Home /

Inside The Edge Documentary: The Reality of Modern Card Counting

To understand Inside The Edge, you have to go back in time. To the the 1950's card where counting started to be a thing. In fact a group of army veterans formed a group and called themselves the "Four Horsemen" and started using this method in earnest. They were not in any way playing on any Biblical level, in fact many times they lost heavily.

Rate this news

Image source via Wikimedia Commons

Introduction: Inside The Edge

It was only during the mid-1060s that casinos became more aware that this system existed. That’s when Ed Thorpe published his works in the book, “Beat The Dealer”. This is the point at which the casinos learned of a system that could work against them and still be perfectly legal and pretty much up until the book’s publication, unknown to them. Since then, casinos have spent a lot of time and effort getting to know the system that could theoretically put a huge hole in their income. This has allowed them to introduce methods that thwart the card counter-effort. To that end, today many consider the age of the card counter to be a thing of the past.

Life Of A Card Counter

But a new documentary shows that for some players, card counting is still very much alive and kicking. “Inside Edge: A Professional Blackjack Counter” follows the adventures of one such player as he crosses the US looking for casinos in which to ply his trade. It also reveals that for some card counters, the practice is still profitable. The film Inside The Edge takes warts and all look at the inside world of how these players are always trying to stay just one step ahead of those in casino security who are tasked with finding them.

Play Blackjack Online at the King Billy Casino

Cross Country Blackjack Adventure That Results in Big Wins

Our protagonist of Inside The Edge is “KC”. who’s been a blackjack pro since, like forever…though he does look speciously young. We follow him as he pays visits to casinos from Atlantic City to Northern California driving a huge RV. He changes locations a lot and is frequently seen being thrown out of casinos. He started his blackjack career as a young man and decided that this would be the way he made a living. As a younger player, he dreamed of beating the casinos. Later, he put his head down and studied everything he could lay his hands on if it was to do with card counting.

Inside The Edge: Not All Winning

With a lot of time and practice, KC managed to hone his skills to the level of taking on the big casinos in Las Vegas. However, it should be noted that the film doesn’t paint a picture of perpetual winning every night at the games tables. But it does show that there’s still a lot of profit to be made if you have the right skills and, probably, more importantly, the right temperament. On one 3 day tour spend going around casinos in Northern California, he makes a profit of around $30,000. Inside The Edge also shows any number of nights that proved very lucrative indeed.

Tricks of the Trade

The movie also features some interesting tricks he uses as an advantage player. For example, KC discovered a means of using the very same RFID chips the casinos use to track a gambler’s betting habits. Card counters need to spread their bets from low to high in order to disguise their counting. If the casino sees a large spread in betting from one player, that’s usually a sign that they are counting cards. Well, KC discovered that by holding the chips under the actual casino games table would still register them. So he devised a means of strapping chips to his knees and so was putting then under the betting area. With this trick, it looked as if he was really betting the same large bets each time when in reality he was playing a low-high betting strategy.

Another trick that KC learned was how to add shuffle tracking on top of card counting. With this shuffle tracking, he gains an even bigger advantage, and all the while making it so much harder for the casinos to figure out what’s going on.

Card Counting Isn’t an Easy Living

Casinos are forever on the lookout for those it thinks are taking advantage of mathematics. Card counting isn’t illegal simply because there’s no law against using your brain. In fact, the one thing card counting does prove is that casinos are just rigged games for suckers. Yet the moment you start winning, fair and square, they get all uppity and have you kicked out. In Inside Edge, KC has to change his look for every casino visit. This is because his features are in every database of banned players. In the movie, we can see that he goes to some quite extreme lengths to avoid detection.

In spite of this, and of being an expert in hiding his actions, in the film we get to see him backed off a number of times. After a particularly rough run of back-offs in Las Vegas, KC says, “I’m not welcome in this city,” says KC. “I’m finding myself playing in poor casinos and off-shifts at low limits. Now I’m a known entity and can’t play in Vegas anymore. I’ve come to crossroads in my blackjack career.” He adds, “I need to determine if I want to go down this road further. I’m going to have to leave Las Vegas, travel around the country, and hit other casinos.”

Beatdowns From Security Are Still a Threat

Back in the day, and as shown in the movie “Casino”, the mob did not take kindly to those it thought were cheating the system. Backroom beatings were commonplace. Today, those sort of tactics would see the casino closed down. But Max Rubin, a gambling expert has seen it all. In the film he says, “In the past, I have been drug in the back, I’ve been punched,” said Rubin. “Friends of mine have been burned with cigarettes, friends of mine have had their jaws broken, friends of mine have been threatened to be murdered.” thankfully

KC didn’t have any such encounters during his trip. Though he was “trespassed” by one casino. This means that if they find you on the premises again, they have the right to arrest you, as casinos are private property. He was unable to change his chips and had to do so in the end via a casino agent.

Inside The Edge: Downswings Are a Reality

Even if you know perfect strategy, are perfect at counting cards and have a means of helping determine the shuffle, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to win all the time. remember that your advantage over the house edge is just a few % points. As a result, there ill be wild ups and downs. In certain casinos we see KC losing a lot more than winning. And it affects the players’ confidence. During the filming of Inside The Edge we witness KC make hundreds of thousands of dollars. And yet the short term losses seem to hit really hard. Into this mix, we have to add the traveling element. For some travel is a great adventure. But when your livelihood depends on it, then it can become a burden.

Too Much Travelling

We see KC travel throughout the US, the West Coast, and even out to the Bahamas.“Travel is a big part of the game,” says advantage gambling legend James Grosjean. “Moving around constantly. It’s an aspect of the game that makes it difficult for some people. At first, travel can be fun. But sometimes the travel is very grueling.” This last stop was a big success for KC, who finally could spend some time relaxing by the pool. The movie ends with KC meeting up with his dad. Funnily enough, the father is a backgammon world champion. Inside The Edge closes out with both father and son counting cards at a casino together.

Conclusion: Inside The Edge

For those Cassandra’s who think that card counting has gone the way of the Dodo, this movie shows quite the opposite. KC ends his 3-month trip, up by $500K. At one point he was at $600k but lost $300K part through this journey, though regained it back later on. So if he can make that in just 3 months, then thee’s still hope of this skill.

As Rubin says, “Blackjack players will always be smarter than casino operators —fact of life,” says Rubin. “[Casinos and online jackpot sites] are watching somebody else’s money, we’re playing our own.”