Team Play

In the early days of blackjack advantage play, card counting was fraught with peril. The stories are plentiful about the drastic measures to which casinos resorted if they caught or even suspected a blackjack player of counting cards. We personally know people who were severely beaten by security thugs, especially in downtown Las Vegas. It was the casino’s revenge for the beating they were taking at the 21 tables from skilled players.

In addition, detective agencies, such as the infamous Griffin Investigations, roamed the pit picking off card counters. The Griffin Book of “known card counters, cheaters, and undesirables” circulated amongst all the major casinos and suddenly, the thugs had surveillance photos of players they delighted in “teaching a lesson.”

(In those days, casino security was also immune from legal retribution, as police, prosecutors, and judges were just as committed as the bosses who sanctioned the violence to protecting the gravy train. Even today, some casinos still think they can “backroom” advantage players; many of these stories are told in the excellent book, The Law for Gamblers by the legendary attorney who represents these players far and wide, Bob Nersesian.)

Finally, a blackjack player on his own had any number of self-limiting factors: time constraints, fatigue, bankroll volatility, lack of support during losing streaks, etc. Arnold Snyder, who always says these things best, wrote, “Anyone who starts to grasp the frightening mathematics of normal fluctuation at blackjack realizes that any solo player taking on a casino is truly an ant versus an anteater.”

Counters soon realized how vulnerable and limited they were as lone wolves and began to adopt more of a pack mentality.

Many different approaches were developed. At first, a few friendly card counters got together, pooled bankrolls, set a profit target, and went off and played — not necessarily together or in the same casino or in the same city.

This led to two-person teams who did play at the same table, often male-female couples as women were brought into the fold. She didn’t have to be a counter; she just had to read signals from her partner on how to play her hands. Same with a couple of guys; it’s not unusual for friends to play together.

Eventually, teams got much more organized and sophisticated, growing to 10 or more members, strictly managed like a joint business venture, using low-stake spotters and back counters, card-counting Big Players and non-card-counting Gorilla Big Players, and many other variations.

A few teams and team leaders are fairly well-known to the playing public: Al Francesco, Ken Uston, Tommy Hyland, and the MIT group (immortalized in the Ben Mizrich book Bringing Down the House, which became the movie 21).

But when you come right down to it, blackjack team play is a strange concept. Again Snyder: “A blackjack team may be the only legitimate business venture where you seek partners who are honest and trustworthy con artists. But then, that’s what all successful card counters are, and that’s why most card counters work alone.”