Interesting, Brother rs7... in trading terms, this may be equivalent to your broker banning effective position sizing when at greater than average or less than average volatility, and only allowing effective position sizing when the financial instrument is trading within the mid-range of its historical volatility... In effect, the casinos are taking away a large chunk of the fat-tail in the gambler's returns, removing the ability of the gambler to fully exploit any leptokurtosis occuring in the non-normally distributed outcomes of blackjack... such a policy sucks...
I believe the pro's don't consider it gambling but advantage play. Beating the casino is a uphill battle though. Scalping the ES may be an easier goal. With single deck being replaced by 8 deck shoes and 50% penetration(some CSM's in places) makes it impossible to win. www.cardcounter.com Definitely related to trading if you use mathematical probabilties for both. (even if you use Voodoo it is related but then its not related to cardcounting but gambling) Hi-low/indices all based on probability. Have a great Day!
card counting as a profession is in great danger...there is a new device on the market that casinos are slowly adopting that continually shuffle the cards and the dealer just keeps putting them back into the same deck therefore making card counting obsolete....secondly it does not matter whether card counting is legal or not the fact is a casino can kick u out of their establishment for no reason at all and thats acceptable to the gaming commission
Cheating's got nothing to do with it. The casino is within its rights to ask anyone they want to leave (the old "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone"). They're can't prosecute you for card counting since it's not illegal or cheating, but they can ban you and add your face and name to the shared casino database of banned players (which could mean you won't be welcome at blackjack tables at any casino in the area). If they all go to a continuous shuffle, you might as well move on to Pai Gow, Hold 'Em, or even Craps. But since they're making their money on the lousy player who THINKS they're a good player, they might not want to discourage those guy's belief that they can beat the game by continuously randomizing the decks.
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned but there is a great book that came out last year. It is called "Bringing Down The House". It is the inside story on how MIT students took the casinos for millions (in the 90's I believe) mainly counting cards. A decent read. Perhaps a movie some day: http://www-tech.mit.edu/V122/N50/50bj.50n.html
CSMs have been around for a while. The reason they haven't and I'd guess won't take over completely is that most players including non-counters hate them. In most casinos I have been in, the machine shuffled tables are the least popular.
Naturally. With continuous shuffling you might as well move over to video poker. I never understood the attraction of games that were pure gambles. I know the Chinese have this belief that luck can be shaped and can be big gamblers. But I'd would only be intersted in games where knowledge gives you the possibility of a positive return. I mean why play a game where it mathematically determined that you will lose?
i read that book 'bringing down da house.' they operated in teams, only recruited asians because of their reputation as big gamblers, which frankly is a steortype that i can confirm after visiting vegas. they have somebody at each table keeping track of the count. they then 'establish' somebody as a wild player, betting eractically and losing, then is signaled to the tables with favorble counts. they averaged somewhere around a 35% return/year on money invested. also, i've tried card counting, and it's much easier than it sounds.