Does card counting really work? You win by betting more when the remaining deck is favorable, allowing you to gain an overall advantage and win in the long run. However, you need to risk very large amounts to win just a little, making it impractical as a way to earn money unless you have a huge bankroll that you're willing to risk over an extended period of time.
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To “count” the cards, you only need to keep track of one number, “the running count,” which starts with 0 for a freshly shuffled deck. The low cards 2 through 6 have a value of +1. The high cards, 10 through Ace, have a value of -1. The cards in the middle have a value of 0. On average, the numbers of good and bad cards are balanced.
As each card is dealt out and revealed, you add or subtract 1, depending on whether a “bad” or “good” card is used up. A positive count means extra “bad cards” have been used up, and extra “good cards” remain in the deck, which is favorable for future hands; a negative count means the opposite. You bet more when the remaining deck is favorable.
You might wonder why high cards are “good” and low cards are “bad.” An abundance Aces and 10s means more blackjacks. This is good because when you get a blackjack, you win one and one-half bets; when the dealer gets a blackjack, you lose only one bet. Also, when both you and the dealer have a bad hand, you can stand on yours; the dealer must hit, and maybe bust. In this situation, the dealer is even more likely to bust with many 10s remaining.
The remaining deck is favorable only about 15% of the time, so you need to bet a lot more during that time to make up for losses during the other 85% of the time. When you have an advantage, the size of the advantage is very small, usually less than 1%. So you need to risk $100 on a single bet (and even more when you double down or split) to earn less than $1 on average. That's a lot of risk for a small gain.
Random variations in luck will cause huge winning and losing streaks in the thousands of dollars, even for an average win rate of just $5 or $10 per hour. The winning streaks are great, but the losing streaks are disheartening. A bad losing streak could wipe out your entire bankroll.
Physicist Richard Feynman discovered this the first time he gambled in Las Vegas. He knew that the Pass bet in Craps costs 1.4 cents per dollar bet on average. So he played $1 five times and lost every time, five times in a row! So instead of his expected total loss of 7 cents, he was behind $5. He wisely never gambled again, having learned his lesson.
The same thing can happen to you, the card counter. You fully expect to win $10 over the next hour, but you end up losing $1,000 instead. (Or winning $1,000 if you're lucky.) Can you afford to take that kind of risk?
This video is Part 1 of the presentation. Part 2 explains further why card counting is difficult and risky, and makes some recommendations:
• Does blackjack card co...
The following video explains why you need a bankroll of $10,000 to have a long-term card-counting win rate of just $10 per hour:
• Kelly Criterion: Bankr...
For more information about blackjack basic strategies, go to
BlackjackCalculation.com
To learn card counting, see the free online book "Modern Blackjack" by Norm Wattenberger at www.qfit.com/book
Watch the Simpsons (Homer, Marge) count cards here:
• Video
It's pretty realistic, except that Flanders places his whole pile of chips on one bet. A real card counter would never do that, even in a highly advantageous situation like a +20 running count; it would still be too risky. Also, a real team would arrive at the casino one at a time and not be seen together. Your overall advantage with card counting is only about 1 percent at best, so you need to risk large amounts over an extended time (weeks or months) to ensure a reliable win. Your chance of coming out ahead over an hour, or day, or even a week is only slightly above 50%.
Other FAQs:
Does card counting work with 6 decks?
Yes. Card-counting is just as easy for 6 decks as for a single deck. However, 6-deck games have a slightly worse house edge than single-deck or double-deck games with the same playing rules, which cuts your long-term win rate.
Does card counting work with continuously shuffling machines (CSMs)?
No. Continuous shuffling machines (CSMs) effectively perform a complete shuffle every time the dealer feeds the used cards into the machine. The count is effectively zero all the time, so you never have an advantage.
Does card counting work with online casinos?
No. All online casinos perform a shuffle after every round. It's like playing against a freshly shuffled deck every time. The count is always zero when you place your bet.