If people are required to wear masks in public when the casinos re-open, will this include gamblers?

If so, card counters should be happy with that as any facial recognition software that identifies them, as well as floor people in general, won't be able to recognize them.

If I was a card counter, I'd be there on day one to see how far I can benefit from that.

On the flip side, casinos may only offer 6/5 blackjack as a counter-measure.

There are two important factors for facial recognition software. One is the image quality which obviously suffers if part of the face is covered. The other one is number of faces in the database. The larger the number, the more difficult to positively identify someone.

So if a casino in Vegas had a million people in their banned customer database, face masks would be a huge problem. If we’re talking about a couple hundred or thousand customers, the recognition should still work pretty accurately. Especially for white males which are the easiest faces to differentiate for software.

Surprising. I would think covering the nose and mouth/chin would be enough to thwart the software. What if the player also wore sunglasses?

If somebody wears a mask, hat and sunglasses the software probably won’t recognize them. The question is if a casino wants to have customers looking like Michael Jackson or if they would do something about it.

The play will give them away, in major vegas casinos it shouldn't take security too long to see if someone is counting or not, its not that complicated and then they'll get trespassed and potential legal trouble if they are already databased. That's my understanding anyway

I think the risk of getting caught for trespassing is just too high to even make this gamble a risk, wouldn't recommend this at all.

Probably the best aspect of the anti-CV measures for BJ card counters is being able to play with zero or maybe one other player at the table.

plus all player's cards are dealt face-up...

Card counters are already taking that risk now. Being able to play wearing a mask should reduce that risk.

Such as require the wearing of masks but no hats or sunglasses? That seems like a stretch. If they're worried about it they'll probably just spread 6:5, I would think. Problem solved.

That is a big advantage especially in casinos where tables tend to fill up quick, but so are the masks.


If you haven't been trespassed somewhere before and the casino asks you to leave you just leave. They can't make you take the mask off your face- but if they wanted they could not let you in for wearing one or make you leave for putting one on if they don't allow them.

I'd much rather be backed off from blackjack with a mask on than with one off.If the casino doesn't know who you are or even what you look like they can't database you or spread your picture all over town (some regions do this a lot more than others)

Not really.
If it was that easy all tables would just be 6:5 everywhere.
With social distancing limited tables to 3 tables my guess is there won't be many if any low limit games. They won't be profitable enough, and if they can get green chips players through the door they'll have to spread out. The higher the minimum generally speaking the more knowledgeable the player (more basic strategy players,more aware what a ripoff 6:5 is)
Locals vegas casinos won't get away with all 6:5 crap either.



Addtionally in PA specifically all blackjack games are 3:2 by law.

I am aware software such as Apple facial recognition does not work well with a typical breathing mask. And that is under essentially perfect conditions (camera angle, lighting, closeness)

For play strategy of course. But if there is nobody else there at the table then it won't help.

Yes, but that’s a totally different use case.

Face ID wants to make 100% sure the person in front of the camera is the owner, based on exactly that one’s person face. A facial recognition software like they use at airports or casinos tries to match an image to a (sometimes huge) database. That’s not gonna result in a 100% match but that’s perfectly fine for that use case.

Right, the Apple use case is not interested in identifying one in 6 billion people, it is only interested in identifying characteristics that separate one from about 500,000 people (less in certain demos). With casino facial recognition software their threshold is much less, maybe one in a thousand, maybe even less than that. (I know somebody who worked on the Apple project, he didn't tell me much about it as he would get insta-fired but I gleaned enough from him)

With breathing masks you take away about 50% of the recognition abilities from the software. It can still recognize somebody, but the threshold from eye-in-the-sky is reduced to maybe one in 50, so the likelihood that person cross-matches with others goes up exponentially. I'm fairly certain that problem already exists to some degree with the logistical problems from poor camera placement.

It seems ill advised to me for a casino to throw away the baby with the bathwater. It seems more likely they will prefer to lick their wounds and pick a better day to do battle.

With only 3 spots open, I think most tables will usually be full.
If not, all the better - we can play 2 hands.

as far as legal trouble violating a trespass...dont give up your ID to make a positive confirmation, just leave the building.

Casinos can easily adjust for this.

Every time you sit down at a new table you need to lower your mask for a second. Or require them off when you cash out - it’s a solvable problem.


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Hey, whose side are you on? Don't give them any ideas...

They could. But non-card-counting patrons might wonder WTF and object.

My guess is that card counting isn't high on their concerns right now. Get the people in the doors and deal with any problems later.

I suspect that the percentage of card counters among all blackjack players will be much higher for a while because the card counters will see an opportunity, whereas many casual players will stay away for a while.

Casinos don't need to recognize card counters to recognize card counting. When they see stupidly big bet spreads they just count you down and that's the end of that. They don't need to see your face to see what you are actually doing at the table.

Card counting is not a big priority for casinos because most self-described card counters make too many mistakes to be winning.

agree with the bolded

And yes they could count people down (which takes a lot longer in shoe games,unless you also want to kick out of a ton of losing players) and then kick them out but it's still good for counters as that takes time, they won't be kicked out right away instead, (which sometimes happens to known counters) they can come back a lot easier another time, and won't get flyered all over town.

That's true but without seeing a face they can't have someone arrested for trespassing.

Since card counting isn't illegal, the casino can only get you for trespassing. And for that, they need to identify you.

Why can't they just walk up and ask for ID? If you get up to walk out, good luck cashing your chips in. You can find a way around that but they can make your day a bad one.