Suppose you are a avid blackjack player who took 3 months to master how to beat the game by learning any number of card-counting systems and are confident to try to beat the "house" game in casino blackjack.
Then you do a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for your bankroll--which is $50,000, raised by your friends, and you go take a flight to the Oxford Casino in the state of Maine, and book an adjacent hotel away from the casino just in case you are backed-off. Then you go to the casino in-person to see if your "$50,000" will go up to $100,000, or $150,000, or more, after you finish the last shoe at the blackjack tables.
You go to the security area, and you flash your ID to security, and security tells you, "Do you have a club card?" You say "no", because you try to be smart, because if they find you with a club card, and you are caught counting, you will be permanently run out of the casino. No doubt.
You also dress more casually - no dressy slacks, no flashy tie, no expensive suit jacket or even sunglasses, to avoid people unfairly passing you off as an advantage player.
Then you find a blackjack table that is open, you consent to play to the dealer, the dealer says yes, and you start to play with the $50,000 in chips.
On the first open shoes, you realize that the running count is about +3, so that favors the house, so you do not bet high - just $10 a round, and flat-bet on that. You get $50,500, after winning $50 on bets on the first 5 shoes. Good.
In the next shoe-rounds, the count gets hot with a running count of -1 so you decide to bet suddenly high - $500 a round. And you play 5 shoes, with one bad-hand give to the dealer, knowing if you play all good hands, the pit boss will try to back you off. The result was still good. You end up with $52,500, so that means you got an extra $2,500 in your bankroll.
Then, the dealer gives a signal to security, and then, things get not just bad - but worse. As you are about to start playing the next shoe and raise your bet to $1,000 a round, security taps you on the shoulder, he tells you to flash your ID again, and you say "no."
Then security tells you, "You have to go home! You are no longer welcome in this casino!"
As security calls for extra security personnel to come and throw you out of the place, you protest by saying "I already flashed ID to the desk, so it is not right for you to harass me for ID again---"
Security doesn't buy your protest story and then they interlock your arms and start escorting you to the door. "Refusing to flash ID is a tip-off that you are a card counter, and we have zero-tolerance for any card counters here! Therefore, you are considered a trespasser! If you come back to the place again....."
I protest again--"I want to cash out before I leave..."
Security then says "You are not cashing out, man, YOU NEED TO GO HOME AND NOT COME BACK HERE!"
Finally, security then throws you out of the front entrance, and you are thrown onto the ground, and then they say to you "Don't come back here! Not ever! You come back here again, YOU WILL GO TO JAIL!"
Then security goes back to the casino and you are bursting into tears.
Then, you see a taxi and you flag it down, and the taxi driver accepts your hail, you go in, and then you tell him to take you to that remote hotel.
As the taxi drives you back to the casino, the taxi driver says, "I think from the way you are treated I think you were kicked out of the casino for counting cards.."
"Not just counting cards, but also failing to flash the ID for a second time", I told the driver.
"Well, I have heard horror stories of card counters tased or even pepper sprayed when they are told to leave and are banned, and they resist orders to leave the premises", the taxi driver continued. "Their casino backoffs at Oxford are the worst--extremely insane. At times you will be treated like a sex offender if you are caught counting."
Then you go back to the hotel (as you say goodbye to the taxi driver who drops you off there), and you know a friend who lives near the Oxford casino but plays other games without doing blackjack. You call him, and tell him that you are banned from the casino, and tell him to cash out the chips that you were not allowed to when you was permanently ousted. 3 hours later, you get the call, and you get the cash back of $50,000, and decide to check out of the hotel, and take a plane out of the state of Maine to "back home."
Ever since I learned that counting cards in a casino will get you on the hook until they do not want you anymore there, I realized that even though I never played casino blackjack, I realized tough lessons if you want to stay at the casino--you must never tip off the staff that you are trying to create an unfair edge to the game. Especially in blackjack. The only way to avoid backoffs when card counting in blackjack is to avoid doing anything that makes you act like one, if you even think of doing it.
So here are my tips if you want to even think of doing counting but trying to avoid the disappointing "not book your action anymore" decry--which is keenly the "backoff" itself:
1. The best way to avoid trouble is to mask your actions as a counter--use your own diversions. The best ones include....
a. Talk to the other players, but be careful not to mention anything blackjack-ese -they may not like the way you play, and you might be tipped off that you are a counter.
b. Look at the other sights away from the blackjack tables. However, don't try to look at the security cameras if at all possible--the "eye in the sky" might catch you.
c. Don't focus on only one blackjack table and play shoe-round after shoe-round "until the cows come home" on just one table. Even if you only do basic strategy and not count, the length of time you stay at the table might tip off possibly that you are a counter, and you might be told to stop playing blackjack as you get backed off. This is called "diverting oneself from one table to another", and this is important. So stay for a few shoe-rounds on one table, and then finish there and move to another blackjack table, stay there only a short time, and move to still another blackjack table, and so on.
2. Try to avoid looking at other people's hands if at all possible. Focus on your own hands the dealer gives you, and that is the hands that are in total control by you, although the odds can be stacked against you. Use what you know from basic strategy to try to gain an advantage, but try to do this without keeping a running count.
3. Try to flat-bet at all tables, depending on your bankroll. If the bet is $400 per round, keep it there for the next games. If the bet is $35 per round, do not let it go up, especially until the whole shoe is done. (One man at Foxwoods casino who was a card counter raised his bet suddenly, violating the bet table limit, and was permanently kicked out of the casino, even though he was able to cash out.) Think of flat-betting like keeping your glucose levels normal as a diabetic. Betting suddenly very high or very low will always raise a suspicion of card counting.
4. Learn how to play non-blackjack games, such as slots, before you try to play blackjack at the casinos. Don't just put all of your eggs in one basket by only playing blackjack at the tables. As mentioned before, playing blackjack too long at one table will give you likely a "soft backoff" that will mean you cannot play any more blackjack but you can play other games, such as Texas Hold 'Em, craps, slots, roulette, and similar games. If you don't know how to play the other games after you are told "you cannot play blackjack here", run yourself out of the casino--and cash out if you still have chips.
5. If told to flash your ID for a second time after flashing it to security once, you need to comply. Especially at Oxford casino, if you are caught refusing to flash the ID again, you will be not only eighty-sixed---but you will not be welcome back.
6. Try to avoid the "double down" technique in your chips in the middle of the blackjack hand. This could also tip off the dealer that you are trying to possibly raise your bet, which in turn, could tip you off as a card counter also.
7. Dress casually and not formally when going to the casino. Of course, you need to have shirts on and shoes on, and be sure that even your casual jeans are not tattered, just in case they have a strict dress code. Dressing formally will raise more suspicion on you sometimes, even if you never even go to the blackjack tables--but if you hit the tables, even if you never count cards, you might be caught anyway.
