game at that table, placing maximum bets at a player advantage. When the spotter indicates that the count has dropped, he again signals the big player to leave the table. By jumping from table to table as called in by spotters, the big player avoids all play at a disadvantage. In addition, since the big player's play appears random and irrational, he avoids detection by the casinos. The spotters, who are doing the actual counting, are not themselves changing their bet size or strategy, so they are relatively inconspicuous.

The signal system is based on values assigned to the cards. Each number in the count had a corresponding code word.
+15 = paycheck
+16 = sweet
+17 = magazine

etc.

The spotter might say to the dealer, 'You're making me lose my whole paycheck!' Then the big player would know the count was plus 15.

Then there's hand signals:
- Eye contact with player and hands behind your back = table's hot.
- Touching your nose = you understood what was being conveyed to you.
- Touching your eye = follow me.
- Touching your ear = you didn't hear and needed the information repeated.
- Rubbing your hands through your hair = you think you're getting attention and need to get out of there.
- Touching the back of your neck = it's time to quit.

* The team members frequently change their hair, makeup and wardrobe.

If you remove all the aces from a deck, there's zero chance of getting blackjack. So by tracking what you've seen, you have an understanding of what you're going to see, and therefore an understanding of your chances … and you adjust your bet accordingly. When there are a lot of low cards left it's in the dealer's favor, and when there a lot of high cards left it's in the player's favor.

Twos, threes, fours, fives and sixes are worth plus one.
10s and face cards are worth minus one.
Sevens, eights and nines are neutral.

You keep a running tally [of the dealt cards], and when the number is high on the positive side, that's good because it means you've seen a lot of low cards and there are a lot of high cards left in the deck.

** Card counting isn't illegal, but casinos don't approve, for obvious reasons.

A myth some casinos propagate is that card counting is illegal in the United States. Card counting without an outside device is completely legal. There are no provisions in the rules of blackjack or United States law that prohibit card counting. Despite this, casinos still offer blackjack as a game knowing that a skilled player will have an advantage over the house. Casinos believe they avoid losing money by preventing card counters from playing. However, they also inadvertently ban many poor players. In Las Vegas, casinos are allowed to do this because the casino is private property, and the owner can decide who is allowed to enter.

Casinos have spent a great amount of effort and money in trying to thwart card counters. Countermeasures used to prevent card counters from profiting at blackjack include:

- Harassment of suspected card counters by casino staff. This may be as simple as engaging a suspected card counter in a conversation to break their concentration.
- Adding more decks on the Blackjack table making many more cards to keep track of.
- Card-counter identification, using books of photos and new facial-recognition technologies.
- Computerized scanners in blackjack tables that can identify counting systems when in use.
- Computer systems used in surveillance rooms that surveillance staff use to target suspect players to quantify their threat to the house.
- Shuffling more often or shuffling when a player increases their wager.
- Changing rules for splitting, doubling down, or playing multiple hands. This also includes changing a table's stakes.
- Flat betting a player or making it so they cannot change the amount they bet during a shoe.

Some of these countermeasures have a downside for the casino as well. Frequent shuffling, for example, reduces the amount of time that the non-counting players are playing and consequently reduces the house's winnings. Some casinos now use automatic shuffling machines to compensate for this, with some models of machines shuffling one set of cards while another is in play.

**A pitboss who determines that a player is a card-counter might either "back off" the player by inviting them to play any game other than blackjack, or will ban them from the casino itself. In jurisdictions where this is not legal, such as Atlantic City, a pitboss can require the player to flat-bet and disallow players from entering in the middle of a shoe. Such countermeasures effectively remove any chance of gaining an advantage from card counting in multi-deck games. The player's name and photo (from surveillance cameras) may also be shared with other casinos and added to a database of card-counters and cheaters (Note: card counting is not cheating, but casinos still associate the two groups together) run for the benefit of casino operators. One such blacklist was known as the Griffin Book, and was maintained by a company called Griffin Investigations. However, Griffin Investigations was forced into bankruptcy in 2005 after losing a libel lawsuit filed by professional gamblers.

**Ken Uston, a man who some consider to be the greatest card-counter who ever lived, took the Atlantic City casinos to court in a famous case called Uston v. Resorts International where he achieved victory as the court ruled that casinos can’t ban skilled players. But this did prompt the casinos to start doing things like adding decks to hinder card counters. Uston wasn’t happy with just playing at Atlantic City casinos though and he chose to still go to places he wasn’t well received such as Vegas. However, he did so under numerous disguises which actually succeeded in fooling casino employees most of the time. One account saw Ken dressed as a Hoover Dam worker where he went on to spread his bet from the table minimum to the table max on a single deck which is usually a tip-off to look into somebody. However, his masterful disguise fooled the workers into thinking he was just a regular dam worker who got extremely lucky.