Back in the old days of gaming some casino operators used to say ‘bring me the system players’. Now, this was in pre-Ken Uston days, when readers of the “Beat the Dealer” book used to do their money in using the limited card counting systems such as those professed by author Edward O Thorp.

Uston’s card counting strategies made operators think about the possibilities of real loss against players with a return on investment approach. Only those who faced Uston at the tables or those involved in the MIT blackjack team adventures will know for sure the real results of their wins against the casinos involved, and when the numbers come up, they do so from one side only. The casino operators simply did not comment on their losses.

One thing is also true, casinos, like lotteries, like stories of casino winners, and the bigger the winners the better, to stimulate the public’s expectations that people can win big in a casino. So it was always surprising to find casino operators involved in banning system players, and more so if their decisions landed them in the Courts.

In Indiana, Thomas Donovan, who was banned from playing at the Grand Victoria Casino and Resort in Rising Sun, for confessing to win consistently at blackjack using card counting systems, won an appeal, last week, against a lower Court that supported the casino’s decision to ban him from playing blackjack in 2007.

On Oct. 30, the Indiana Court of Appeals overturned Marion Superior Court Judge Robyn Moberly's 2007 decision, allowing Donovan and other card counters access to the state's casinos. The three-judge panel said Indiana had “no law, rule or regulation that prohibits card counting at the state's casinos”, adding that until laws or regulations change, players using card counting systems have the right to play.

Supported by the association that represents 11 of the state's 12 casinos, the Grand Victoria case has wider implications for the state's casino industry amidst increased competition from neighboring casinos in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio states. Especially since the Indiana Court of Appeals also ruled that the right of admission common law cuts no ice in such an industry.

Also questionable are reports on comments made by some industry experts, who in their wisdom consider that allowing card counters to play blackjack would mean a change in the game rules, thereby making the game less attractive. Of course, pondering on industry matters from the comfort of an analyst’s chair is not the same as thinking on your feet in the casino pit.

Admittedly, the vast level of global gambling expansion has put in place decision and policy making people with limited expertise on running of casinos, and this is what should be addressed with more urgency. At the Grand Victoria, casino staff spotted Donovan counting cards at the blackjack table in June 2006 and took the knee jerk decision to bar him from playing, setting in motion this legal test case for the Indiana casinos.

Donovan, who admits to wins about US $6,000 a year at blackjack in Indiana and other states, is a 50 year old retired computer programmer. This star card counter said that he learned to beat blackjack after he completed a free online class in card counting.

According to Donovan: "A seventh-grader could learn it if they spend time on it. You've got to trust the math. In the long run, you're going to come out ahead,” adding that he usually wins between US $75 to US $100 in a five- to six-hour session. Donovan confessed that he had won as much as US $2,500, but he said he had also lost a similar amount when the cards did not respond to his strategy.

Trusting the math, a 5% return over 6 hours work is certainly a great investment. Looking at the numbers given by Donovan, we have a player with a once per week visit to a casino, where he moves around US $120,000 p.a. to make six grand, plus all the freebies that he scoffs. This is the casino downside. If the casino has no strategy to hold this kind of play in check, then the operators should move into the circus trade, where there is less risk of losing money outright to players like Donovan.

As card counting is a business that takes patience, practice and a lot of self discipline, where subsistence players like Donovan do enjoy their moments of triumph virtually unchecked, operators should consider the upside of stories with winning Donovan drama before reaching for the chuck out push button or resorting to the ‘reserve the right of admission’ common law. As the number of card counters increase, casinos operators must also do the math. After all this is what makes the business viable. (E-01.08.10)