Is counting cards illegal?

Question

(in blackjack)

Answer 1

yes

Answer 2

it is legal, but the Casino may kick you out for it anyways.

Answer 3

No. It's not illegal. It was taken to court and rules a fine strategy to use as long as no technology is used for assistance. Only your head.

Answer 4

Counting cards is done in your head and it viewed as playing strategy in the eyes of the law, this makes it 100% legal

If you knew that all the aces had been dealt from a deck, you too would likely decide not to play at that table, this is not cheating and is the same concept used in card counting except all the cards are kept track of.

If you are "caught" counting cards, casinos may decide to remove you from their casino if they are allowed to by law, if they are not allowed, they will change the rules of the game specifically around you to deturn your efforts.

Answer 5

not if you do it all in your head.

if you use some mechanical means then yes.

Answer 6

Of course not.

Counting cards it merely you using your skill to be more successful at the game.

It's only illegal if you use a device to cheat.

Of course even the best counters are lucky to get a 1.5% house edge.  And that's assuming they make no mistakes.

In this day and age and with modern Blackjack rules the casinos don't really care if you try.  Most of them have such rules in place that you are still unlikely to be a long term winner even if you succeed in counting.

Answer 7

only if you get caught

lol

Answer 8

Thw MIT team that cracked many casinos were eventually caught by the casinos, all the casino could do was to ban them.  This is a great story, see link:

Answer 9

no. But casinos have the "right to refuse patronage". They use this catch all to kick out counters.

Blackjack teams in the old days used to do tricks like deck swapping and what not. This was illegal because because it directly manipulated the game. In contrast, counting does not involve manipulating the physical deck at all and instead is only exploiting inherent flaws in certain dealings of the game.