The Movie 21: Using Card Counting to Beat Casinos

The Movie 21: Using Card Counting to Beat Casinos

By Andrew Jin

Definitions:
Blackjack: A comparing card game played with one or more French decks of 52 cards. The player draws cards to an initial two-card hand with the object of bringing the total hand value as close as possible to 21 without exceeding it.
Card counting: A card game strategy used to determine when a player has a probable advantage over the house in casino games. In particular to blackjack, the player tracks the ratio of high cards to low cards.
Statistics: The science of collection, organization, and interpretation of data through surveys or experiments.

Summary:
In the movie, 21, the main character, Ben Campbell, attends MIT. One day in class, Professor Micky Rosa shows the Monty Hall problem of variable change, which Ben solves correctly. Impressed, the professor invites Ben to join his blackjack team. The team practices a system of card counting where “spotters” play the minimum bet and keep track of the count. The “spotters” then send signals to the “big players,” who bet large sums of money when the odds are favorable. After diligently practicing counting cards for hours each day to make sure the count is kept under pressure, Professor Rosa begins taking the team to Las Vegas every weekend. They immediately begin making money, having more success each time. Eventually, Ben Campbell earns hundreds of thousands of dollars in his Blackjack career.

Discussion:
I watched this movie because I read the book, The House Advantage, written by Jeffrey Ma, one of the members of the true-life MIT Blackjack Team. I thought it was very interesting that it was possible to beat the casinos. Traditionally, everybody thinks of gambling as intuition and emotions, where everybody loses money. However, the card-counting system used in the movie was based entirely on statistics, the science of collection, organization, and interpretation of data. By keeping track of the cards that have been played, it is possible to beat Blackjack. Cards played on the past will have an impact on cards played in the future. For example, since there are 52 cards in a deck and there are four aces in a deck, there is a 7.7 percent chance of seeing an ace as the first card. If an ace is dealt as the first card, then the probability changes to 5.9 percent. Therefore, by tracking the cards played, the advantage or disadvantage over the dealer can be calculated. For example, in the Hi-Lo card counting method, the value of +1 is assigned to the low cards (2-6), a value of 0 is assigned to the neutral cards (7-9), and a value of -1 is assigned to the high cards (10-A). The higher the count, the more should be betted. Using a card-counting strategy and team play, the MIT Blackjack Team was able to win millions of dollars.

Questions:
1. Do card counting strategies work today with the new rules in most casinos?
2. How much money can be won per hour?
 
Citations:
21. Dir. Robert Luketic. Columbia Pictures, 2008. Film.  

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