Counting cards is NOT cheating.

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The casinos always find a way to beat those who do so. I wouldn't consider card counting cheating, however.

You mean Tom Cruise, or John Travolta, don't you.

Primm Nevada had casinos that used single decks. Not sure if they do any more. But all they have to do is shuffle after each hand and there's no way to count the cards.

Personally like gambling if I stick to penny and two cent slots You bring $20-40 plus a little more for a drink or two, and just have a good time with friends

+1

I thought for some time they use multiple decks in a card feeder. I don't know if counting could work in that case.

Casino owners don't care about the law, especially if it means allowing something perfectly legal will cause them to lose money. I've never been to a casino myself, but my mother has on a few occasions, and she usually comes back having broken even or lost.

Take a game like blackjack for instance.

Suppose we're playing with a single deck of cards, minus the jokers.

Suppose I draw two cards, a 10 and a 6. Now I want to decide if I should hit, or not - obviously I don't want to bust so I can get an Ace, a 2, a 3, a 4 or a 5.

If I haven't paid any attention at all, then I know that there are a certain number of Aces, 2's, 3's, 4's and 5's. I can calculate the odds of any given card that the dealer draws being one of those cards.

However, suppose I'm smarter than this. Suppose I've been paying attention to what other cards the dealer has dealt. Suppose, for instance, I've seen the other players collect two 2's and all four 5's from the deck. Now I know that the odds of the dealer dealing me a card I need are substantially lower than I would perceive them to be if I wasn't keeping track of what cards had already been dealt. I'm not going to hit, instead I'll stay.

Or, suppose, the dealer has dealt a lot of other cards to the other players, but none of them have been one of the cards that I need. Now the odds of the dealer dealing me a card I need are substantially higher than I would otherwise think them to be had I not been keeping track of what cards had been dealt already.

This is counting cards. It may not help during any single hand, but over the course of many hands, a player counting cards will win a lot more often than a player who is not. This is why casinos don't like it.

My brother is a math wizard and an expert card counter and has literally won thousands of dollars doing it. He has been kicked out of more than one casino for winning too much to which I laugh and say "funny how they don't kick you out for losing too much!"

Counting card is no cheating, as inventing house-rules is no cheating. They are no public service, so they are not forced to serve you.