AboutThe Count Expertise I have considerable expertise in all casino games as well as horse race wagering. My strongest area of knowledge is in Blackjack. VideoPoker questions are also welcome as are the areas of Craps and Baccarat. No sport-betting queries. I was a professional gambler for decades, now semi-retired.
Experience I am a semi-retired professional gambler with a graduate education. An accomplished "card-counter", I am very much unwelcome in most American casinos and some abroad.
Publications "Blackjack Forum" (under a pseudonym) and several backgammon newsletters (also psudonomously)
Education/Credentials B.S. M.A.
Past/Present clients Tournament Backgammon, Gourmet Asian Cooking, Macintosh Computing, Cinema, Literature, photography
Question I am not a gambler. Don't know anything abiout it. But watched a movie and just had to ask this question:
Why is it legal for casinos to ban (or even harm and threaten) card counters? It seems a counter is just a person with the inherent mental ability (even if practiced) to keep track of cards in a way most other people can't. They use no machines, no physical, automated, or external devices to accomplish the feat. They have no mirrors, no cameras, no accomplice conveying information. They simply have the fantastic brain power, all natural, to count cards. With "the house" always in control and statistically impossible to beat over time, why is the house allowed to threaten and ban, let's call them, geniuses. Why can't a banned card counter sue for discrimination of some type? Like IQ level discrimination or something. Why is it illegal to "make your own luck" by using a special, natural, or, if you will, god given ability?
Answer Card Counting is certainly "legal" everywhere in the U.S.A. and Canada.
However, every state has laws, derivative of the Olde English "Inn Keeper's Law".
The law makes it acceptable for the owner/manager of a private enterprise to reject
any person from the erstwhile public establishment without giving the rationale.
Have you ever seen a typical Night Club in a major city, where a "bouncer" decides whether or not you are
sufficiently attractive to pass the red velvet ropes and gain entree without a surreptitiously passed $50 bill.
If you owned a busy swank restaurant, would you allow a malodorous person dressed in rags to order dinner ?
We do have federal civil rights legislation which makes it unlawful to show bias if it is based upon certain criteria.
Casinos excel at separating the public from their money, albeit under the guise of "gaming" at their "resort"
I have been asked to leave from the vast majority of American casinos that offer high stakes blackjack opportunities.
Many have escorted me off of their property; and a few have "trespassed" me. That means they go through a formalized
procession of procedures wherein they physically detain me, gather security guards as witnesses and read me the what
is always called "trespass act", meaning the section of that state's law that empowers the owner of a public establishment
to have me arrested for future appearances at that property or any properties also owned by the same person or corporation.
On occasion casinos allow their thug-like security guards to get carried away and mistreat Card Counters. When the abuse
is excessive civil law-suits follow. In virtually EVERY case in Nevada and elsewhere, the aggrieved party has been awarded
a sizable (punitive) settlement.
It is true that in the distant past of the mid 20th century actual violence, and perhaps on very rare occasions, murder occurred.
I would urge the reader to develop a healthy sense of skepticism when it comes to what the media presents, especially in cinema.
