- Counting cards while playing blackjack is not cheating. It’s just smart strategy, like not hitting a 13 when the dealer shows a 6. Yet local boy Ben Affleck was just informed that, because he has learned how to count cards, he is no longer welcome to play blackjack in certain Las Vegas casinos. This is obviously another example of casinos unfairly stacking the deck (see what I did there?) against their customers.
In the event that casino gambling goes forward in Massachusetts, the Mass. Gaming Commission should take a firm stand against this kind of outrageous behavior on the part of casinos. It should insist that no player can be banned from the premises, or from playing any particular game, because of card-counting specifically, or because of any similar instance of a player getting “too good” at a game while staying within the rules.
- In a related story, the latest WBUR poll has the pro-repeal forces closing to within 5 points (49-44), down from at least 10 in previous polls. This one’s not over yet, folks.
- As for the Olympics, it seems to me that if Boston is really going to bid, it should do so on Boston’s terms. We are, after all, the cradle of liberty in America. So it seems entirely sensible for Boston to refuse to go along with some of the International Olympic Committee’s more anti-freedom
requirementssuggestions. Rather than repeating something like Boston’s shameful “free speech zone” episode at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, where protesters were tucked into an iron cage under the highway, any Boston Olympics bid should insist that none of the speech-limiting garbage that was reported during, say, the London 2012 Olympics, will be tolerated here. Bostonians must be free to speak about, or against, the Olympics, just as they always have been on other topics. Of course, the IOC won’t like it, and it might cost Boston the games. But surely Marty Walsh isn’t going to sacrifice the free speech rights of his city’s people to a shadowy cabal like the IOC. Right, Marty?
Please share widely!
This WGBH poll seems like a big outlier.
national bad mood reaches MA.
They are, all of them.
beginning to fight. Once her ads get up things will probably change. I’m guessing she’s had some damage done by the PAC. Chuckles has been advertising too. And there’s been an enthusiasm gap among Democratic activists. That’s changing. Hopefully, Coakley will get the money needs to get her ads up.
Are there non-political junkies who are paying close attention to these races? I agree with Merrimack’s sentiment that the national mood is affecting things. I question whether it’s a negative tide or a disinterested electorate easily swayed by the winds of advertisting.
They aren’t particularly knowledgeable about MA issues. They’re just unhappy.
In related developments, Suffolk Downs is asking for reconsideration of the decision giving Wynn the license, and Charles Lightbody has entered a plea of not guilty.
after the East Boston defeat, so they have already had their chances. Enough already.
can win on corruption, but probably not with any other issues.
The next few weeks will decide if that is what the contest is about.
Did not think that was possible!
In New Jersey, casinos are prohibited from banning card counters by a state supreme court decision.
That doesn’t prevent the casino operators from engaging in conversations, speed dealing, decreasing penetration, imposing flat betting, or reshuffling as soon as Mr. Affleck increases his wager to ride the hot cards, of course. But they can’t kick him out.
The legislators and candidates who are backing casinos know full well that the gambling syndicates are ripping off the citizens and they are complacent with that so long as the government gets its cut of that con. Tell me again what Democrats stand for?
They are complicit, in a proactive sense.
He had the money behind him.
More likely than not Affleck lost a lot of money when he started out. He got pissed and his competitive juices took over making him play and play and play exercising his mind in the art of counting cards and learning all the idiosyncrasies of ‘the book”.
Unlike the 99.9% of gamblers who can never match the house or just quit before it gets out of hand If Affleck played black lack long enough, is smart, has a memory better than most, and last and most important, has the money to keep on playing.
It then became a matter of wager management. Getting on a streak and betting as high as possible.
Unfortunately we won’t have anyone playing the MA casinos like that.
I’d want a duck boat parade if I got banned from a casino for beating them at the table.