Myth or Reality: Can You Get Arrested for Counting Cards?
Risking Bracelets for Trying to Outsmart Casinos?
What Are the Real Rules?
There has been a longstanding myth – belief – about Las Vegas casinos that if a player counts cards they can be arrested. There are a lot of gambling regulations but being arrested if a casino believes you are counting cards isn’t one of them.
However, a legal gambling site does have options if it believes someone is counting cards. The shop is able to ask/tell the player that they believe said person is counting cards and can ask them to leave.
Should the person decide not to exit peacefully, they could then face arrest and misdemeanor trespass charges, which could result in as much as six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. And if you are officially banned from a casino and choose to re-enter at another time you are also looking at the legal issues a person who doesn’t exit when requested does.
In other words, trespass at your own risk if a casino tells you to leave or puts you on its banned list.
The casino is in business to make money. There is no secret about that. Whether focusing on poker games or any other contest involving cards, the home shop is able to decide who it does/doesn’t do business with on any given day. So if a person is a suspected “card-counter” that is contrary to playing by the unwritten rules of the legit gambling site.
Tricks of the Business
Technically, according to casino news and regulatory laws, you have to be “cheating” to be in violation of the law. And this is where the line gets blurred. Per Shouse Law, in order to be in violation of the law you have to be doing things that change:
(a) The result of a game;
(b) The amount or frequency of payment in a game;
(c) The value of a wagering instrument; or
(d) The value of a wagering credit.
Card-counting does not fit any of those criteria. However, Las Vegas casinos are private businesses and they can choose who can and can’t play games on their floors. There are greater repercussions than just being asked to leave the casino at which you are suspected of counting cards.
A player can be banned for months, years, or life. And then there is the chain of casinos where information about suspected card counters is shared. If you are banned at a Las Vegas casino or any legit gambling site, you can expect to get the unwelcome mat at many other places in the business.
If a player thinks their intellect is as such that counting cards is in the works, that can’t be stopped. However, you still can be asked to leave if you are winning too frequently or too much.
Using any sort of electronic or mechanical machine is strictly taboo. So use your head, play smartly, and don’t do anything to cross the casino that could lead you to running afoul of the law.
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