Silver Charm Wrote:
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> So if I go into a Casino in Vegas and get tossed
> out for counting cards all I need is a good lawyer
> and I can go right back in and get back to work?
> Am I missing something?


Guy named Ken Uston tried that many moons ago. Uston was a Harvard grad that left his prestigious job as VP of the Pacific Stock Exchange back in the late 70's to make a run as a professional blackjack player. He was barred for counting in Atlantic City in 1979, then sued and won in the Jersey Supreme Court, which is why you'll never see anything close to a one deck game in A.C. ever again.

With A.C's move to multideck games to combat the counters, Uston went out to Vegas, where he was eventually barred as well. He sued them too, but with the towns and casinos all in bed together he didn't fare nearly as well there. So out in Vegas, you can still find one and two-deck games with favorable rules, but good luck trying to beat them without getting tossed out in short order.

Uston did it for awhile, using clever disguises and posing as the "big player" amongst his team of trained counters. He'd have his counters set up at various tables, and when the count turned favorable, he'd saunter on over to that table and drop in a few big fat "high roller" bets. This was the same method by the way that was popularized by the MIT blackjack teams decades later in the book "Bringing Down the House" and the movie '21'. The MIT guys were given credit for being some kind of mathematical geniuses, but all they really did was mimic the method Uston invented decades earlier.

Uston eventually gave up on Vegas after many backroom beatings and his inevitable listing on Vegas's black book, after which he could barely take a step into a casino without getting immediately tossed. If anyone's interested, he wrote some great autobiographical books on his blackjack escapades and his dealings with the court systems in both A.C. and Vegas. The one about Vegas and his fight with the courts, "Ken Uston on Blackjack", was a particularly engaging and fascinating story.