Card counting recognition

[arcticpenguin]

http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,60049,00.html

a new optical pattern recognition technology called MindPlay MP21, which is designed to automatically track and analyze the play and betting patterns of every gambler at a blackjack table in real time.
...
MindPlay works by placing a set of 14 digital cameras around a specially built blackjack table tray. The optical equipment registers every card in play by reading special invisible ink printed on them.

But that isn't the only trick up MindPlay's sleeve. It can recognize the differences between a player's drink, a napkin, an ashtray, a stack of chips being held by a player and a pile of chips in play, Soltys said. And it tracks the location and value of chips by comparing 3-D models of them in a database to all objects on the table.

As a game progresses, MindPlay notes which cards have been dealt as well as each player's bets. And this is where the casino may now finally have the upper hand against counters. Traditionally, counting strategies dictate that counters bet high when more high cards remain as a larger number of unplayed high cards gives an advantage to the player.

The objective is to identify "card-counters", players who count the cards already dealt and adjust their play accordingly.

If the system involves "invisible ink" markings on the cards, I'd have to wonder about getting special glasses to read them. Could be much easier than counting all those cards...

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

You know, if casinos don't want people to gain an advantage by counting cards, they should invent damn card games where counting doesn't help.

~~ Paul

 

[Brown]

You know, if casinos don't want people to gain an advantage by counting cards, they should invent damn card games where counting doesn't help.

They've got 'em, but reaction from bettors has been unfavorable.

A recently invented gadget shuffles the cards with every deal. After a dealer picks up all the dealt cards from the table, the cards are immediately shuffled back into the shoe.

Also, various "slot machine" versions of blackjack "shuffle the cards" after every deal, making card counting a waste of time.

 

[Aoidoi]

Ah, the poor casinos, losing money due to the hordes of mathematically inclined gamblers ripping them off at the blackjack table. What? Casinos are still making vast amounts of money? Color me shocked.

 

[Ziggurat]

If the system involves "invisible ...to sense spectrum beyond what it's built for.

 

[arcticpenguin]

Re: Re: Card counting recognition

Not unless those glasses look something like night-vision goggles. You won't get any glasses that can shift the spectrum from, say, infrared or ultraviolet into the visible spectrum without some sort of active process in between your eyes and the object in question. Without that, you're limited to just filtering, but that can't get your eyes to sense spectrum beyond what it's built for.

Right, but you can get computer display glasses. They're still obvious and cumbersome, but we must assume they will improve. Then the camera can sense in whatever waveband is appropriate and put a display in your glasses.

The article points out that this system not only attempts to alert toe casino to card counters, it allows the casinos to card-count as well, and with perfect memory. Whether they take advantage of that or not I don't know.