So, the bottom line is, H-Money never got up more than around $1,000.00 with the few good hits he managed to make during his session.  He eventually lost another $5,000.00, probably more like $5,600.00 I think--by the time he was ground down by the casino.

His largest problem is, burn out coupled with hope to get back previous losses.  Which plays and plays and plays upon himself, especially when he wins.  Then when he begins to lose, his mind set really goes sideways and he plays super impatient and extremely narrow sighted. 

H-Money fails to remain totally consciousness and focusing on Factors and Causes.  That is IMO and extensive experience of gambling with him.

The causes are in the middle and are surrounded by the factors.  H-Money fails to recognize any of the factors and which way he is heading while he is gambling.  Sad, but 100% true.   

Let me clarify a bit more.  H-Money does blacks out, plainly blacks out at the table.  On the surface he is conscious of course, but he is blacked out in my opinion.  He is oblivious to reality.  Reality is where you need to constantly check into every min or two at the very most.  The game is not reality, the game is fantasy.  It is fantasy because it requires nothing but money to survive in it. 

The average person there is really not in reality.  He is in his little corner of safe haven, as long as he has money in front of him.  Completely tunes out the world in 99% of all areas.  Complete faith and belief, that the next hand or two or three will begin to make up for his past losses and set the way for his new found riches.  Everything forthcoming.  Everything will fix itself with nothing really to do. 

H-Moneys problem like most players, especially the newer players is the win hold factor or the figuring what to do factor of playing.  Whether boredom sets in or your greed and lust gets the better part of you, you do need to come to terms with it all as I have outlined in great detail.  So many people here as well as within the casino will laugh at what I write, but I know in my heart it is true and applies to most all of us in so many numerous ways. 

The mathematicians and statisticians have a field day with what I say and they are so far off when it comes to the reality that inflicts itself on us all in a casino, at the baccarat tables, it is not even funny.  Just reality.   

Well back to H-Money now!

We have not been playing as much as we used to for two reasons.  1)  H-Money cut back some; and 2) I moved a little bit away from where he is at with the restaurant/bar I bought and am consumed with. 

So, here are some texts to get the subject matter going with what happened since Friday and into Saturday. 

H-Money called me earlier in the week and wanted to hook up and go to one of the casinos we used to go to.  I told him Thursday night and he agreed, but later changes on Thursday to Friday during the daytime because he has his manager out on Thursday and had a night job for replacing a restaurant kitchen HVAC system most of the night. I had extra help so Thursday was good for me.   So, I wound up going Thursday night late and he never showed up and told me he would go Friday during the daytime.  I could not go Friday until really late.  He winds up going Friday and loses and then goes back with a smaller amount of cash Friday night.  There is the text from him. Friday night he called before I text him back at 10:30pm or so.  He said he had $600.00 left.  I told him to divide it up into three sessions.  Concentrate on double $200.00 at least twice, two times each.  I wanted him to have $1,600.00 out of four wagers. 

[attachimg=1]


So, H-Money does not text me until I am already home and on my couch,  The casino he is at is a good--solid 2 hour drive from where I am at, if not pushing 3.  There is no way I can do it really.  I wake up from a short nap and text him.  Below is the series of texts.  Told me he was hitting a bunch of Fortunes 7s, but that win money was basically just keeping him afloat.  He told me he never got up over $1,000.00 win money, but then kept buying in or being even, still never over $1,000.00 win and I know H-Money, even with his buy ins back in a stack and $1,000.00 win, that is not enough for him to leave if I am not there with him forcing him to cash out and leave. 

[attachimg=2]

Then after another hour or so, he is down the $1,000.00 win money and ,lost about $3,000.00 of his own money.  My text referring to 'Amy' is another restaurant owner of an Asian restaurant and she is a great player, except her friend is widely known for wagering against anyone betting anything of decent size or on a win streak.  Most people will not even play at the same table as Amy's friend at these casinos.  There was only 2 or 3 people there all night, I know why but rather not say here.  Then after a little bit, tells me he is into the casino losing $5,000.00 of his own cash, and of course he gave back all the wins.   

