Card Counting

Every once in a while I like to take a step back and see where I am. Such is the case with card counting blackjack, baccarat and their respective side bets. In this article I am going to give summary statistics for every game and side bet I have analyzed for card counting in this blog. I hope this will give some perspective on the overall landscape of vulnerabilities.

Once a year, in preparation for G2E (the Global Gaming Exposition), I take a walk through a host of Las Vegas casinos. I have two primary objectives for this walk. The first is to survey the changing landscape of proprietary table games and electronic versions.  The second is to consider security and advantage play issues for these variants.

Over/Under (O/U) is a new table game that has recently been approved and is starting to get domestic placements. There has been considerable discussion on advantage play message boards about card counting this game and an associated side bet (see  this thread at wizardofvegas.com and this thread at blackjacktheforum.com).

Card counting has been around since the days of the dinosaurs (in casino years). Edward Thorp published his infamous book on card counting, "Beat the Dealer," in 1962. Since that time, hundreds of books on card counting have been written. Movies such as Rainman, "21" and The Hangover have featured card counting.

In blackjack, Basic Strategy represents the mathematically optimal series of decisions that minimizes your losses over time. It tells you when to stand, hit, double down, split, and surrender (where you forfeit half of your initial bet to the casino).