Does card counting really work in Blackjack?

[bones261]

   Back in the day of my heavy gambling. I fancied myself a card counter. I usually employed a simple count where 3-6 counted as plus one and 10s counted as minus one. I also did an estimate of how many decks were left to arrive at the "true count."  Unfortunately, my experience was not very fruitful for me. Part of the problem was that I started gambling online. Since most games that I am aware of basically starts with a fresh deck each hand, card counting was worthless. However, I don't think my brick and mortar experiences had me coming out ahead, either. I'm just wondering if the strategy of card counting doesn't really work.
   It does perplex me that casinos have taken measures against card counting if it doesn't work, though. I even had the experience of having my bet pushed back and informed by the pit boss that I could play any game other than blackjack. If card counting is indeed a bunch of bullshit, I am clueless why casinos would prohibit me from playing, and apparently have now implemented continuous shuffling.
   If card counting does indeed work for the right games, I am thinking the following factors may have contributed to my overall losses.
A) Inability to quit. I'm sure after being awake for 24 hours plus, my card counting abilities were probably hampered.
B) Drinking alcohol.
C) I may have been making more errors in my counting than I want to admit.
D) My bankroll was too small for the level of betting that I was doing.
E) In order to hide my card counting, I usually only had a spread of 1-4 units. Perhaps this is too small for card counting to work.

Please share with me your thoughts.

[Baofeng]

As per my experience, I think the biggest drawback for me is my inability to focus to be able to sustain long runs. I don't drink when I play blackjack, but I've noticed that I'm drained myself just to count the cards. That's why I just simply play just couple of hours and if I've noticed that I'm making mistakes then I quit. Yes it takes a lot of practice, but if you don't have that energy to concentrate in long stretches I guess sooner or later you will have slips up that will result you in losing money.

[crwth]

I have known card counting ever since I watched the movie 21. Have anyone watched it too? It has been an eye-opener for me because I wanted to know how to gamble correctly. Correctly meaning I profit, lol. Then when I knew that it was hard to card count, I didn't bother anymore. That movie taught me that it's illegal to card count. Then recently, I have watched a short video that is about card counting. I'm quite confused because he said that it's somehow allowed and it gives you an edge versus the casino.

Anyway, card counting has been around, and it gives you edge with blackjack, and I do think it works, you have to practice it a lot and become good at it.

[nutildah]

I have known card counting ever since I watched the movie 21. Have anyone watched it too? It has been an eye-opener for me because I wanted to know how to gamble correctly.

I've only seen the first half of that movie, but my bet is they run into some serious trouble because 1) its a movie so there has to be a conflict, 2) they were signaling each other, which is definitely cheating regardless of whether you're counting cards or not.

Card counting definitely works, as there are professional card counters, however once casinos get wind of what they're doing they usually shut them out. This is a good video of the process of what happens when a card counter gets noticed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HjwzJyCQlQ

Interestingly, the guy was still down when they kicked him out -- they recognized exactly what he was doing just from the way he was placing bets (making huge bet increases when the "shoe" got small).

[acroman08]

  Back in the day of my heavy gambling. I fancied myself a card counter. I usually employed a simple count where 3-6 counted as plus one and 10s counted as minus one. I also did an estimate of how many decks were left to arrive at the "true count."  Unfortunately, my experience was not very fruitful for me. Part of the problem was that I started gambling online. Since most games that I am aware of basically starts with a fresh deck each hand, card counting was worthless. However, I don't think my brick and mortar experiences had me coming out ahead, either. I'm just wondering if the strategy of card counting doesn't really work.
   It does perplex me that casinos have taken measures against card counting if it doesn't work, though. I even had the experience of having my bet pushed back and informed by the pit boss that I could play any game other than blackjack. If card counting is indeed a bunch of bullshit, I am clueless why casinos would prohibit me from playing, and apparently have now implemented continuous shuffling.
   If card counting does indeed work for the right games, I am thinking the following factors may have contributed to my overall losses.
A) Inability to quit. I'm sure after being awake for 24 hours plus, my card counting abilities were probably hampered.
B) Drinking alcohol.
C) I may have been making more errors in my counting than I want to admit.
D) My bankroll was too small for the level of betting that I was doing.
E) In order to hide my card counting, I usually only had a spread of 1-4 units. Perhaps this is too small for card counting to work.

Please share with me your thoughts.

It definitely does work and some people doing it but casinos did put countermeasures to prevent card counting including banning the person doing it.
although I haven't encountered someone doing it but thinking about it logically. card counting is possible to people with high concentration and can remember
things easily.