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I forwarded these four texts to my email to download and post today at almost 5:00 am when I did that and off to bed for a few hours.  I talked to H-Money a little bit ago.

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Follow the Bead Plate when it is strong.  I have said it before and when you are at the B&M table and engaged, go with it.  We did after the 3rd and 4th blocks of the 1st line with the pure chop-chop for the remainder of that line.  Likewise we all did the same for the 4th block on of the solid Banker line on the 4th one down.  It was hard not to wager on other hands, but we managed.  As well the Fortune 7 on the 14th Banker hand came on that same line!  A real nice touch.  When the advantage is there, take it, do not disregard the gimmie wins. 

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Vision--Consciousness & Recognition of Funds

Whether it is bank roll or buy-in or win funds.  Does not matter.  A portion of players will handle their funds extremely consciously, very intelligent and with the knowledge and constant recognition, that the funds they possess, on the table, in their pocket, or those that are available,  should not govern them in their decision making processes, whatever that may be.  Pretty much straight forward and simplistic to the easiest ABC's and Gambling 101's.

However, I have asked many people that do play baccarat, as to their views and thoughts on 'win' money in particular.  The rest of the money situation and how each thinks about it, really is too varied and too complicated to understand without knowing those people 24/7 for huge amounts of time.  So, here it is from the 'horse's' mouths as the saying goes.

I asked H-Money the other night.  Me: "Say you won $100,000.00 from the casino and left with it, went and purchased two cars for $50,000.00 each.  Then you went back next week to any casino and lost your payroll check of $1,500.00 that night.  Would you be down $1,500.00 or what"?  H-Money:  "No, I would be up $98,500.00 if that was my second time gambling". 

He further went on to say, "You have to keep a running total in your head, as to the amount you are up or down, because you are free to play if you are still and you have to be careful and play more cautiously if you are down until you get up again". 

WOW!  I actually heard almost that same thing from another two baccarat players that played the game for a couple of years or so.  Interesting!  I do believe that money management systems and thought/beliefs about 'win' money, go hand in hand--with how a player thinks, cashes out and gauges his play/session times at the table. 

I have definitely concluded for myself that, 'refreshing and resetting' during the sessions as well as at the end of the session, no matter the outcome (win or lose) is vitally important and in your favor tremendously. 

No "resetting and refreshing" is extremely dangerous;
Viewing 'wins' as not yours is extremely dangerous;
Viewing 'cash outs' as 'up' money is extremely dangerous;
Running tab---of wins and losses and gauging yourself according to same, is extremely dangerous.

The above leads most players to, 'have to make'; 'have to earn'; 'pressure'; 'false positive reinforcements'; 'forced sessions to produce'; 'visions that cannot be seen or realized are even happening in front of them'; 'possible reinforcing of negativity or caution that hampers their winning ability'. 

LOL, it is reality.  Where Junk prevails because Junk is King along with all the twisted and junk that one idolizes. 

#1)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh8ttUKS9WQ

#2)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KL5M1zI_PA

And, the next one is like the unintelligent f**k at the baccarat table that primarily plays online and occasionally visits a B&M but is a bit out of touch with reality:

#3)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgMudF7JM4A

The next one.  "Do you know who I am"?  Let's get some bystanders to start a scene:

#4)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZrVyxkJDio

Forced to retire with full benefits.  Read the I-Net bro and go play baccarat in Atlantic City and learn the fool proof 7 column scoring technique, you will be wealthy in no time!

#5)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKTVVVuZeso

The next one is full of today's intelligent, gathered from endless hours of watching the I-Net and learning the vital skills to interface with society:

#6)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtcMo3M7PXA

Can you learn-Can you benefit by Forums?

Face value.  On your own.  With discussion and interaction with another or several.  Trial and error at the casino.  Research and understanding what can as well as, what may not happen.  Which the latter is where most people fail in their actual casino play at B&M casinos. 

Lots to think about, lots to explore.  Lots to learn.  Lots to have in your mind to base whatever it is you are pursuing or attacking, etc., etc. 

