Card counting - worthwhile?

[Dave]

Thought this'd be an interesting discussion topic - what are your thoughts on card counting? Do you think it's worthwhile or not? Do-able with less decks or when playing live casino??

[s0095063]

It seems like a lot of effert to push the odds very slightly in your favour to me.

It is probably very profitable for the select few who have the mentality and the patience for it.

[kidpoker]

worth it live, not in a online casino. you dont know when they are reshuffeling the deck.

Live it can be very profitable. But if you are good and playing for any considerable amount of money, you will be banned or kicked out of that casino sooner or later.

[advanta]

Thought this'd be an interesting discussion topic - what are your thoughts on card counting? Do you think it's worthwhile or not? Do-able with less decks or when playing live casino??

Card-counting has become extremely difficult to deal with in recent years. Casinos typically offer much worse rules and deal fewer cards than they ever used to, and staying under the radar has got tougher.

It remains a viable form of advantage play for black-chip bettors because when you have a significant bankroll it becomes harder and harder to grow that bankroll from other gambling opportunities. If you are gutsy, can deal with all the hassle, you can keep doubling your bankroll by counting cards more times than you can with any other well-known form of advantage gambling.

For an under-bankrolled player the returns from bonus hustling, say, or poker, make blackjack attractive, but annual earnings from those things tend to max out at a certain level. I still count cards occassionally for this reason.

Card counting is best thought of as a kind of high-risk, high-return form of investment rather than a dependable if unspectacular source of income like, say, match-betting is.

Live casinos typically offer terrible penetration (ie they deal out very few cards, which is crucial to a card counter). You will very rarely see an edge of greater than 1% in such games, even at the death of the deal.

They are also very slow. If you are qualifying for a bonus then it may save you a few quid but it isn't a practical means of making money long-term.

In the future when technology improves it might be possible to make money multi-tabling live games, the way poker players do. I've experimented with this approach but technical problems make it impractical currently. It is an interesting future possibility though.

[tomf]

It seems like a lot of effert to push the odds very slightly in your favour to me.

It is probably very profitable for the select few who have the mentality and the patience for it.

My thoughts exactly.

[Human123]

no chance of this working at online live casinos?

[GrahamBell]

Card counting in blackjack is a good strategy to predict what would happen in the game. It does not allow a player to magically know what card will be dealt out of the deck, but a good player can figure the odds of what cards might come by watching his game very close.

[Grandthrax]

no chance of this working at online live casinos?

Yes, but they shuffle regularly so the deck penetration isn't very good. So your edge won't be very high.

[otsg]

I read somewhere that card counting only involved a system of counting tens and aces.

Is this correct?

If it is, is there a scope to design a computer program to calculate accurate probabilities on live BJ - there would be plenty of time to enter the cards into it as the play is slow - presumably the edge would be higher than normal card counting if it is just the approximation I explained above.

Someone more experienced may point out that this program already exists!

[Landprofits]

I read somewhere that card counting only involved a system of counting tens and aces.

Is this correct?

I think you have perhaps slightly misdread or forgotten what you read - card counters will assign a value to each card that is dealt and keep a track of the "count". They don't specifically count tens and aces, but the idea behind the counting is to reveal to the player when there is a concentration of high card, such as tens and aces left in the shoe. If the deck is rich in high cards, this shifts the odds in the favour of the player, if it is rich in low cards, this is better for the dealer.

If it is, is there a scope to design a computer program to calculate accurate probabilities on live BJ - there would be plenty of time to enter the cards into it as the play is slow - presumably the edge would be higher than normal card counting if it is just the approximation I explained above.

I believe there are card counting devices/programmes available, but casinos aren't stupid, they know all about card counting and know that an online live casino would be particularly vulnerable thus;

Yes, but they shuffle regularly so the deck penetration isn't very good. So your edge won't be very high.