Part 3 - Card Counting
Myths abound about teams of card counters winning millions of dollars from unwitting casinos. The most famous is the acclaimed MIT blackjack team. However, the successes of the most feared team of AP's are greatly exaggerated. Team members have regaled over the decades about their successes and have revealed that although some of the teams were successful, some were not and that the amount of their overall win is greatly exaggerated. Team members also have recalled that card counting was the most successful tactic that they ever employed and that attempts at methods beyond counting such as shuffle tracking and ace sequencing were less successful. Putting that into perspective, card counting yields a paltry advantage of less than 2% or put into numbers, for every $100 million in action, the team's Expected Value was less than $2 million. It is a well known fact that the team would bet three hands of $10,000 and NEVER tipped the dealers or the cocktail waitresses. Do you think that anyone who was making millions in profits could be that cheap and indignant?
In today's environment that kind of action by a team is just not practical. Card counting can be profitable but it is not yielding millions of dollars annually in profits by large teams of AP's. In fact if you consider the fact that the allure of success at card counting attracts more wanna be AP's who play at a disadvantage, I would say that casinos lose little if any money to card counters in today's environment and if they do it pales in comparison to the money they profit from ploppys. Yet, casinos continue to find ways to slow down the game and alienate their best customers because they are run by people who don't even have a basic understanding of the games they are managing. They instead react to every story they read or follow every procedure their competitors implement. Why? They don't have a clue why! Monkey see, monkey do. Card Counting is yesterday's news and serious Advantage Players have literally moved Beyond Counting.