To sit down, say go to learn.  An actual learning session of some type.  Look, read, make notes, explore, read and research many versions of the same area or topic, etc.  Then suddenly the light goes off right above your head, "BOOM".  What?  Really?  And there it is, that is learning.  At least that is the way I view it.  Can one sit down, read a gambling forum and learn---each and every time?  Can that proverbial light always be going off?  I do not seriously think so.  Can you read and explore and try for it to?  Absolutely.  But there is a difference with the general banter and made up or assumed writing as compared to the actual writing of those posting actual results and their takes on them. 

There most certainly can be Subject A and Topic A.  The subject is writing about an instance of casino gambling at a casino and its results, etc.  Can that instance apply to you and your endeavors.  Absolutely.  Can the same instance apply to another 10 members reading the same exact writing?  Maybe not.  As well, how is that topic interpreted and understood by each person?  Different of course.  Has to be, the same as being in a classroom. 

Then there most certainly is a Subject B and Topic Bs as well.  And those my friends are the downsides and downfalls of the internet.  Sitting there enrolled in a school for some and a recreation yard BullS**T session for the others.  Enough said about the Subject B and Topic Bs, we have a few around, mostly banned or moderated here now anyway, but elsewhere they do exist and are very concerned and carry on topics about BelSelection and us here.  LOL, jealousy sucks as well as it irking your and bothering the heck out of you all the while those can not shake it off.  Sad to the max! 

Of course, the downfall and the sidetracking are another thing.  But hey, no difference than most classrooms with the class clowns, rejects, soon to be drop out as well as the failures waiting to happen.  No different anywhere in the world.   

Still takes Trial & Error, Trial & Error times 50 Xs or 100 Xs or more!  But, go ahead and believe you can read someone's postings on a casino forum as to how they track columns or events or anything else, multiple and divide as well as wait for a certain presentments of events, then they win and they never lose or they guarantee to win more than they lose.  Go right ahead.  Baccarat will never repeatedly with consistency provide pathways to wins based upon the same presentment producing them.  Go spend years testing, researching and playing, you will also come to that very same result. 

Then you have the special ones, the special people.  Those are the ones that say they expose everyone else who is full of Bulls**t and/or are Sock-puppets, etc., they are actually among the largest con/scam or just plain street corner beer drinking show stoppers that dwell on controlling any board or section of a board.  For without their evident power they seem to possess wherever they might control at the time, they are pretty much non-existent in anything else, (meaning-they live to talk about others and be hypercritical to the millionth power).  In other words, their forum presence is their everything and one can easily tell by their day in and day out regime of dazzle along with their degeneration and attempt at humiliation of others. Simple, there is no contesting that without doing exactly what I just outlined.  To the real players, to the real genuine posters that all take things seriously and pretty much tell the truth on the boards, those types would never waste their own valuable time maintaining evil grudges, journeys to humiliate or chastise others.  After all, you are just a reflection of what you really write in so many words.  The only problem is on the internet that does not exist in person among classmates, friends or family members, is when pun or a Saturday Night Live TV skit is attempted, how another will turn that very thing around and use it to support their made up, fictitious and degrading BULLS**T they write.

Of course, those types are banned or moderated in many cases these days on most forums.  It is easier rather than having to repeatedly warn, make announcements and chase away the good members, etc.  You know in all actuality, it does not matter what the individual writes about; If you like it, enjoy it, learn from it, get entertainment from it, great.  Read it and support the individual.  If you do not, skip it, move on and use your valuable time wisely and for other things.   

But you will certainly notice that the small group of outspoken, 'Little Boys', will dwell, notably call out, accuse, twist and turn writing in detail about most aspects of another's life when they never even met the person they are writing about, as well as calling out things about the other.  No reason except for the apparent and self-professed jealousy and proving themselves a hypercritical puppet of a small online casino gambling burned out little boy's club of sorrowful losers.  Someone that wastes their time to copy and paste and write things up, with the attempt at degradation, humiliation and chastising others.  That alone proves their true colors in every single way, no question about it.

Sad but true. 

Good Luck and Happy Learning, Alrelax/Glen

Here is the way we played this. 

