Month: March 2019

Exactly what happens if you’re caught cheating in a casino depends, to some extent, on the geographic location of the casino – and, hence, the local, regional or national laws in operation – and the seriousness of the cheating. However, in any event, if you’re suspected of cheating, you’re likely to be detained and questioned by casino staff. In Las Vegas, for example, suspected cheats can be detained, for a reasonable length of time, under reasonable conditions, if there is probable

Similarly, you can expect to be relieved, sooner or later, of any winnings obtained illegally, or improperly. In Las Vegas, it is legal for a casino to confiscate any such winnings and you could also be charged with a felony, the penalty for which is a fine of up to $10,000 and/or up to six years’ imprisonment. In Britain, the Gambling Act made cheating in casinos a criminal offence and, depending on the circumstances of the cheating, you could also be charged under the Fraud Act and/or the Identity Fraud Act. These pieces of legislation make securing convictions for cheating in casinos easier than was once the case and, if convicted, you could be looking at a lengthy custodial sentence, as well as having any winnings confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

If you’re caught cheating, a casino will probably record your details in a ‘Black Book’, officially known as the ‘List of Excluded Persons’, which, depending on the location, is shared with the local gaming commission and/or other licensed gaming establishments in the area. Once your name is on the list, you’re effectively blacklisted and banned from entering the casino(s) involved for life.

Card counting is a perfectly legal but, understandably, heavily discouraged, strategy employed by players of blackjack and similar games to reverse the inherent house edge in their favour. As the name suggests, card counting involves keeping a running tally of all the cards dealt to the player doing the counting, the other players and the dealer. Card counting is based on the presupposition that a deck of cards rich in aces, court cards and/or tens is favourable to the player, while a deck rich in low value cards is favourable to the dealer, and vice versa.

The simplest form of card counting, known as ‘Hi-Lo’, assigns each card that passes a value of -1, 0 or +1, depending on how favourable it is to the player. Aces, court cards are assigned a value of -1, sevens, eights and nines are assigned a value of 0 and any card lower than a seven is assigned a value of +1. The player keeps a ‘running’ count, by adding or subtracting the appropriate value for each card. When the count is positive, the odds are in favour of the player, who can increase his/her stake, and adjust his/her playing strategy, accordingly.

The running count, alone, is only effective in single-deck blackjack so, to dissuade card counters and increase the house edge, many casinos operate six-deck blackjack games, as standard, and even up to eight-deck games. Multiple decks add an extra level of complexity to card counting, but the problem can be solved by estimating the number of decks remaining and dividing the running count by that number to give the so-called ‘true’ count.