If card counting in blackjack is just keeping track of high cards vs low, does that mean if I could remember all the different cards used (i.e. how many 5s, how many 7s) I would be really good at blackjack?

Question

This would break online casinos because you could easily do that with electronics. Assuming the casino itself is playing fair.

If you could perfectly keep track of how many of which cards are left in the decks, and everytime make the most mathematically sound bet, would the house still have an edge?

(I assume the correct answer will start off saying I don’t understand how card counting works – fair enough, but what about the basic explanation of it did I misinterpret?)

In: Mathematics

Answer 1

This is all technically correct, a couple people won a good amount of money counting cards and they made a movie about it.

In response to card counting the casinos shuffle the deck more often.

Even if you track the cards perfectly they will wind up shuffling before a statistically significant bias in the distribution of cards can emerge. They also use tactics like pooling multiple decks so there are say 12 Aces in the well instead of 4.

If course shuffling too much wastes time and means you deal less hands per hour. A statistician working for the casino works out the exact balance of probabilities.