Mine: (W/Explanations)

* Wagered $200.00 on Banker for the first hand.  Stuck on the Banker for the second and lost the $200.00 I won.  Even now. 
* Stuck on Player side because I like the B-P-P-P or the P-B-B-B starts, if I am going to wager several beginning consistent hands, etc.  Wagered my original $200.00 and won. Put $200.00 back in buy-in and wagered the $200.00 once again on the Player.  Lost.  Even again. I should have just grabbed the second wager/spot but I got a little greedy too quick, only because Player is usually stronger in the beginning, my fault.
* Placed on the Banker for $300.00 and $25.00 on the Fortune 7 wager as well.  Won the Banker, up $275.00.
* Parlayed on the Banker for $575.00 and another $25.00 on the F-7 again from the previous win.  Won the Banker, up $550.00 now. 
* Parlayed up to $800.00 on the Banker with $25.00 on the F-7 again.  Put $300.00 back into my buy-in from the previous win.  Now is my crucial time where I either jump way ahead or go back to even.  I usually do this on the casino's dime, yes I won the money and it is mine, but I play to win something sizable before my money management method kicks in and I divide up the winnings or my buy-in is depleted and bust.  So I go with the $800.00 as my wager with the commitment to pull down any other Banker wins and not parlay any or go down in wagering size.   I win the wager and put the $775.00 to the side for my M.M.M. to be applied. 
*  $800.00 once again and another $25.00 on the F-7 again.  H-Money is fighting me big time!  Wants to switch sides to Players Side.  I am attempting to ignore him and not get into it with him at all.  Fortune 7 comes out and Bingo!  $1,000.00 into the stack with the $775.00 as well. 
*  $800.00 once again and left the $25.00 out on the F-7 wager.  Banker won and pulled down the $800.00 win money. $2,575.00 in the set aside stack now. 
*  $800.00 once again and put another $25.00 out on the F-7 wager.  Banker won and pulled down the $775.00 win money.  $3,350.00 in the set aside stack now. 
*  $800.00 once again and put another $25.00 out on the Fortune-7 wager again.  BOOM!  Once again another F-7 comes out.  $1,000.00 into the set aside stack.  $4350.00 in the stack now.  Still have my $25.00 out on the F-7 and my $800.00 Banker wager that is in and above my original buy-in capital at risk. 
*  $800.00 once again on the Banker wager.  Asked the dealer if he wanted $50.00 tip or should I wager it for him.  Said to give him $25.00 and wager a quarter on the Banker for him as well.  Set aside is now sitting at an even $4,300.00.  Banker wins once again and I pull down my $775.00 and my set aside is currently at $5,075.00.
*  $800.00 once again on the Banker wager and another $25.00 on the F-7 wager.  Lost, Player resurfaced as you see and I am sitting with even on the buy-in and my $5,075.00 gets divided up.

I put $3,500.00 away and increase my buy-in by the $1,575.00.

Now I figured the Banker was a freak at the beginning of the shoe, which is normally the case when the Banker comes on so strong so quick, I really do love the Players side.  H-Money is freaking going crazy and bugging about the Bankers side something awful.  I am starting to lose my concentration and trying to get him to calm down.  He won but he is getting flustered.

*  I turned to H-Money and told him, Players side and I am sticking with it.  He did not say anything.  He was following at this point.  I wagered $500.00 out there on the Players side.  Players won with a Natural 9 over a Bankers Natural 8.  Parlayed it straight up to $1,000.00. 
*  Once again the Players side won with another 9 over a Bankers Natural 8.  Pulled the win down and stack it to the side.  $2,575.00 in my side money from the Banker ending stack of $1,575.00 after putting the $3,500.00 away. 
*  Again I placed the $1,000.00 on the Players side.  Natural for the Bank side appeared to the Players side of 7.  I said, I am sticking with the Players side and not going to bounce myself.  I put another $1,000.00 out of the $2,575.00 I had in the set aside stack, in and above my original buy-in.  The Players side did win once again with another Natural.  I wanted to press this but reserved the aggressiveness, that I should have really shown within the 9 Bankers just before.  So I let the $1,000.00 stand on Players and replenished the set-aside back to its $2,575.00.
*  Player won again with another natural.  Now every hand since the end of the 9 Banker streak was a freaking Natural, not rare, just a little something to think about.  So I pulled down the $1,000.00 win and got my set-aside stack now to $3,575.00 with a $1,000.00 to wager.
*  H-Money is parlaying like crazy and I am not saying anything to him.  We pull off another Player side win with a Player 7 over the Banker side of 6.  I pull down the $1,000.00 win and stack it in my set-aside making that now $4,575.00. 
*  I stick on the Players side with the $1,000.00 wager and H-Money reverts to the Banker side with huge fanfare.  Banker wins with a Natural once again.  I stop, I am done.

