"Attorney sues casinos for using card counting system"

Here is the link. http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Oct-19-Tue-2004/news/25027617.html

It is kind of fun to read quotes from Casino and Manufacturers lying thru their teeth and everyone knows it.

I don't always agree with how everything is done at this site. But, this is a great example why everyone needs to support sites like this, BJ21. Otherwise we would hear only Casino propaganda.

Speaking of casino propaganda I just read a new one about 6:5 on the green chip page. I quote, "You're the casino manager. Change your games to 6:5 BJ so you'll be able to comp your players more generously". That had me RLFLOL.

He stepped up and is willing to go public to try to help stop this casino cheating.

Just to clarify, my understanding is that the lawsuit challenged the violation of the Nevada Device Statues. That law makes it illegal to use a computer to count cards. Casinos have been using human and card-counters almost as long as we have been doing it.

I don�t think this point is an clearly in the Press coverage.

Now I don�t know this for a fact, because I haven�t seen the pleadings. But I had the impression that Bob N was working on a case about he Device law, and I presume this is it.

along with other issues. The complaint will be posted soon.

The system uses marked cards??!?

How on earth does that pass anybody's straight face test?

LOL (hollowly, ironically)

:: ::

.. is a perfect way to describe it.

As I posted elewhere in explaining what MindPlay is about, just typing the words should make one feel ridiculous.

Al -if you lose in Nevada, where I assume it will be heard first, is this something that can be appealed to a court outside the State of Nevada?

Click below.

because it raises some points that are very difficult to imagine a legal defense for. IE can a casino use a computer to increase the house advantage, because it is not a "person" under Nevada law? Be interesting to see what happens since the NV gaming commission seems to be turning their collective heads even when presented lots of evidence of wrongdoing.

The next step is to scan in all 312 or 416 cards, check the number of players, instantly play the hands using BS, and decide if the deck is "good for house or good for player" and signal the dealer to "shuffle again". Sobering thought and very easy to implement since they already can read the cards, although I am not sure I buy the comments some have made about reading all 300-400 cards via some sort of magnetic or RFID tags buried in the cards. While it seems remotely possible, it seems to be a real stretch of technology when applied to card playing...

...I am not sure I buy the comments some have made about reading all 300-400 cards via some sort of magnetic or RFID tags buried in the cards. While it seems remotely possible, it seems to be a real stretch of technology when applied to card playing...

It can do it. I have watched the cards run through the scanner.

From the Mindplay website:

Nothing can escape the MP21� system; every Player, every Card and every Bet is captured, identified, analyzed and then reported as it happens.

A bit of background first. I've been a computer science person since 1968, and have been teaching CS in two different major universities since 1970. The reason for saying that is that I have a lot of background in computer architecture.

The thing that gives me pause here is that you have about 52 cards in a space of about 1/2". A typical magnetic disk drive certainly can pack the equivalent of 1000 cylinders of information into 1/2", but there the read/write heads are so very close to the disk, the disk is spinning at a constant speed, and the read/write heads are precisely positioned over each "track" as it is read.

To read something magnetically requires motion. So I assume mindplay is not using magnetics, but rather some form of "RFID" the small chips that can be read by a radio-frequency "trick" that eliminates the magnetic requirement of "motion".

My concern is how to scan RFID chips when there are 52 of them stacked on top of each other in a 1/2" space. IE how to reliably read each one, in order? While I won't say it can't be done, it would seem to me that it would be a technology nightmare to keep it running.

I'm aware of a casino/IT company joint development to put RFID into casino chips to accurately track chips as they are played and given back to players, but a person I talked to a few months back said that the idea of "stacked chips" was turning into a headache since the goal is to make this 100% unobtrusive into the game. IE nobody wants to have some special set of procedures for (say) placing bets that is different on an electronic table from a normal table.

The mindplay site seems to suggest that the cards are scanned as they are pulled from a shoe, rather than being all scanned at once as the deck is "squared up" or whatever. Whether that is really what happens is a guess, as I could see a casino's interest in scanning _all_ the cards before the shoe is put into play...

I'll keep looking but it is hard to say (at present) what is fact, what is fiction, and what is just "hype"...

IE one effective counting counter-measure is just a "threat" of some superior technology that makes counters go elsewhere.

The mindplay site seems to suggest that the cards are scanned as they are pulled from a shoe, rather than being all scanned at once as the deck is "squared up" or whatever. Whether that is really what happens is a guess, as I could see a casino's interest in scanning _all_ the cards before the shoe is put into play...

The dealer puts the cards through a scanning device after shuffling, and after each round. The device is located where the discard tray normally is. The scanner quickly reads them one by one. It is quite apparent when watching it.

From the cheaters' website:

Card and Chip Recognition. MindPlay� has created the world's most sophisticated image recognition technology for use in the gaming industry. Optically based, the system captures every object on the table. Totally covert and completely non-intrusive to the play of the game, Chips and Cards are recognized and reported to the game tracking logic of MP21�. No special chips are needed. Playing Cards are provided by our partner, the United States Playing Card Company, using patented WinMark� technology by MindPlay�.

A bit of dark humor in the choice of name for the "WinMark" technology. The casino WINS by using the MARKED cards.

I've seen it in action. It reads the cards, in order, prior to play. It also notifies the dealer who won which hand. I was paid on a push once, only to have MindPlay flash a message to the dealer.

By the way, dealers HATE MindPlay, as do many ploppies. In fact, it ended up costing casinos a lot of money to prevent counters from winning a little. That's why LVH got rid of it. And that's probably why other places need to cheat players. It's the only way the system is worth having.

can it be seen by the players on the table? Could we look at it to see if we could wong the shoe or check to see if our count is accurate? Does it use a hi/lo system or what?

