What It’s Like to Be a Professional Card Counter

For Slate, a Canadian who calls himself Quattro tells Luke Winkie how he became a professional gambler so proficient at counting cards, he’s making a living playing blackjack in casinos across North America. What’s more, he documents his techniques in YouTube videos so that others can learn how to beat the house, too.

Card counting at blackjack is more straightforward than you might think. You don’t need to be a Rain Man–esque super-genius to pull it off. Essentially, when a dealer draws a card from what we call a “shoe,” those devices where all the decks in the game are stored, that card is going to be out of play until all the decks are reshuffled. The goal is to keep track of how many “small cards”—twos through sixes—are out of the shoe, because when there are more big cards left, that gives the player a chance to pounce and make big money. So, when I’m playing and I’ve deduced that there are a majority of small cards left to be dealt, I’m going to be making the smallest bet allowed at the blackjack table. However, when I know there is a wealth of jacks, queens, kings, and aces about to come out, I’ll increase my bet size to the maximum possible, ideally erasing all the losses I’ve taken thus far with the math on my side.