I colored up my stack of set-aside and original buy-in to right at $8,000.00 win profit and threw the rest to the dealer.  Good enough for me.  After H-Money and myself cashed out, we stopped back at the table.  I wanted to take a picture but too much fanfare and people gathered around.  It was all chop for about 7 or 8 hands or so, then a bunch of 1's and 3's of both Banker and Player. 

WOW!  What a great start and play out!  H-Money is a bit calmer now and starting to understand, take the money and run and cool the heck off!  Stop the emotions and the need to win it back or win tons more and get the greed dose of excitement, right now, hook or crook-- as they say!!!


[attachimg=1]

Another weak shoe that had numerous strong and consistent tendencies.  Absolute fantastic IMO!

[attachimg=1]


[attachimg=2]

And the entire shoe continued the same way with almost all 1s and 2s, one additional time was 3 Bankers.  Please note almost every cut was a natural as well.  Look at that top line.  There was an additional 2 Fortune 7s in that 3 Banker towards the end, one Banker F-7, a regular Banker natural 9 then another Fortune 7 as well. 

Will detail in later tonight.  Too tired.  H-Money did extremely well!

Shoe Buy-In:  $2,000.00
H-Money Shoe Buy-In:  $1,500.00

Shoe Profit:  $4,100.00
H-Money Shoe Profit:  $5,600.00

Another strong and totally predictable couple of shoes that proved extremely profitable:


[attachimg=1]


Shoe Buy-In: $1,400.00
H-Money Shoe Buy-In:  $900.00

Shoe Profit: $3.640.00
H-Money Shoe Profit:  $2,180.00

Here it is, the two shoes we played.  Full tables out of the few bac tables they have.  Began a new shoe and H-Money and I got a couple of seats.  This time he followed me, LOL!  But true!  He actually followed me and did not resist is normal 100% self.  I just tried to call him and no answer, which is unusual, hoping he did not go back after I dropped him hone late last night.  Anyways, onward.

AGAIN.  I wish to reiterate as I get asked this all the time.  "How do you know where to mark the Section and Turning Points at"?  Well, I have explained it and through members twisting and turning and assuming everything but, they misunderstand and expand upon something ultra simple and factual, into drama and wash women laundry room banter.  Well, Sections and Turning Points are going to be a little individual to you style of wagering and play as well.  But basically, every 20 hands (12-25) for a solid 4 Sections per shoe, could be 3 or 5 as well. Sections are to keep you focused on the immediate and stop the dwelling on what was and what is not.  Few words for great drama, I realize but those doing just that are the same ones that say my posts and explanations where extremely long, did not read and then those exact same people go on other boards and their own writings dwarf mine, ROMAFL!!!!!! 

As I have explained before and conveniently left out in other's rebuttals against my ways with Sections & Turning Points, the Turning Points are drawn on your card right after they happen (probably backing up 2 or 3 hands to put your line) with your individual style and beliefs in the shoe.   You have to have the experience and the willpower as well to use them.  Repeating, opposite, rare already happened, the (+ - 10) to the  (+ - 20 count),  and numerous other things you are conscious of and waiting for to happen or not happen, etc., etc.   


First Shoe:

[attachimg=1]

Second Shoe:

[attachimg=2]

Reference INTEL 4004 Microprocessor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004

Reference INTEL 8008 Microprocessor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_8008

Understanding what FLIR System/Camera are capable of:

https://www.flir.com/applications/security/

Reprinted from an industry publication.  IMO, good basic background and info.  Not suggesting by any means that it be used to get over on the casino, but you might find some things that will help you avoid scrutiny and learn what the casinos are looking for, etc., etc.

