This is a reprint of a previous post on advantage play. Before I begin, I want to remind you about my Patreon page. If you enjoy my content, and would like to see more of it more often, please consider becoming a patron. Click here to go to my page.
Whenever I meet people and tell them what my profession has been for the last 25 years, I always come away with the feeling that they equate card counting and advantage play as cheating. It is not, of course, as most of the readers of this blog undoubtedly know. It is just against the policy of most casinos to allow it.
As a legally licensed, privately owned business located on private property, all casinos have the right to refuse service to anyone, for any reason they choose. Most of the time, card counting, or ace/shuffle tracking, or anything else that casino management considers "advantage play" wont even get you thrown out, just politely asked to not play blackjack anymore. Management would love to have you go play slots, or keno, or even craps, just stay away from the BJ tables.
This differs from cheating. Cheating is usually defined as taking an overt action or actions to influence the result or pay offs of a game, and it comes in two different forms:
The first type manifests itself in actions like pinching or pressing your bet, past posting, card marking (or "daubing") or if possible, depending on the game, swapping cards with a fellow player. Cheaters can also collude with the dealer to alter the results of the game, either through using a "cooler" or dealing seconds, or simply by "dumping the game" which is paying a hand as a winner even if it did not win, or deliberately over paying a winning hand.
The second type occurs when a "device" is used to attempt to influence the result of the hand. This can be anything, from a computer that helps determine the proper hit/stand decision, to a reflective cigarette lighter left on the layout that can determine what the dealers hole card is. These days the computer is much more likely to be used than the lighter. And there are literally thousands more examples of cheating devices. Every cheater out there can dream up something "new" in two seconds.
The point is that you dont ever want to be caught cheating. It is always a felony, regardless of the amount of money involved, and on a Tribal casino it is a Federal Offense, and you will be eventually investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by a US Attorney. Not fun.
And what, you may ask, is the best way to not get caught? Don't do it in the first place. You are better off just working on your card counting and money management skills. If you get backed off of a BJ game, go to the next casino. Trust me, it is not worth it
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