Editor’s note: This article was first published in May 2014; it reports news from early May 2014, based on a TMZ report at the time, and the events described were current then.
Actor Ben Affleck was stopped by security guards at the Hard Rock casino in Las Vegas while he was winning a considerable amount of money at the blackjack table, allegedly for counting cards. As a result, according to TMZ, he may be banned for life from every blackjack table in every casino in Las Vegas.
Card counting is a very difficult technique to pull off, and few people master it completely. It isn’t illegal, but casinos do not allow this strategy of trying to predict the next hand from probabilities by “counting cards”. Any player suspected of counting cards is thrown out immediately.
Affleck is known for his passion for gambling, as well as for his good luck at it: in 2008 he won $800,000 thanks to three consecutive $20,000 bets on three hands. Apparently, chance had nothing to do with those winning hands, and Affleck may have tilted the odds in his favour by counting cards.
Who would have thought?
Featured image: Farragutful, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
