I'm aware of it from school. Essentially it's a variant on the MIT team running tally system for blackjack. In the original, players are called over to "hot" tables, based upon a running tally kept by other team members at each table. Details are widely available.
Casinos now use training and technology to differentiate surprise vs. expected wins. It also becomes fairly obvious to spot once one knows the trick. To obfuscate the technique, some players are called to average tables. As a result, the players don't know whether their table is hot at the time. The overall win percentage is lower, resulting in lower ROI, but it's much more effective.
I never understood why card counting was frowned upon? I realize they don't like players to have an edge, and they can throw out whoever they want for whatever reason, but I don't understand why they bother with that type of surveillance? Shouldn't a casino instead just use shuffling machines, have limited spread between min/max bets, and not play very deep (e.g 6 of 12 decks) to just nullify any possible counting edge?
I assume it's not illegal to count, even if you are alone and use an obvious tactic such as playing $10 for dozens of hands, and play max bets only near the bottom of the shoe?
I'm just generally curious, you seem to know about this area. What are the new "blinded player methods"? I googled that phrase but didn't come up with anything.
I am just guessing but from the name it seems that it's about using one "naive and careful" player to observe the game and count the cards while placing small bets. Once the deck becomes advantageous the "wild gambler" joins and starts blasting huge bets. Of course the first player signaled a good moment to join.
This way it doesn't look suspicious as no one altered their behavior (one early method to detect card counters was to observer changes in bet sizings as the count changes).
This isn't new though, and is one of the most basic forms of team based card counting - it's how the MIT blackjack team did things. IIRC the "naive and careful" player is called the "spotter" and the "wild gambler" is called the "Gorilla".
Yes, this is correct. The blinded player methods call your heavy hitters to both hot and average tables, so the player doesn't actually know whether their odds of success are heightened.
I can't recall many low-limit blackjack tables that ban mid-shoe entry. That seems to only come in at the $50/100 min-bet level.
Honestly, many blackjack players that I see at the $5/10 tables are playing so badly that the casino wouldn't want them to have to wait for the shuffle to start getting their gamble on.
It's a good reason to avoid serious casinos. With the gambling law contagion spreading through the Northeast, it's fairly easy to find newly opened casinos.
That's what I was thinking. Everywhere I've been the dealer calls out new players and any nontrivial increase in the betting, from existing or new players, triggers a reshuffle.
