BLACKJACK ON THE BOARDWALK: ATLANTIC CITY

First, the forty-thousand-dollar-winnings figure. Let's assume someone could actually maintain the concentration and have the endurance to track cards for eight hours per day (I don't know a single professional in the world who can do this without making numerous mistakes from fatigue, but let's assume it's possible).

That means the counter would have to win five thousand dollars per hour. Next, let's assume that the counter plays one hundred hands per hour at the table in head-on play. Although head-on play at Atlantic City was virtually nonexistent (fifty hands per hour at a full table are more normal), let's give Resorts the benefit of the doubt. If the counter won every hand he or she played all day, the fiat betting level would have to be fifty dollars each hand. Winning a still impossible 75 per cent of the hands in-creases the betting level to seventy-five dollars, etc.

But the counter's edge is not 50 per cent, (75-25); it is more like 2 to 3 per cent (which is enough to make it worth your while). With the realistic 2 per cent edge, you would have to be fiat-betting twenty-five hundred dollars per hand, well over the table limits. If anyone walked away with forty thousand dollars, it was because of incredible luck and not counting skill. I frankly doubt that any counter made that type of killing consistently.

As you will see in Chapter Seven, most counters do not flat-bet. They bet smaller when the deck conditions are unfavorable, and larger in advantageous situations. Using this scheme, a counter could conceivably win five thousand dollars per hour more easily.The problem is that the casinos are also aware of this, so that ranging bets widely attracts immediate pit-boss attention. If too big a bet suddenly goes out, the dealer shuffles the advantage away.

I was shuffled up on occasion when ranging my bets from twenty-five dollars to one hundred dollars, an acceptable one-to-four range. To win five thousand dollars per hour, I would have to range my bets from five dollars to five hundred dollars and win all my bets at five hundred dollars. How long do you think the pit boss would let that occur if you were fortunate enough to have a run of luck? The word got out to the pros in the first two months: "Stay away!"

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