Vegas casinos on cheating

"I think most people feel that if you can find a way to beat the casino, more power to you," says Arnold Synder, his eyes, those telltale features, hidden behind a pair of black sunglasses. "This place set up the rules, they provide the equipment, they provide the dealer, and they're basically saying; Come in and try to beat us."

It's the welcoming whisper, the allure of easy fortune. Folks come in and wager, hoping they'll be the exception to the rule that the house always wins. Then there are the savvier players, those who don't simply hope, but actively seek an advantage, sometimes by any means necessary. Probably for as long as there have been wagering games, players have sought an edge. Depending on the orientation of your moral compass, sometimes that search tips over into outright cheating. And for as long as there have been cheats, the house has tried to stop them. Today, when every smartphone is a computer, camera, and communications device, the potential for cheating is probably greater than it's ever been. But the casinos are fighting back with technology of their own.

The rise of blackjack and the counting computer

Arnold Snyder has known plenty of savvy players, even been one himself. A long-time professional gambler, he's the author of The Big Book of Blackjack and publisher of Blackjack Forum Online. Blackjack is a particularly interesting game, Snyder says, because for a long time it wasn't very popular. At the end of World War II, when the Nevada casinos (then the only legal gambling joints in the country) were first building their business, they featured row after row of dice tables. G.I.'s fighting in the trenches threw craps, because dice were durable and waterproof. When they returned stateside, they brought their love of the game back with them. Blackjack, in contrast, was a niche game.

That all changed in 1962, when Random House published Edward O. Thorp's Beat The Dealer: A Winning Strategy for the Game of Twenty-One. While an instructor at M.I.T., Thorp had used the school's IBM 704 computer and a mathematical formula called the Kelly criterion to develop his method for counting cards, providing a potential edge over the house. It wasn't much, perhaps 1%, but it made blackjack a potentially lucrative game. Beat the Dealer became an improbable bestseller, as thousands of gambling naifs imagined themselves proud owners of a genuine get-rich-quick scheme. Most overestimated their skill and determination, but flooded the casinos nonetheless. Suddenly blackjack became big business.

One of those thousands was a Raytheon engineer and devout Baptist from Mountain View, California, named Keith Taft. "Keith Taft was about 10 steps ahead of everybody back in the, 70's and 80's," says Snyder. "He was astonishing. He's a legend."

Taft's job at Raytheon involved integrated circuits. On a family vacation in 1969, he happened to play a few hands of blackjack. He won all three, pocketing $3.50 in profit. Though he'd never used it himself, he remembered a little bit about Thorpe's strategy from Beat the Dealer. One of his first thoughts about card counting was: couldn't a computer do this?

At the time, the word "computer" still conjured up images of men in white lab coats standing in front of reel-to-reel machines, clipboard in hand. Intel's first RAM chip appeared in 1970, followed soon after by the 4004 and 8008 microprocessors. The first personal computer, the little-known Kenbak-1, debuted in 1971, retailing for $750. (Forty were sold.) The hardware that would power Taft's wearable blackjack computer had just begun arriving in the marketplace. He?d also moved into R&D at Fairchild, which gave him the computing power to develop his software algorithms.

Two years later, he had his blackjack computer, a system he called "George", 15 pounds of circuitry and batteries strapped around his midsection, with wires running down his leg and into his shoe, where he input card values with a pair of switches strapped to his toes. During George?s first test run, a casino employee happened to place a hand on Taft?s back, vindicating the decision to not strap the computer there. Oh, and there was the battery acid that leaked through his shirt and scarred his chest.

So began a decade and a half of tinkering. Taft and George did well enough, despite some initial setbacks, and pretty soon the whole Taft family was recruited for the project. They eventually teamed up with Ken Uston, an ex-stockbroker turned blackjacker who imagined a bright future of computer-enabled play.

"COULDN'T YOU MAKE A COMPUTER COUNT CARDS?"

Keith Taft, along with his son Marty, continued to upgrade their creations. The George system begat George II, which begat David, as in "David and Goliath," the casinos being his oversize, seemingly unbeatable opponent, which begat Thor.