[felicita]

sure this is working.
When you count down all card that are played you can be really sure witch cards are left at least to the end of the game.
That with a bit luck makes counting gamblers high chance to win on blackjack.

regards

[peter0425]

  Back in the day of my heavy gambling. I fancied myself a card counter. I usually employed a simple count where 3-6 counted as plus one and 10s counted as minus one. I also did an estimate of how many decks were left to arrive at the "true count."  Unfortunately, my experience was not very fruitful for me. Part of the problem was that I started gambling online. Since most games that I am aware of basically starts with a fresh deck each hand, card counting was worthless. However, I don't think my brick and mortar experiences had me coming out ahead, either. I'm just wondering if the strategy of card counting doesn't really work.
   It does perplex me that casinos have taken measures against card counting if it doesn't work, though. I even had the experience of having my bet pushed back and informed by the pit boss that I could play any game other than blackjack. If card counting is indeed a bunch of bullshit, I am clueless why casinos would prohibit me from playing, and apparently have now implemented continuous shuffling.
   If card counting does indeed work for the right games, I am thinking the following factors may have contributed to my overall losses.
A) Inability to quit. I'm sure after being awake for 24 hours plus, my card counting abilities were probably hampered.
B) Drinking alcohol.
C) I may have been making more errors in my counting than I want to admit.
D) My bankroll was too small for the level of betting that I was doing.
E) In order to hide my card counting, I usually only had a spread of 1-4 units. Perhaps this is too small for card counting to work.

Please share with me your thoughts.

It definitely does work and some people doing it but casinos did put countermeasures to prevent card counting including banning the person doing it.
although I haven't encountered someone doing it but thinking about it logically. card counting is possible to people with high concentration and can remember
things easily.

Well you can still trick the casinos, just keep a low profile bet so that you won't make some noise. As for card counting, not my thing though, usually when I go and play on landbased casino me and my friends will take advantage of the free drink so mentality I will be on a disadvantage for playing black jack.

[dothebeats]

I've known this guy in Macau who was extremely good in card counting though he knows the repercussions if he continued doing so in a regular basis. He's not a huge gambler, often just bagging $10k a night and does again in a different gambling center. He never divulged the secrets into card counting but the 'key,' he said, is to look in the 'eyes' of the dealer who shuffles the card and count how many times their eyes 'flicked' from either sides. It sounds like bullshit but he just showed me how to win consistently by doing just that. Perhaps there's more to card counting that I never bothered to learn yet it amazes me up to this day how that lad from Eastern Europe sacked tons of $ in my 1-week stay in Macau.

[btc78]

sure this is working.
When you count down all card that are played you can be really sure witch cards are left at least to the end of the game.
That with a bit luck makes counting gamblers high chance to win on blackjack.

regards

Ofcourse you cannot be sure what cards are those still on top but you can only have guesses since the quantity of cards is given already after counting the cards down.
But what I do more believe is reading Eyes of the opponent specially when we are closing to endgame in which few cards are left and the reaction of opponent can give us idea what cards they hold still

[TheCoinGrabber]

Not much into blackjack but it does work. I remember about a group from MIT that went around winning on blackjack (a movie was made about them iirc). I suppose a single player can do that, albeit with a bit more difficulty.

Thing is casinos seem to be on the look out for cardcounters and they can kick you out so you'd have to be modest about it. Might work better online.

[YuginKadoya]

I guess many agree that card counting really exists and works with Blackjack but it will surely need a lot of practice to pull and I guess not anyone can pull it perfectly because many gamblers could surely learn the basics But can they pull it in the actual game of Blackjack,

I guess you can sure teach yourself how to play cards and learn magic-using card tricks but to pull out a basic card counting really require experience and focus on the game, Here are links to some tutorial that I have watched that is talking about basic card counting in blackjack. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHK2C-QQR-k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_So72lFNIU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O35_FmBuSsg

[STT]

Start off by being competent at maths I think helps and also to do it in person requires a very good memory.   I wouldn't bet any size at all while practising such a thing, assume failure while you learn and of course the trick is old and looked for.  
  The reason it does work is probability is increased by knowing the nature of the deck vs your hand.   Since the odds in casino games are quite delicate for profit vs loss, you can turn a profit if you are very careful to calculate it all to your advantage.    I would not assume myself to be successful in such endeavours because I would likely be enjoying the beer and peanuts, too distracted and focus is required.
   I do doubt it works online, I've not really heard on that point but since they dont have to 'throw away' cards or anything physical it probably screws the whole edge gained quite easily.


I used to know of a barman who watched people losing on machines and then wait till the place was empty to then collect the now profitable slots return some of the cash deposited.   Thats playing the odds smart I guess, I think thats another common trick and again you have to track the rules to calculate advantages.

