21 is an alternative name for blackjack and the name of a 2008 American film. The movie follows an MIT professor and a group of students who carry out heists at Vegas casinos by card counting and covert signalling on blackjack games. The popular movie is inspired by the true story of the MIT Blackjack Team in which a group of students and ex-students from MIT actually used card counting to beat casinos at blackjack.
What Is Card Counting?
Card counting is a gambling strategy used on blackjack games. Players who utilise this strategy are effectively trying to decrease the casino house edge (The advantage the casino has over you, the player) while keeping a tally of the cards the dealer moves through in the deck. By following the cards, the player will be able to guess which cards are more likely to turn up in the next hand and will allow the player to understand when to bet big or small.
To count cards, players must assign a value to every card. One of the most popular ways of doing this is as follows:
- Cards 2 to 6 have a value of +1
- Cards 7 to 9 have a value of 0
- Cards 10, King, Queen, Joker, and Ace have a value of -1
When the game begins, there is a count of 0 but as the game plays, the player must either add a point, subtract a point or do nothing whenever a card is dealt for each player. The player must keep a count with the values and then add the totals for each player together to create a running count for the entire table.
If the running count is +3, it means the upcoming cards should be of a higher value and players should place bigger bets. If the running count is lower than -2, it means the upcoming cards are of a lower value and players should place smaller bets. When the deck is reshuffled, the running count goes back to zero.
This is one form of card counting available but there are countless other ways to count cards, although most of them are significantly more difficult to do. Regardless, it’s important to remember that card counting is a long-term strategy and should only be done by people who have experience playing blackjack.
Where Can You Do Card Counting?
While this sounds great, it’s important to understand that card counting is now banned at casinos worldwide. What’s more, most casinos use multiple decks to prevent players from card counting. This means it’s practically impossible to employ this strategy when playing at a brick-and-mortar casino.
Similarly, card counting cannot be done at all at online casinos or their sister sites since a random number generator and games determine everything are automatically played out for you. Ultimately, card counting just cannot be done anymore either in real-life or online, and that’s a good thing for you, the casino, and for all the other people playing too.