When Snyder says that Taft was ahead of everyone, he doesn't mean just fellow blackjack players. He means high-tech companies like Intel and HP. In those early days, Taft was pioneering wearable computers. He wasn't the first; that distinction belongs to Edward Thorpe himself, who with Claude Shannon had designed a device to beat the roulette wheel. But his advances include primitive networking, using a thin wire to connect five players on the casino floor. In an early example of digital photography, he built a camera into a belt buckle. Connected to a wearable computer, it broadcast images of the dealer's cards to a truck out in the parking lot. He even had one computer signal him via an LED embedded in a pair of glasses. (He ditched that technique because dealers could see the light reflecting in his eyes.)

During the golden age of blackjack computers, Taft dreamed up all kinds of new devices. He sold some of them to fellow players; though it was a small market, that and his winnings let him keep experimenting. "He never got rich," Snyder says, "But he made his living for a number of years."

Taft's devices would be illegal today, under Nevada's strict anti-cheating laws. And though they can't outlaw mental card counting, casinos have taken to using multiple decks to make advantage play more difficult. "Card counting does not have the popularity it had. And one of the reasons is because of all the casino countermeasures," says Snyder. The days when a young man might fall asleep over his copy of Beat the Dealer and dream of easy riches are now far in the past.

Working in the house of surveillance

As casinos grew in size, thanks in part to the rise of blackjack, it became increasingly difficult to keep a vigilant eye on players. It might surprise you to hear that the most important countermeasure casinos employed against cheaters and thieves was nothing high-tech and novel like biometrics or facial recognition or RFID chips. It was simply installing cameras, being able to see. And then being able to see more. And record and playback what was seen. For all of the potential sci-fi advances they could deploy, most casinos still rely on cameras and the people watching them. "You cannot walk into any casino property in the world without being picked up on camera," says Derk Boss, President of the International Association of Certified Surveillance Professionals. "We can track your movements throughout the casino if we want to."

The Las Vegas exemplar of security camera use is probably the Aria Resort and Casino. It's a luxe establishment, part of MGM's 67-acre City Center complex that opened in late 2009; it's the largest privately funded construction project in U.S. history, costing over $8.5 billion to build. Part of that expense went to running fiber optic cable to each of Aria's 4004 rooms, enabling high-tech features such as personalized climate control and energy-saving options that earned the building a gold LEED rating.

Underneath all of that is the monitoring room, custom-designed with the help of Ted Whiting, Aria's director of surveillance. More than 1,100 cameras dot the casino, a mixture of high-definition digital cameras and older, analog pan/tilt/zoom (P/T/Z) cameras. According to Derk Boss, most casinos still use P/T/Z cameras: they're less expensive and don't have the lag of some digital cameras. Setting up his room, Whiting requested a mix of analog and digital, looking for the best of both worlds.

The casino also has 50 cameras that take 360-degree images. They make it easier to track a specific person, especially as he or she passes through "choke points," designed to provide surveillance with a nice long look at anyone of interest. Cameras monitor 98 percent of the casino floor; Whiting says even he's not sure where to find that other 2 percent.

IN THE NEAR FUTURE CAMERAS WILL HAVE THE INTELLIGENCE TO DISTINGUISH SAVVY PLAYERS FROM HOPELESS NEWBES

Despite that, Whiting says facial recognition software hasn't been of much use to him. It's simply too unreliable when it comes to spotting people on the move, in crowds, and under variable lighting. Instead, he and his team rely on pictures shared from other casinos, as well as through the Biometrica and Griffin databases. (The Griffin database, which contains pictures and descriptions of various undesirables, used to go to subscribers as massive paper volumes.) But quite often, they're not looking for specific people, but rather patterns of behavior. "Believe it or not, when you've done this long enough," he says, "you can tell when somebody's up to no good. It just doesn't feel right."

They keep a close eye on the tables, since that's where cheating is most likely to occur. With 1080p high-definition cameras, surveillance operators can read cards and count chips, a significant improvement over earlier cameras. And though facial recognition doesn't yet work reliably enough to replace human operators, Whiting's excited at the prospects of OCR. It's already proven useful for identifying license plates. The next step, he says, is reading cards and automatically assessing a player's strategy and skill level. In the future, maybe, the cameras will spot card counters and other advantage players without any operator intervention. (Whiting, a former advantage player himself, can often spot such players. Rather than kick them out, as some casinos did in the past, Aria simply limits their bets, making it economically disadvantageous to keep playing.)

