In September, a book was published about a group of students andtheir math professor who went to Las Vegas and took the house for$3 million.
The group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students andtheir professor were blacklisted from Vegas casinos after winningover $3 million in the span of two years by card counting.
According to the book, "Bringing Down the House" by Ben Mezrich,the students beat blackjack dealers by keeping track of the numberof high cards left in the deck and signaling to other members ofthe team when they found a dealer whose drawn cards would result inbetter odds.
But for any University of Memphis students thinking abouthopping on the next bus to Tunica to try the practice out, thinkagain.
One would have to be able to do very quick calculations in theirhead to count cards, said Ebenezer George, statistician andprofessor of mathematical sciences at The University ofMemphis.
"It is not easy to do," George said. "These are very smartguys."
George said card counters don't always win, but they increasetheir odds.
"If the odds for you and I are one in a million, the odds forthem may be one in 100," George said.
These players are called advantage gamblers, gamblers who beatthe odds by methods such as card counting, shuffle tracking andplaying slot machines that are paying out more than the casinosprogrammed them to.
Al Rogers of Pi Yee Press and bj21.com, a Web Site dedicatedmainly to blackjack and founded by Stanford Wong, author of"Professional Blackjack," said there are probably a few hundredpeople who make their living counting cards today, some on largeteams.
"It requires a particular mindset," Rogers said. "You are goingin there to work."
"Bringing Down the House" doesn't detail how the MIT group wasrecognized, but Rogers said casinos have people on staff who arecompetent card counters and through the eye in the sky can spot thetricks of the trade. However, he added, serious card-counters arenever noticed, don't gamble big and don't play around.
Although counting cards is not illegal, casinos in Nevada havethe right to expel advantage gamblers. They do not have that rightin New Jersey, and legislation is up in the air in the rest of thecasino world, said Las Vegas lawyer Bob Nersesian of the law firmNersesian and Sankiewicz, which is currently engaged in multiplelawsuits involving advantage gamblers in Las Vegas.
The casinos' "dirty little secret," Nersesian said, is that whenthese advantage gamblers are found, they are often escorted to aholding room, sometimes in handcuffs, held against their will andthen have false criminal charges filed against them.
In one such case handled by Nersesian, Steve Bernier tookadvantage of $1 slot machines that were paying out like the $100slots. For that, Bernier was handcuffed, strip-searched,interrogated by casino security and threatened with jail time if hedidn't forfeit his $27,000 in cash and comps. He is currently suingto regain his winnings, Neresesian said.
Casino security officers have the attitude that they haveauthority that extends beyond a normal citizen's and in reality actlike "barroom back-alley thugs," Neresesian said.
In two instances, Nersesian said his clients were not onlyfalsely imprisoned but also battered and subsequently arrested bypolice.
Several attempts to contact various casinos went unanswered.
"Casinos are in the business of making money, and these people(counters) are making money off them," Nersesian said. "I can onlyget them to talk under oath in deposition."
