Casinos expect '21' will raise interest in blackjack

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LAS VEGAS -- "Beat the Dealer" did it nearly a half century ago. So have other books and TV shows since. Now this week's release of "21" - a movie about a team of MIT students who used their blackjack card-counting strategies to win millions - once again might draw to Las Vegas countless wannabes convinced they can bring down the house.Today card counting - or even suspected card counting - can earn you a hasty exit from the blackjack tables. But some blackjack experts think casinos should be rolling out the red carpet rather than tossing counters."Nevada casinos have probably lost money by turning away card counters," said Ed Thorp, whose 1962 book "Beat the Dealer" created a cottage industry of blackjack players who make a living counting cards. "I'd make a sales tool out of it. I'd show that people can come to the casino and win."The casino bosses listening to Thorp in a packed ballroom during a conference last month nodded in unison. But they aren't likely to take his advice anytime soon - even though they know it to be true.Thorp's card-counting secrets so upset Las Vegas casinos that they changed blackjack rules weeks after the book's publication to improve the house edge. Just as quickly, the casinos restored the old rules when blackjack customers stopped playing.In the years since, Nevada casinos have reaped the rewards of the book, which inspired hordes of players to test their luck at blackjack. What the casinos have lost to skilled players they have made back tenfold from those who unsuccessfully tried to emulate them."People will buy a book, read it halfway through and think they can beat the game - and they lose," said Anthony Curtis, a blackjack aficionado and publisher of the Las Vegas Advisor newsletter.That's precisely why casinos expect a boost from "21" after it opens Friday. The Sony Pictures film, based on "Bringing Down the House," the 2002 book that chronicled the MIT team's exploits in the 1990s, stars Kevin Spacey as a Thorp-like ringleader to the students.Just as Thorp's book inspired generations of numbers geeks to take on the casinos, executives are hoping the movie will prompt more people to study blackjack books and strategy charts.For many years, casinos have been winning on two fronts. They routinely ban card counters - whose bigger bets when their advantage increases can give them away - from their blackjack tables. Beefy security bosses beating up players in back rooms have yielded to a whisper in the player's ear.And casinos have reduced the number of basic blackjack games with a low house edge, favoring variations that appeal to novices by offering lower betting limits and seeming advantages such as a single deck. But these games more than make up for the player advantages, usually by reducing the traditional payout for blackjacks.With 78 fewer blackjack tables in operation in 2007 than in 2000, casinos on the Strip won 39 percent more at blackjack than they did seven years ago. Statewide, casinos won 21 percent more at blackjack last year than in 2000 despite 546 fewer tables.Although blackjack is earning more for the casinos' bottom line, its importance is declining on the Strip, where slot machines and even baccarat are growing at a faster rate.Unlike many other casino games, blackjack operates on a thin margin of a couple of percentage points in the casino's favor. A player who knows basic strategy but doesn't count cards can cut the house edge to less than half a percentage point. Card counting can give a player enough of an advantage to overcome that remaining house edge."I think casinos would like to see blackjack go away if they could," said Al Rogers, publisher of Current Blackjack News in Las Vegas.Rogers says classic-rules blackjack games may go the way of mechanical slot machines in a few years.Although card counting is legal, casinos are averse to any tactic that improves players' chances. So when casino bosses think a player's card counting is getting the better of them, they simply tell him that his business is no longer wanted at their blackjack tables.Experts say only a few hundred people may be exceptionally good counters and advantage players. Of those, perhaps a few dozen are members of well-financed teams that can ride out losses and have mastered the social skills and disguises needed to blend in under pressure."There are very few people who pose a risk to the casino," said Jeff Voyles, a casino management instructor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a former casino executive with MGM Grand."Most (counters) are good at one or two things, like skill and money management. Most of the card counters I caught at MGM weren't good at removing their emotions from the game, and they blew their cover."(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)