A Story of Card Counting Distraction

Card counting, while not illegal, can get your thrown out of a casino. But it is quite useful when it comes to blackjack strategy. But to pull it off well you have to practice it, and even then you have to be careful when counting cards at the blackjack table so that the dealer or pit personnel are not tipped off as to what you are doing.

Typically this means keeping the spread of your wagering small, and perhaps now and then throwing in a variance in your wagering, such as betting less when you should bet more or vice versa. The point is that you would be using it as a distraction. But I heard of another distraction that was used to cover up card counting.

I heard the story of man who was playing blackjack in Vegas and counting cards. So was the other guy who was at the table with him. Naturally since they were both counting and they were the only ones at the table, they were keeping their spreads small. But then a pretty woman stumbled up to the table who appeared to know the other guy. What then ensued was the other player giving her some of his chips and inviting her to play with them. But she was a terrible and sloppy player; even if she had not been drinking it was doubtful that she would have done well.

The other player helper the woman with her blackjack playing as best he could. Then the dealer, taking pity, started to give her tips and try to help. Finally pit personnel wound up trying to give her pointers to help her. While all of this was going on the other guy and the guy who told this story had increased the spread of their wagering. As a result the other man wound up cashing out for $30,000.

This is a case of distraction at the blackjack table. The dealer and pit personnel were too focused on helping the tipsy woman with her poor blackjack playing that they did not notice the two men increasing their spreads and making more off of their card counting.

While many blackjack players will resort to some sort of distraction to keep casino staff from picking up that they are counting cards, I had not heard of such an elaborate distraction. And while some distractions work at the blackjack table, they are not meant to replace skill and practice in card counting.

$5.8 Million Won in Atlantic City Blackjack

There was one very lucky blackjack player last month at the Tropicana Casino and Resort in Atlantic City. In a high stakes blackjack game, the player (who has not been named to protect him or her) won $5.8 million.

It is actually an unfortunately ironic story. Not unfortunate or ironic for the player though. He or she is probably quite happy right about now with their $5.8 million. But the Tropicana is not excessively happy. Do not get me wrong, the publicity that they had a nearly $6 million winner is going to do them some good. But they just had to pay out close to $6 million to one player.

Atlantic City has been suffering in the down turned economy. There has been a drop in visitors which further impacts the smaller and smaller turnouts. Profits are down and there is no end yet in sight for a solution. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has passed a few bills to help revitalize Atlantic City, but their impact has not yet been felt. As a result, the casinos are all trying different ways of drumming up business. The Tropicana

More Bad Beat Blackjack Tables Installed

Barona Resort and Casino was the first casino in the US to receive the Bad Beat Blackjack tables, produced by DEQ Systems Corp. And with the beginning of May they have installed nine more tables at the Barona Casino bringing the total number of Bad Beat Blackjack tables up to twenty. That is a lot of Bad Beat Blackjack.

And Bad Beat is the word. I am not a fan of side beats in blackjack. But here we are with a blackjack game with a progressive payout and a side bet. That is a recipe for the house to take your bankroll.

The way it works is that the actual game of blackjack is played the same as usual, but players can make a side bet ranging from $1 up to $5. If the dealer beats a player

6-5 Payouts are to Blackjack What a Smack is to the Face

It does not come any truer than that. Blackjack started out as a single deck game. That is what it was built on. Back in the day blackjack was played on a single deck with a 3-2 payout for a natural. Nowadays you can almost never find that. Nowadays if you see a single deck game it means a 6-5 payout.

And that 6-5 payout is like a smack in the face for blackjack players. Here the casinos are touting that this a revival of the good ol

Why Should Anyone Play 99 Cents Blackjack?

When asking people why they wanted to learn how to play blackjack, they tell me that they wanted to win money at the casino and they heard that they could win money playing blackjack.

Logical enough answer considering that blackjack has one of the lowest house edges in the casino. But if a player wants to win money, why play in an online blackjack tournament that only costs 99 cents to enter? Obviously the prize pool is not going to be all that high, so why bother?

Simply put, tournament play in blackjack is handled a bit different than when playing solo. What other players are doing is a big factor. The point is not to only beat the dealer, but to beat the players who are ahead of you. This often means being more aggressive in your blackjack playing. Wagering more then you normally would. In other times it means playing defensively if you are trying to keep on top.

Because of the high likelihood of playing in a different manner it means that practice is necessary. Unfortunately there is no free play mode to practice playing in a blackjack tournament. It means actually playing in a blackjack tournament again and again until you have your tournament feet under you.

This is where 99 cents blackjack tournaments come into play. True they do not offer much in terms of prize pools. But they do give players an inexpensive opportunity to practice playing in an online blackjack