It cannot be seen by the players at the table. The dealer inputs data into the system (bets by position, etc) and information is displayed on the screen. I'm not sure where or if the count information is displayed (too bad...would greatly assist wonging!), but one must assume it's accessible to the pit.

Those pics were pretty informative. Although they didn't have any "data" of merit being shown, the betting correlation to the count was pretty damned troubling. I could not interpret one of the things on the screen but it _might_ be a histogram that across the bottom has the True count from -X to +X, and above that some sort of indicators showing how much was bet on average for each true count.

a back-off lover's delight, if my "fill in the blanks" is very accurate, and I'd bet a big bet that it is. :)

:)

People have got to be educated about this, or it is going to ruin BJ completely. We need enough publicity so that John Q. Public can walk up to a table, say "Uh Oh, Mindplay table, I'm not playing here," tell the dealer/pit critters that, and then walk away. We need the same for the 6:5 stuff as well.

So far, it hasn't caught on. The ploppies haven't liked it. It slows down the game; they also seem to think something "fishy" is going on, but they don't know what. Also, the system has to load in the cards before they are played, and that takes a bit too long for most people. Additionally, the dealers hate the system, as it requires too much work and is prone to problems. These factors caused LVH to be at half-capacity on busy nights where the rest of Vegas was jamming. Since they got rid of it, the crowds have picked way up, so getting rid of it was a big win for them.

To LVH's credit, they didn't use the system to preferential shuffle (they use a cut card), and they were never able to fully utilize its capabilities.

As an aside....I was there the HOUR LVH got rid of MindPlay! Put it this way...did you ever see someone who was dependent on a computer to do their job suddenly lose it??? Hehe.

When you say it slowed the game down, it sounds like the dealer shuffles the cards, then puts it in a device that riffles through the entire deck scanning the cards, then they are ready to go in the shoe?

That is insanity, but it fits much better than the impression someone gave that the cards were scanned as they were "squared up" on the side of the shoe before they are dropped into the shoe. I could not see how that is possible with technology I am aware of.

However I _am_ aware of an experiment to put RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips into the casino's chips. Wal-Mart is beginning to use this to track a product from reception at their warehouse, through the shipping/receiving process, to the retail store, and even as it passes through the check-out. I think the casino idea is simply to get a better make on each player's action, rather than using pit critter guestimates. The only risk is that they will know exactly what your bet is, and your winning percentage from this, without requiring any special chip-handling. I suppose a problem to be worked out is a "stack" but perhaps there are solutions to that that I am unaware of.

In any case, we are in the "computer age" of course. :)

The _real_ danger is that it won't be long before it is possible to do a "mindplay" facility that is invisible to us. No unnecessary card scanning or anything. That is a scarey possibility. You get screwed and have no idea until you wake up in the morning and say "hey, something is not right..." :)

Gorilla Player,

You keep talking about chips in the cards. Why? What about simple barcode type marking technology on the sides of the cards? You know, a varient on supermarket scanning. Or how about some other kind of simple optical marking which enables the cards to be identified from the side as they are placed into the discard slot on the table? When I played on the MindPlay table, the dealer could not deal the next round without a green light from the table. She obtained this green light, (or sometimes a red light and a shuffle) by simply massaging the cards slightly inside the discard tray, just like repositioning the barcode at the checkout counter at the store when it is not read on the first pass.

Slim

A few points.

First, for the record, computer science is what I do. So I at least have the opportunity to follow technology developments in this field very closely.

That said, the original point someone made was that the decks were scanned as they were "squared up" against the shoe. I couldn't see how that was done, based on current technology. Now it seems that the cards are run thru a scanner that probably riffles through the deck card by card, pretty quickly. Using that approach, RFID would work. Subtle pattern variations on the back of the card would work. IE if you can precisely pass each card by a scanning device, then yes even a tiny dot in a particular place where a human eye could not see it would be enough.

Chips are another matter. I'm not going to place them in the circle where it is convenient to the scanning device. I am going to stack them as I always do, and technology to read that is tougher. Yes, they could mark the edges. But scanning them from long distance is not doable today. Notice that supermarket scanners pass the bar codes a constant distance from the scanner by sliding the thing over a clear window with the laser and detectors below it and to the side so that it sees the bar code. But it will _not_ be happy with multiple bar codes in close proximity. RFID is another animal, that has promise and is being used in retail settings like Wal-Mart. But again, the scanner has to pass in close proximity to _one_ RFID tag. Not a bunch of them. But there is an actual development project between a casino and electronics company to put RFID into the chips to accurately track bets...

Reading cards without precisely locating them in space seems tough at present, although it won't always be tough. Doing like the mindplay device seems to do backs away from science fiction and seems like the only reasonable solution (TODAY). Marking the edge of cards seems impossible when you have 100 cards per inch, or in every inch of space you will have to differentiate between 100 _different_ very narrow codes... I don't see that happening for a while.

Reading things in the discard tray appears to be impossible, unless the goal is to read one card at a time, although I have never seen a dealer pick up cards one at a time and put 'em in the discards. And I wouldn't play at a table where things moved so slowly either. That seems to be the great failing of Mindplay at present. If this is going to work, it has to be _invisible_ to the players and dealer, from a playing perspective. If you have to continually adjust things (discard tray, chips, etc) for the thing to work, it is not going to be successful. Of course, I hope it never is, myself. :)