[bones261]

Start off by being competent at maths I think helps and also to do it in person requires a very good memory.   I wouldn't bet any size at all while practising such a thing, assume failure while you learn and of course the trick is old and looked for.  
  

   I have a degree in math and card counting requires elementary school math. (Counting up and down. Negative numbers, division and maybe some fractions.)I don't think this was my particular problem. Also, retaining a count in your head only involves short term memory. You do not need to be like the character in Rainman and keep track of the value of every single card..
  Also, I just downloaded a simulator program, and according to my trial runs of several 400 million hand rounds, if my bet range was 25 to 100 dollars, the expected long term return was less than 1 dollar per hour.   Perhaps that was my problem.  Many times, I would only bet between $5 and 25$. So the returns seem to be even more puny. Taking a "break" and playing another game like the slots, could have easily wiped out any returns. It appears that in order to get a decent return of 20.00 per hour, I would need to bet between $500 and $2000 per hand. I never had that kind of bankroll. Plus I am sure on the bigger limit tables, the heat one gets from the pitboss would increase..

That movie was a classic but more unrealistic in the world of the casino's actually beating up gamblers and not more or less kicking them off the property and not allowing them back.

I can only report two instances where I actually experienced heat in the casinos. In one, I upped my bet from 25.00 to 50.00 and the pit boss came over and looked at all of the cards in the discard tray. I knew what he was doing, so I left. The second instance, the pit boss simply pushed my bet back and stated that I could continue to play any other game but blackjack. Now that I have an idea of the expected returns from my card counting, it was probably of the least concern to them. Especially when they have other players on the table not playing the basic strategy.
I once had a player who was playing the no bust strategy and yelled at me because I hit a soft 17 and was "screwing up the cards."  

[nutildah]

I used to know of a barman who watched people losing on machines and then wait till the place was empty to then collect the now profitable slots return some of the cash deposited.

Huh. Didn't know there were slot machines whose odds changed when people were losing. Well, you learn something new every day I suppose.

[bones261]

I used to know of a barman who watched people losing on machines and then wait till the place was empty to then collect the now profitable slots return some of the cash deposited.

Huh. Didn't know there were slot machines whose odds changed when people were losing. Well, you learn something new every day I suppose.

     That is not the way they are supposed to work.  Also, my understanding was that most casinos don't let their employees play. I could be wrong on this point, though.

[mu_enrico]

Counting card?

It works, if not, he won't talk about how to handle "backoffs" in this video. *Requires substantial amount of imagination to make up this kind of things. lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjUX_r_fOgI

"You are not a card counter if you haven't been thrown out multiple times from various casinos." - Random Wise Dude

[nutildah]

I used to know of a barman who watched people losing on machines and then wait till the place was empty to then collect the now profitable slots return some of the cash deposited.

Huh. Didn't know there were slot machines whose odds changed when people were losing. Well, you learn something new every day I suppose.

     That is not the way they are supposed to work.  Also, my understanding was that most casinos don't let their employees play. I could be wrong on this point, though.

I suppose there are some progressive jackpot slots that have mandatory payouts. Don't know quite how it works but they are guaranteed to pay out the jackpot at least once per day, or week, or whatever time period. So if you look at jackpot slots where the jackpot hasn't been won in however long, I guess the thinking is that it has to pay out sooner or later? Maybe that's what he's talking about.

[klaaas]

Going trough the wiki card counting article [interesting read!] it will work and give you a advantage. Check the Expected profit part.
The shuffle deck will be your worst enemy here.

[TheCoinGrabber]

Not much into blackjack but it does work. I remember about a group from MIT that went around winning on blackjack (a movie was made about them iirc). I suppose a single player can do that, albeit with a bit more difficulty.

Thing is casinos seem to be on the look out for cardcounters and they can kick you out so you'd have to be modest about it. Might work better online.

I am surprised he was saying that the online blackjack he plays uses a new deck every hand, I am sure this is NOT the case for most, you should also be able to team up online, have a buddy who is the same room, etc, etc.

Seems to be an extreme precaution to deter cardcounting? But yes, that really sounded unusual. I don't think they even do that in physical casinos.

[Johnzky]

I'm pretty sure it's well accepted that card counting is legitimate and a real thing. It honestly sounds like you may not have been too good at it . Maybe you need a bit more practice?

Well as what layman’s term “Practice made Perfect “yet in gambling there is no perfect after all.but I do agree that in some point counting cards can help us analyze the cards of our opponents but ofcourse this needs to be skillful fo this to mastering so if you have lack of experience on this better not to rely when playing because you may just face losses