With over a thousand cameras operating 24/7, the monitoring room creates tremendous amounts of data every day, most of which goes unseen. Six technicians watch about 40 monitors, but all the feeds are saved for later analysis. One day, as with OCR scanning, it might be possible to search all that data for suspicious activity. Say, a baccarat player who leaves his seat, disappears for a few minutes, and is replaced with another player who hits an impressive winning streak. An alert human might spot the collusion, but even better, video analytics might flag the scene for further review. The valuable trend in surveillance, Whiting says, is toward this data-driven analysis (even when much of the job still involves old-fashioned gumshoe work). "It's the data," he says, "And cameras now are data. So it's all data. It's just learning to understand that data is important."

Ultimately, catching cheaters is a small part of what casino surveillance teams do. There simply aren't that many cheats out there, compared to the number of purse-snatchers and pickpockets, the ordinary criminals that people like Ted Whiting deal with almost every day. When it comes to cheating, Whiting says, "We're never going to be ahead. Remember that people who get paid to catch the bad guys get paid whether they catch them or not. The cheats don't get paid unless they figure it out. So they're motivated, and they've succeeded. But once they do, we go full in."

But at the same time, Taft built on concepts that came before him, implementing them in a new and bold way. That's the path of virtually all progress. Demonstrating a holdout that's nearly a century old, England says that while cheating technology may change, basic concepts remain the same. You can always come up with a new and clever way to mark cards, for example, but doing so is simply another way of secretly conveying information that, by the rules of the game, you're not supposed to have. Knowing that a pair of dice is loaded puts you at an information advantage over someone who assumes they're normal.

"All you're talking about, at the end of the day now, is information," he says, standing on the floor of the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show. He's checking out the possibilities for high-tech cheating, whether with miniature cameras, surreptitious communication, or simple misdirection. When you're playing a game where decisions matter (rather than pure games of chance), cheating is simply a matter of having better information than your opponent. "If I know your hole card, I'm gonna beat you. If I know the flop, I'm going to beat you. It's all information transfer. And that's all everything in this room does," he says, sweeping his arm to take in the acres of electronics surrounding him, "is move information from one place to another. Information management is all it is."

There's also a certain mindset involved, a way of looking at the world. England, for example, spots the FLIR booth at the end of a long aisle. He's thought about the technology before, the usefulness of infrared lighting for cheating, and soon he's running an impromptu test on one of FLIR's demo cameras. It recalls one of his other devices, a proof-of-concept piece using infrared LEDs. Certain smartphone cameras, it turns out, can see light from infrared LEDs, which remains invisible to the naked eye. Arrange a bank of extremely bright infrared LEDs under a playing card, switch them on, and then hold your camera over it. If all goes according to plan, he explains, you'll be able to see right through the back of the card.

"THERE'S JUST TOO MANY SMART PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WORKING TO MAKE MONEY AT THE GAMES. PROTECTING THEM IS AN IMPOSSIBILITY.?

It's that mindset that determines that cheating (like, say, magic, or hacking) will never completely go away, or be overcome by increasingly high-tech surveillance. It's the mindset that doesn't accept seemingly ironclad rules about the world ("The house always wins") and always seeks a loophole, and edge, or an out. "As some casino puts a new game on the floor," Arnold Snyder says, "there are players in there looking at it; they're getting the data on it. That's the whole way a professional thinks: How can I beat this game?"

"I don't know whether they're ever going to come up with a foolproof method where the house is always going to win," he continues. "And basically that's what a casino is supposed to be: every game in the house is rigged. Every game is rigged against the player. They're not fair, they're rigged. In every game there's a house edge they assume they have based on their analysis. And the whole thing a professional player is trying to do is figure where they made their mistake, what were they not expecting me to do, what did they think I wouldn't be able to see that I can see. There's just too many smart people in the world working to make money at the games, that protecting them is an impossibility."

Put another way: wherever there's a system, an established order, someone will have an incentive to uphold it. And someone else will have equal incentive to break it.