Legal Blackjack Card Counting

Legal Issues

Is Blackjack Card Counting Illegal? By Henry Tamburin, author of Blackjack: Take the Money and Run, popular columnist for Casino Player, of Blackjack Insider.
"How do casinos get away with excluding card counters from playing blackjack?" As long as a card counter is only using his brains to decide how to play his hand, then the act of card counting is not illegal. Yet the Nevada courts have allowed casinos to exclude card counters because technically the casino is private property. Many players and lawyers believe that barring skillful players from playing blackjack is an unconstitutional form of discrimination. However, the Supreme Court prohibits discrimination only against persons who are members of "suspect classifications" based on race, creed, sex, national origin, age, or physical disability. Therefore, until a law is passed or blackjack players bring a challenge, casinos will continue the practice of barring card counters.
In Atlantic City casinos, the late Ken Uston won the right in the New Jersey courts for card counters to count cards there. Essentially, the New Jersey Supreme Court told the Atlantic City casinos that they could not bar card counters unless the New Jersey Casino Control Commission issued a rules saying that counters could be barred.

Back Rooming

"Can the casinos legally 'backroom' a card counter?" "Back rooming" is a word that has come to denote the practice of detaining or harassing a player who is barred. Usually, the casino will ask to see some form of identification and take the player's picture. Under common law and the laws of most states, it is illegal for a business establishment to detain, a person, unless the customer has committed a crime and the business is holding the person while awaiting the arrival of police. Therefore, when a casino security agent asks if a player' will accompany him to the office, the player has the right to refuse, unless he is being held for a crime. In Nevada, a casino has the right to question and detain any person suspected of cheating. New Jersey, however, made the point that card counting is not a crime and therefore it is not permissible for a casino to detain and question a person suspected of being a card counter. The blackjack casino also does not have the right to demand identification because it is ejecting someone for card counting. A player should not have to provide his name upon request of the casino, but it could conceivably be considered obstruction of justice to refuse to provide one's name upon the request of the police. A player also cannot be forced to pose for a photograph.
"Can a casino have a card counter arrested for trespassing if he returns and plays blackjack in a casino in which he was previously barred from playing?"
Most states have trespassing statutes that makes it a misdemeanor for a person to remain on or return to a property after receiving notice from the owner that the person is not allowed on the premises. When barring a card counter, most casinos will tell that person "not to return." Mow ever, the barred player usually does not face arrest and prosecution if he does return.
Internet Gambling: The land of No Enforcement By Robert
A. Loeb, attorney and coauthor of Blackjack and the Law Who Can Regulate or Prohibit Internet Gambling?

United States Government

The federal Wire Act (I8 U.S.C.§ 1084) is the primary federal law that can be, and has been, used to prosecute individuals and companies involved in the business of Internet gambling activities across state lines. In addition, the Travel Act (which outlaws crossing state lines to commit various crimes, and definitely can include gambling) and the Illegal Gambling Business Act (which basically makes it a federal crime to operate a continuing gambling business that is illegal in the state where it operates and involves five people) have been used to prosecute gambling entities that take bets over the telephone, and arguably could be used to prosecute federal Internet gambling cases.