When did all the Vegas heat begin?

[tribute]

Was there any one defining historical event or occurrence that compelled the casinos to start introducing the tactics and counter measures we see today?
Was it "Beat the Dealer"? MIT teams? Computer age? Corporate take-overs? My father was a serious player in the 70's and 80's and apparently the conditions were very different back then.

 

[alwayssplitaces]

When "Beat The Dealer" first came out the casinos thought it was just another phony system that didn't work. But they noticed that certain people were always winning. Then they started the countermeasures.

 

[johndoe]

I'd say it started earlier than that. There were AP's well before "Beat the Dealer", and countermeasures followed. Certainly it's evolved quite a lot, but AP's and countermeasures have been around as long as gambling.

It was probably the various well-organized teams that started to present a serious enough threat to institute the widespread heat we see these days.

 

[maddencutter]

FWIW, I was out there recently and I was shocked by the LACK of heat.

 

[Sucker]

Was there any one defining historical event or occurrence that compelled the casinos to start introducing the tactics and counter measures we see today?

March 1931 - Nevada legalizes gambling.

My father was a serious player in the 70's and 80's and apparently the conditions were very different back then.

Ahh - reminiscing over the "good old days". This is what's known as "selective memory syndrome". ALL parents suffer from it. Fact is; in the 70s & 80s, casinos were even MORE paranoid about counters than they are today.

I'll bet he ALSO tells you how great the disco craze was back then (he's lying about THAT too - he HATED it). :laugh: :laugh:

 

[Automatic Monkey]

I'll bet he ALSO tells you how great the disco craze was back then (he's lying about THAT too - he HATED it). :laugh: :laugh:

Maybe if he was an AP he hated it, but disco was a major event in US cultural evolution. Way more people got introduced to casual sex and drugs at discos in the 70's than at protests and concerts in the 60's. In the 60's it was still counterculture, disco in the 70's made it mainstream.

 

[lovethespaniard]

Personal opinion:
I despise disco. Always have always will. It took the art and mind of rock n roll and made them robotic and self-absorbed, using drugs for pleasure and lust instead of turning on to appreciate the world we live in better. Present company excluded. Disco led to rap, which is the naturally evolved diseased noise of a scared angry diseased time. Again - just my opinion....but I'm a(n aging) rocker and damned proud of it.

 

[tribute]

March 1931 -


. Fact is; in the 70s & 80s, casinos were even MORE paranoid about counters than they are today.

:

Really? To me this is a very surprising "fact"! Not one I expected to hear on this subject.

 

[tthree]

Really? To me this is a very surprising "fact"! Not one I expected to hear on this subject.

First time I went was in the late 80s or early 90s. It was way sweetier than anything in AC that I had experienced. It was the only time I have ever been backed off in blackjack. I got banned from craps at Binions and backed off at the Frontier at craps. I had really good control on the dice that trip.