ploppy at best

[mk1]

found this on yahoo answers:

by Count Acumen
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The movie '21' is based on a great book called 'Bringing Down The House' which in turn is based on a true story. The events in the book happened in the 1980s back when it was much easier to count cards. The card counting team came up with a system that could be used just as long as there were only a couple of decks used and those decks were not shuffled frequently. They won millions.
The basic way they did it was to keep track of face and non face cards by giving them values of "+1" for face cards and "-1" for non face cards. When the plus value got quite high they knew there were more face cards in the deck than usual and they increased their bets with the help of their team mates who acted as if they were strangers to each other to throw off casino security.
These days though casinos have gotten much more sophisticated. They know how to identify card counters. They use several decks and frequently shuffle the cards making it hard for the card counters to keep track of the cards. And of course there is plenty of video surveillance. Card counting isn't illegal but the casino can ask you to leave if they suspect you're doing it.
So yes it's still possible but it's not as easy or profitable as it once was.
1 week ago





hahaha so in the movie the face cards are +1?

[la_dee_daa]

Originally Posted by mk1

hahaha so in the movie the face cards are +1?

didn't you hear they offical council of card counting switched high cards to plus one to reduce the difficulty of having to add and subract which has been getting harder over the years for card counters so now we just have the high cards as plus one and low cards and plus one!!

soon to come.... making all jacks and 4s a value of 0 to further reduce difficulties.

unfortunatly the movie failed to take this note into consideration and stick with the old difficult system of having positives and negatives. with low cards as +1 and high cards as -1

[Sonny]

Here's the condensed version of that post showing the parts that are actually true:

The movie '21' is based on a...book called 'Bringing Down The House'...And of course there is plenty of video surveillance. Card counting isn't illegal but the casino can ask you to leave if they suspect you're doing it.

-Sonny-

[rogue1]

Wow.

[callipygian]

I'd nominate a few other lines to be classified as true:

They won millions.

I'm pretty sure that the card-counting teams altogether won "millions". There have been a lot of successful teams, and since the story is really a concatenation of all the successful teams, this is probably true.

casinos ... know how to identify card counters.

This is definitely true. Given enough time (that the surveillance crew has to spend)and enough hands (that the player plays), everyone will be caught.

They use several decks

Edit: ROFL @ excision of the word "great" from "a great book"!